Jane Fonda's Workout, Part 1: Jane and Leni
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2020
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Jane Fonda granted us an interview to talk about her famous workout tape, things didn't go as planned.
On part one of a special two-part Decoder Ring, we explore the decades-long friendship of Jane Fonda and Leni Cazden, the relationship that birthed the workout that changed the world. It's a story of creation, regret, fame, forgiveness, trauma, survival, politics, and exercise. In two weeks, we return with part two: the story of the bestselling VHS tape of all time.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I can see that you're here, but you're muted. |
| 0:07.7 | Hi, Willa. |
| 0:09.0 | Hi. There you are. Hello. |
| 0:11.4 | Hi. |
| 0:12.3 | A few weeks ago, I had a Zoom call that I was really excited about. |
| 0:16.4 | I'm Jane Fonda, and I'm talking to you from Los Angeles. |
| 0:19.8 | And I'm an actor and an activist. |
| 0:22.5 | There are so many things that one could want to speak with Jane Fonda about. But I just wanted to talk with her about one thing in particular, the Jane Fonda workout. |
| 0:33.8 | Are you ready to do the workout? |
| 0:35.9 | Yes. This is the beginner's workout. |
| 0:39.6 | Stand with your feet a little more than hip distance apart. |
| 0:42.4 | Stomach tight, buttoe, pulled in, pull out of your torso, and head right to and back to... |
| 0:49.8 | In 1982, the Jane Fonda workout became the best-selling home video of all time. |
| 0:55.1 | Over the next decade plus, it and its 22 follow-ups would spawn a fitness empire, |
| 1:00.0 | sell over 17 million copies, and transform Fonda into a leg-warmer-clad exercise guru. |
| 1:06.4 | Yes, one, make it burn, three, four, five, six, seven. And 40 years after its initial release, |
| 1:15.4 | the workout tape is having a moment. Like Amazon and Yeast, it has been a beneficiary of the pandemic. |
| 1:21.8 | People are doing it alone and on Zoom. They're tweeting about it, writing about it. Jane Fonda, |
| 1:27.0 | TikTok, about it. TikTok. My name is Jane Fonda tic-tucked about it. |
| 1:28.2 | TikTok. My name is Jane Fonda, and I'm going to bring back the Jane Fonda workout. |
| 1:33.6 | The workout is in the air, and I figured that's why she agreed to speak with me about it. |
| 1:37.9 | She had one condition, though. She would only do the interview if she could do it with a woman |
... |
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