FOR AN ALMOST DISTURBINGLY COMPLETE FAN SITE DEVOTED TO THE JANE FONDA WORKOUT PHENOMENON, SEE WWW.JANE-FONDA.NET.
While Jane Fonda has been attacked as both Hanoi Jane and “that woman who said the C-word on The Today Show,” between those hot-button controversies the actress, sometime activist and avowed Christian was most notorious in certain circles for her aerobics empire, which churned out 23 VHS workout tapes from the early ’80s through the mid-’90s. Her spectacular bikini scene in 1981’s otherwise sexless On Golden Pond (thank you Turner Classic Movies) inspired me to spend $1.95 at Goodwill on Jane Fonda’s Workout Record (also from 1981, when she was already in her early forties). While the idea of working out to vinyl was a scream, the reality of following inscrutable verbal instructions to REO Speedwagon left me achingly sore — less in an “I had a really good workout” kind of way and more in an “I think I hurt my neck” kind of way. Still, she looks wicked hot on the cover in her stripy leotard and black tights and her manic determination is captured in a brief, zealous note of advice on the back in a succinct, mantra-worthy phrase. “Remember,” she writes, “discipline is liberation!”