Jane Fonda tells Hollywood: 'Woke just means you give a damn about other people'

Hollywood actress Jane Fonda on Sunday while accepting her life achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild said "woke" is giving a "damn about other people.

"What we, actors, create is empathy. Our job is to understand another human being so profoundly that we can touch their souls," Fonda said. "And make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke. By the way, 'woke' just means 'you give a damn about other people.'"

During her speech, Fonda also indirectly criticized President Donald Trump and praised unions, as reported by Variety.

"I’m a big believer in unions. They have our backs," she said. "They bring us into a community, and they give us power. Community means power, and this is really important right now when workers’ power has been attacked and the community is being weakened."

In 1972, Fonda went on to tour North Vietnam in a controversial trip that would come to be the most notable part of her activist career, and led to her being given the nickname “Hanoi Jane.” 

While in Vietnam, Fonda appeared on 10 radio programs to speak out against the U.S. military’s policy in Vietnam and beg pilots to cease bombing non-military targets, according to Time magazine. 

During the trip a photograph was taken of her seated on an anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi, making it look like she would shoot down American planes, which apparently led to the nickname. 

At the time, Fonda’s public criticisms of U.S. leadership caused massive outrage among American officials and war veterans

"Hanoi Jane Fonda got a lifetime achievement award because Hollywood still hates America," Scarlett Johson, a political strategist who works for the Wisconsin chapter of Moms for Liberty, wrote in an X post. 

Fonda during her speech Sunday said she got her start in film during the Hollywood Blacklist era during the mid-20th century when people suspected of being a communist were banned from working in the United States entertainment industry, which essentially coincided with the large McCarthyism era, in which the fear of communism and Soviet influence was a concern among most every American institution.

"I made my first movie in 1958. It was at the tail end of McCarthyism when so many careers were destroyed," she said. "Today, it’s helpful to remember, though, that Hollywood resisted."