Jane Fonda delivered an electrifying speech Sunday at the 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards that appeared squarely aimed at President Donald Trump, who earlier this month criticized the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for holding “woke” events.
Fonda, a lifelong actor, activist and 1960s counterculture icon, took to the Shrine Auditorium stage to receive a Life Achievement Award. She praised her fellow actors for creating empathy through their craft.
“While you may hate the behavior of your character, you have to understand and empathize with the traumatized person you’re playing, right?” Fonda said onstage. “I’m thinking Sebastian Stan in ‘The Apprentice.’ Make no mistake, empathy is not weak or ‘woke.’”
She continued, “And by the way, ‘woke’ just means you give a damn about other people.”
Fonda didn’t identify Trump by name, but did mention Stan’s nominated performance in the 2024 drama about Trump’s unscrupulous rise as a real estate magnate — which the Trump campaign tried to keep from release before last year’s presidential election.
Fonda’s clear-cut definition prompted raucous applause from the star-studded audience. Trump and his allies have often criticized Democrats, progressives and others opposed to his politics as “woke,” which is defined as “alert to injustice in society, especially racism” in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Earlier this month, Trump announced he was taking over the Kennedy Center as chairman, claiming the iconic arts venue was being ruined by “woke” performances.
“We don’t need woke at the Kennedy Center,” he told reporters at the time.
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Fonda has never shied away from speaking truth to power. She famously protested the Vietnam War, was placed on the “enemies list” of former President Richard Nixon and in 2019 was arrested five times while protesting against climate change inaction in Washington, D.C.
“We must not isolate,” Fonda said Sunday onstage. “We must stay in community. We must help the vulnerable. We must find ways to project an inspiring vision of the future — one that is beckoning, welcoming that will help people believe that ... there will still be love.’”
“Let’s make it so,” she concluded to applause.