Jane Fonda defended “woke” while accepting an award Sunday from the Screen Actors Guild Awards, a speech largely aimed at President Trump and the current American moment.
Fonda, 87, accepted a Life Achievement Award and detailed her acting career, which she said began when women were forced to subdue their anger.
She praised the fellow actors in the crowd for their ability to create empathy through complex characters.
“While you may hate the behavior of your character, you have to understand and emphasize with the traumatized person you’re playing, right? I’m thinking Sebastian Stan in ‘The Apprentice,’” Fonda said. “Make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke.”
“And by the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people,” she added.
While the actress didn’t explicitly call out Trump, she highlighted Stan’s performance in “The Apprentice,” in which he depicted Trump’s rise to fame.
Fonda’s remarks earned applause from the crowd.
Her statements follow Trump’s in regard to the Kennedy Center.
In an unusual and unprecedented move, the president named himself the chair of the performing arts center and told reporters that he took over the center because he didn’t like what they were showing, saying it’s “not going to be woke” because there is “no more woke in this country.”
Fonda referenced Trump’s recent policies, and she called on her fellow actors to protect vulnerable Americans and build one another up.
“A whole lot of people are going to be really hurt by what is happening, what is coming our way. And even if they’re of a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge, but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent because we are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what’s coming at us,” Fonda said.
