Jane Fonda made her first-ever appearance on The Daily Show Monday night, armed with a warning—and a recent late-night example to back it up.
Appearing opposite Jon Stewart to promote Rise Up, Sing Out: A Concert for the First Amendment, Fonda praised the public uproar that followed Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension at ABC, pointing to it as evidence that audiences can still make corporations think twice when comedians come under political pressure.
The actor and activist’s larger message: in authoritarian movements, comedians are often among the first targets.
“We are the creators—the entertainment industry, writ large, we create the dreams, we write the stories,” Fonda told Stewart. “We can show people, we can make them feel across differences, and we can show them how it could be. There is an alternative. This is not inevitable, what we are going through right now.”
Then she turned the argument directly toward Stewart.
“You know, you have been attacked, comics first, because tyranny and comics don’t go together,” Fonda said. “You are the ones that point out there is no clothes. So comics go first, you know.”
Stewart jokingly reacted as if he had just been handed a very unsettling scheduling update.
“Wait, what?” he said. “Wait, how did I get involved in this? I am out first? Son of a bitch.”
Fonda then brought up Kimmel, whose ABC suspension sparked criticism of Disney and calls for viewers to cancel Disney-linked services.
“What was so great was that when Jimmy Kimmel, when they said that Jimmy Kimmel was going to be taken off the air and millions of Americans canceled their Disney subscriptions or threatened to cancel,” Fonda said, drawing applause. “This is—it is called noncooperation, and that is what we have to do.”
The interview came as Fonda is helping lead a revived Committee for the First Amendment, the group behind the June 14 concert at New York’s Town Hall. Fonda said the committee is meant to organize the entertainment industry “to not cooperate with what is happening,” arguing that “our democracy is being destroyed” and “our rights are being taken away.”
Stewart seemed to agree with Fonda’s read on how public pressure can work when corporations are trying to avoid conflict.
“I think what the government understands is, corporations don’t want friction,” Stewart said. “They basically, they don’t have any moral stand to take on it. They just don’t want the friction. So if people can create friction to the corporation, then they will listen to them.”
Watch Stewart’s full interview with Fonda below:
