White Radicalism and the Star Image

Fonda's radical political views greatly impacted her career in a negative way. In the earlier years of her career, Fonda was seen as a sex symbol and was loved by a large audience. As her focus began to change towards her radical views, her star image changed for some of her audience. Fonda became less desirable because she was not the same Fonda that her fans loved and adored. Thus, people began to turn against Fonda becasue she was engaging in something that had nothing to do with her job as an actress. Though her political views had nothing to do with her job as an actress, it is possible that the two areas did in fact overlap because she did not win an Oscar the year that she had great political involvement. The most important point that Dyer makes addresses the sad reality of the attempts of stars like Fonda and Brando to bring certain racial issues to the attention of their audience. Dyer states that "what the star does can only be posed in terms of the star doing it, the extraordinariness or difficulty of her/his doing it, rather than in terms of the ostensible political issue involved" (Dyer 78). This quote addresses the idea of "white radicalism" where the audience was more concerned with what a white woman like Jane Fonda was doing trying to help those less priviledged than her, rather than focusing on the cause she was supporting (78). The audience was not really concerned with the political issue that the star was addressing, but rather why they are choosing to distract from their star image by taking such a radical position. This idea can also be applied to many political issues that Brando was involved in like the treatment of Native Americans in film. The audiences main concern and their disapproval came from the fact that the great actor Marlon Brando was involved with these particular political issue, but they did not necessarily pay attention to what the issue was that Brando was supporting.