Tomlin, Wagner, and Fonda
Growing up in inner-city Detroit, Lily Tomlin found an escape from her working-class life at the movies. When she describes her impressionable teenage years, she often mentions the movie stars—exclusively female—that had the greatest effect on her. She says that she was “mad for them” or, my personal favorite, that she suffered “damage” (seeing Breakfast at Tiffany’s caused Tomlin to have “Audrey Hepburn damage,” for example).
I am now well beyond those impressionable, hormonal teenage years when I first experienced “damage” of my own, from influences on screen or close to home. But I decided this year, after a 10-year detour into the world of compulsory heterosexuality, to fully embrace my complicated sexuality which resulted in—to borrow a line from Tomlin’s partner of nearly 50 years, Jane Wagner—not so much of a breakdown, as a breakthrough.
So it’s not a mystery to me why, at the beginning of 2019, I felt as if I was flailing around in uncharted waters. I began desperately grasping at any lifesaver I could grab a hold of, and this year I was lucky enough to find three: Lily Tomlin, Jane Wagner, and Jane Fonda.
The main players and tools of the trade may have evolved over the years, but none of these three woman represents the first time I’ve been afflicted with so-called “damage.” Conventional time has no measurement for how long it takes me to go from casually clicking on someone’s Wikipedia entry—scrolling at lightning speed to the “personal life” section, as one does—to browsing for a lock of that celebrity’s hair on eBay (this “genuine celebrity artifact” is a real thing that exists, if anyone is looking for a belated Christmas gift for me). Obsessions happen to me like most things: very slowly and then suddenly, all at once.
Whenever real life becomes, for lack of a less obvious descriptor, too real, I find myself grasping for something or someone to guide me into a safe harbor. The root of an obsession may not be obvious until much later but these spiritual guideposts—TV shows, celebrities, real life teachers and friends—float in and out of my life as I need them. In some ways I’m almost a passive participant. It often seems as if I don’t have much choice in the matter; my obsessions choose me.
Tomlin—who finally made an honest woman out of Wagner in 2013—seems to reluctantly identify as a lesbian (and more enthusiastically, as a feminist). Through the years, she has simultaneously deflected questions about her personal life while at the same time emphasizing Wagner’s crucial role in her success. Their relationship was never a secret, she insists, but she never felt the need to call a press conference about it.
It’s widely reported that Tomlin “officially” came out in the early 2000’s, although I recently discovered this article published in the Chicago Tribune in 1994. Cheryl Lanvin’s very explicit and compassionate profile describes two women who very obviously love each other deeply. Lanvin first profiled Tomlin and Wagner even earlier, in 1986, and while she writes about the couple’s “professional and personal relationship,” the article’s eye-roll-inducing headline “Best Friends” is missing the world’s largest set of air quotes.
In a twist of divine programming fate, the Film Society of Lincoln Center honored Tomlin and Wagner in September with a series that included screenings and a talk with the couple, one half of which is notoriously press-shy (notably missing: Wagner’s directorial debut and notorious Tomlin/Travolta bomb, Moment By Moment, which I unironically love). If there is a heaven, I thought at the time, it must look an awful lot like the theater’s lobby, which featured an eight-hour continuous loop of highlights from the Tomlin/Wagner archive.
It’s hard for me to pinpoint when my “damage” began to shift from Tomlin to Fonda, but I do remember the first time I saw Jane Fonda in Five Acts, Susan Lacey’s deep dive into Fonda’s remarkable life (so far). It was April and I had just arrived in Cincinnati for a business trip. I was tired from traveling but started the documentary on a whim. Two hours later, I was wide awake, fascinated by Fonda’s various transformations and insistence that “anyone can change and become fierce.”
When Fonda moved to Washington, D.C. and started Fire Drill Fridays in October, I really started paying attention. Of all the roles she’s played over the last 50+ years, Jane Fonda the Activist interests me the most. She’d famously (and yes, controversially) visited Vietnam in the ‘70s, challenged the Archbishop of Canterbury on The Dick Cavett Show, and continuously fought back against a calculated effort to silence her (by Nixon nonetheless). She had spoken out against the Iraq War, canvassed in middle America for One Fair Wage, and provided Thanksgiving dinner to water protectors at Standing Rock. I finally had a chance to witness her fighting for a worthy cause in real time, and the first few Fridays I pored over Twitter and Facebook livestreams, watching Fonda (resplendent in red) and a rotating cast of characters—Ted Danson, Sam Waterston, Diane Lane, Sally Field—as they got arrested for civil disobedience in an effort to draw attention to the increasingly dire climate crisis.
I subsequently devoured everything I could about Fonda’s life. I had exhausted Tomlin’s archive in a few months, but Fonda was born famous and she has been unusually prolific: there is a seemingly endless supply of materials to mine, including books, movies, TV shows, interviews, and of course, dozens of workout tapes. I was deep into my Fonda damage when I began to consider dressing up as “Jane Fonda getting arrested” for Halloween—but never one to do anything casually, I decided to actually go to D.C. and get arrested myself (or at the very least, see Fonda doing what she does best, in person). That’s how, on November 1st, I found myself in police custody with Fonda—along with Catherine Keener, Rosanna Arquette, and Fonda’s two daughters, Vanessa Vadim and Mary Luana Williams—for five, transformative hours.
