Glenn Reynolds notes, “In the New York Times: Global warming is Jane Fonda’s fault. Well, yeah“, as the Times identifies The Fonda Effect:
“The China Syndrome” opened on March 16, 1979. With the no-nukes protest movement in full swing, the movie was attacked by the nuclear industry as an irresponsible act of leftist fear-mongering. Twelve days later, an accident occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in south-central Pennsylvania.Michael Douglas, a producer and co-star of the film — he played Fonda’s cameraman — watched the T.M.I. accident play out on the real TV news, which interspersed live shots from Pennsylvania with eerily similar scenes from “The China Syndrome.” While Fonda was firmly anti-nuke before making the film, Douglas wasn’t so dogmatic. Now he was converted on the spot. “It was a religious awakening,” he recalled in a recent phone interview. “I felt it was God’s hand.”
Fonda, meanwhile, became a full-fledged crusader. In a retrospective interview on the DVD edition of “The China Syndrome,” she notes with satisfaction that the film helped persuade at least two other men — the father of her then-husband, Tom Hayden, and her future husband, Ted Turner — to turn anti-nuke.
Proving that Pete Townshend was more right than he could have possibly known in 1980:
I’m for nuclear power, but I haven’t told anyone because I am still hoping to f*** Jane Fonda, like everybody dreams of doing who’s involved in the No Nuke movement.
Me? Like the cast of The Pepsi Syndrome, I’ll stick with Barbarella.
Update: Welcome readers of the Professor, who in linking to our post, adds that “Pete Townshend’s perspicacity…may explain why the anti-nuclear movement isn’t doing as well as it was in the 1970s.” But the anti-energy movement as a whole isn’t suffering all that much, as Noel Sheppard notes, bringing things full circle with the present day.
Related: The dreaded Pepsi Syndrome seems to be attacking Blue Crab Boulevard’s nuclear reactor, even as we speak.
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