{"id":188657,"date":"2025-10-04T02:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T02:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/188657\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T02:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T02:58:10","slug":"the-stakes-are-too-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/188657\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The stakes are too high\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eight decades after Hollywood legends like Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland launched the Committee for the First Amendment to stand up to McCarthyism<\/a>, Jane Fonda<\/a> is bringing back the organization at a time she calls \u201cthe most frightening moment of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The younger Fonda issued a plea to her Hollywood community in a letter shared with CNN, asking her peers to join the relaunched committee, writing, \u201cI\u2019m 87 years old. I\u2019ve seen war, repression, protest, and backlash. I\u2019ve been celebrated, and I\u2019ve been branded an enemy of the state. But I can tell you this: this is the most frightening moment of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I feel scared, I look to history,\u201d Fonda wrote. \u201cI wish there were a secret playbook with all the answers \u2013 but there never has been.\u201d She went on to underscore the value of solidarity and \u201cbinding together, finding bravery in numbers too big to ignore, and standing up for one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I believe the time is now to relaunch the Committee for the First Amendment \u2013 the same Committee my father, Henry Fonda, joined with other artists during the McCarthy era, when so many were silenced or even imprisoned simply for their words and their craft.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 550 Hollywood figures have joined Fonda\u2019s fight, adding their names as supporters of her newly relaunched committee, with signatories include including Aaron Sorkin, Barbra Streisand, Glenn Close, Gracie Abrams, JJ Abrams, John Legend, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julianne Moore, Kerry Washington, Larry David, Lily Tomlin, Natalie Portman, Nikki Glaser, Patti LuPone, Pedro Pascal, Quinta Brunson, Rob Reiner, Rosie O\u2019Donnell, Sean Penn, Spike Lee, Viola Davis, Wanda Sykes, Winona Ryder, Whoopi Goldberg and more.<\/p>\n

The Committee for the First Amendment was first created in 1947 during the McCarthy Era in an effort to defend free speech and oppose government activity. At the time, the committee was met with backlash for its suspected ties to the Communist Party, which many of its famous Hollywood members balked at.<\/p>\n

Fonda\u2019s relaunch of the committee comes after Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air<\/a> earlier this month following public pressure from President Donald Trump\u2019s chair of the FCC, Brendan Carr, in response to comments Kimmel made in a monologue about Charlie Kirk\u2019s alleged murderer. Kimmel\u2019s show has since returned to the airwaves, but the situation triggered a multi-day news cycle about free speech and corporate capitulation to political pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stakes are too high, and silence is too costly,\u201d Fonda wrote in her letter this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re betting on our fear and our silence,\u201d she added. \u201cBut our industry \u2013 and artists around the world \u2013 have a long history of refusing to be silenced, even in the darkest times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fonda did not specify any government leaders by name in her letter, but a spokesperson for the Committee for the First Amendment told CNN that Fonda was inspired to reconvene the committee in response to \u201cthe onslaught of attacks on free speech from the current administration\u201d and hopes to put on a \u201cunited front against government censorship, intimidation, and fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFree speech and free expression are the inalienable rights of every American of all backgrounds and political beliefs \u2013 no matter how liberal or conservative you may be,\u201d the committee said in their statement. \u201cThe ability to criticize, question, protest, and even mock those in power is foundational to what America has always aspired to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eight decades after Hollywood legends like Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland launched…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,5328,361,75,6678,94464,33547,94463,9713,93086,79304,94467,94465,94466],"class_list":["post-188657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-first-amendment","tag-frank-sinatra","tag-gracie-abrams","tag-henry-fonda","tag-hollywood","tag-humphrey-bogart","tag-jane-fonda","tag-judy-garland","tag-lucille-ball","tag-the-committee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}