Decoder Ring | Jane Fonda’s Workout, Part 2: Hanoi Jane’s VHS Revolution (Encore)

Slow Burn

Slate Audio

Politics, Society & Culture, History, News, Documentary

4.6 • 25.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In part two of our special two-part episode, we return to the 1982 VHS tape that created the at-home video industry: Jane Fonda’s Workout. On this episode, originally released in 2020, we deconstruct the tape itself, how it was made, and why anyone thought it was a good idea in the first place. Then we’ll explore how it was possible for an extremely polarizing political activist, despised by some for her activism during the Vietnam War, to become America’s premier exercise guru. It’s a story that involves one enterprising home video visionary, dozens of ridiculous celebrity workout tapes, Tricky Dick Nixon, and one very full life. Some of the voices you’ll hear on this episode include Jane Fonda; Court Shannon, former Karl Video employee; and Mary Hershberger, author of Jane Fonda’s War. This episode was written by Willa Paskin. It was edited and produced by Benjamin Frisch. We had research assistance from Cleo Levin. Decoder Ring is produced by Katie Shepherd, Max Freedman, and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on the Decoder Ring hotline at 347-460-7281. We love to hear any and all of your ideas for the show. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Willa.
0:01.6	Back in 2020, we aired a two-part episode all about Jane Fonda.
0:06.4	Last time, we played you the first part, all about the complicated relationship that birthed the Jane Fonda workout tape.
0:13.8	Today, we're going to play you the second, which tries to make sense of how the exercise tape fits in with Jane Fonda's career and activism more largely.
0:23.2	Hope you enjoy.
0:27.8	Five, six, seven, eight, and pull down. One, two, three, three. So there's something about the Jane Fonda workout that's never quite made sense to me.
0:40.7	I know I'm inclined to see mysteries everywhere, but I saw one here between the leg warmers and the leotards.
0:48.2	Six, seven, eight, and pull down right.
0:51.3	Stretch it out.
0:52.4	Here's me trying to explain myself during an interview.
0:55.5	It is like mysterious to me thinking about all the facets of Jane Fonda and being like
1:01.2	this woman at the height of her acting career truly and fairly controversial political
1:07.8	activist got into everyone's homes and like this mastermind aerobics
1:14.4	instructor. It's such a weird thing. She wanted to do that and then she did it. Like what?
1:21.3	Straight. Great. Reach your butt out behind you. Feel the stretch. and flex, two, three, four, reach, six.
1:32.4	In the moment right before the workout became a phenomenon, Jane Fonda had a lot going on.
1:37.7	First, there was actress Jane.
1:39.4	And if I want to have an affair or play sex games or do M&Ms, you can't stop me.
1:46.2	Eminem's?
1:47.5	As a matter of fact, I smoke pot.
1:49.8	That's her a 9 to 5, which came out in 1980, one in a string of critical and commercial hits
1:54.8	that were produced by Fonda's own production company.
	...

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