Getting arrested was a culmination of the changes that had been brewing inside of me all year (and, in some ways, my entire life). My journey is still too fresh for me to have any real perspective, but it seems to me that once I finally began to dismantle certain constraints—my need to please, self-destructive behaviors, deep-rooted shame for my sexuality, and the ever-pervasive feeling that I didn’t “fit in”—the floodgates opened. Without intending to, I broke myself apart and I’ve just begin to reassemble the pieces into something new. I flung myself off of the moving walkway of life—the one that says we must keep going forward no matter the cost, accumulating more and more wealth, titles, people, things, etc.—and began to pay attention to my surroundings in ways that I never have. It hasn’t been easy and I have no illusions that the process will ever be “complete,” but for the first time in my life, that’s ok. Maybe it’s the “seven year itch” or maybe it’s the new decade, but I feel more open, flexible and empathetic than I ever have—like a raw, exposed nerve—better in tune with myself and the whole of humanity. I am, and commit to always be, a work in (sometimes painful) progress.
A famous quote often attributed to Tomlin (but most likely written by Wagner) says that “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.” I’ve shared this revelation with numerous people this year and I’ve realized that I’m far from alone in feeling this way. Fonda has been remarkably candid about her own struggles through the years, but she says it wasn’t until she was in her 60s that she realized the goal wasn’t to be perfect, but to be whole.
In November, I emerged from detention a changed person and on December 27, I got to tell Fonda just how much she has inspired me this year. Despite my penchant for obsessions, I have been famously shy in the past, reluctant to have a traditional shallow celebrity-fan interaction. But when I approached Fonda at the morning Fire Drill Friday briefing, it felt different. I didn’t ask her for anything—she has already given me so much—and simply wanted to tell her “thank you.” I did just that and she was unbelievably receptive. She enveloped me in a huge hug and we chatted about transformation and activism. She recommended that I read Naomi Klein’s book On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, which I had devoured the week before. During our conversation two people tried to get her attention, but both times she turned back to me; she asked me how old I was and when I replied “34,” she scoffed and said, “Well you look 18!”
In another twist of fate, Fonda’s celebrity guest star that day was Lily Tomlin. I didn’t speak with her in the morning, but around noon I found myself protesting on the Capitol steps right behind her. It would be her first-ever arrest and as she was handcuffed I put my hand on her shoulder and said, “You got this.” I was arrested soon after and placed into a police transport van with Tomlin and three other women. The woman next to me said that watching Grace and Frankie had brought her mother joy in the last year of her life. “What would she think if she knew you were in police custody right now with Lily Tomlin?” I asked. “She’d be so proud of me,” she said, smiling.
While in custody, I was seated directly behind Tomlin. Just a few months before, I had been scouring the internet for Tomlin/Wagner deep cuts—and now here I was, just mere inches from half of the iconic duo. She made a few jokes (after processing, she said that instead of the $50 post-and-forfeit they asked her to do a 10-minute monologue) and I made her laugh, but I mostly just sat in awe, silently marveling at the unpredictable magic of the universe. Whether you choose to believe it or not, my horoscope did say that December 27th was considered by some to be “the luckiest day of the year,” and for me that turned out to be true. My mom has always told me I’m lucky and maybe she’s right—but I also think much of what is attributed to luck is actually the result of accidental privilege or choosing to live a life of intention. This was the year I realized I could simply stop asking (or waiting) for permission to do anything. No one is going to live your life for you. Fonda frequently recounts the deceptively simple life advice she received from Katherine Hepburn: If you don’t stand up to your fears and continue to challenge yourself, “you become soggy.”
After we were released (I had learned enough from my first arrest to have the required bail money this time), Fonda was waiting for us with open arms. “I’m so proud of you!” she said as she squeezed me tightly. “You know, I’ve been thinking all day about what you said this morning. It just meant so much to me.” We chatted some more about life, activism, and my desire to really see, and understand, more of America. She urged me to visit Native American reservations and she led me to the snack table. This time, I asked for a selfie and we both looked to the sky, positioning ourselves in the most flattering light.
Fonda told Tomlin that I was a writer, and I told Tomlin that I had read The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe earlier in the year and it changed my life. She perked up as I explained how much Wagner’s words had touched me and she said “Oh, tell Jane!” I think it’s safe to say I basically blacked out as Tomlin dialed Wagner and handed me her iPhone. After (an understandably-confused) Wagner picked up, I rallied long enough to tell her “I just got arrested with your wife and I just wanted to say that I read The Search many times and it changed my life.” Despite my babbling, Wagner was incredibly gracious, lovely, and unsurprisingly eloquent.
Whoever said “don’t meet your heroes” obviously had the wrong heroes. In the course of one day, I got to tell the three people who have undeniably shaped my year (and life going forward) just how much they meant to me. Tomlin, Wagner, and Fonda have helped me through a difficult year, each in their own ways, and being able to tell them—and really feel as if they heard me—is the greatest gift I’ve been given this year. People come in and out of our lives as we need them, and it’s up to us to do the rest. Maybe “damage” is the wrong word because it implies destruction—or maybe it’s perfect because often we need to deconstruct our former selves in order to build something new, to become someone better. Fonda has said that people, like countries, should be “in perpetual revolution,” and no one should be expected to fight in isolation.
As Susan Minot writes in Evening, “She thought of how much people changed you. It was the opposite of what you always heard, that no one could change a person. It wasn't true. It was only through other people that one ever did change.”
