NBC Apologizes For Jane Fonda Saying "C**t" On "Today"

UPDATE 4:40 PM EASTERN: "Vagina Monologues" playwright Eve Ensler spoke to "Access Hollywood" and expressed her disappointment that NBC censored Fonda saying "cunt" during the west coast broadcast of this morning's show.

"Let me just say something about that word," she said. "The whole point of the play is to reclaim that word, and to make that word beautiful, and to make that word powerful, and not denigrating, and not ugly."

ORIGINAL POST: NEW YORK — NBC News is apologizing again _ this time for Jane Fonda. The 70-year-old actress used a vulgar slang term on the "Today" show Thursday while talking about the play "The Vagina Monologues." Fonda is appearing in a 10th-anniversary performance and was on "Today" with author Eve Ensler.

Fonda told co-host Meredith Vieira that she was asked to perform a monologue with a slang term for vagina as the title — and Fonda used the term itself on the air in explaining why she said "no."

"I said, `I don't think so, I've got enough problems,'" Fonda said.

About 10 minutes later, Vieira told viewers that Fonda had used a word from the play that normally isn't used on television.

"It was a slip and obviously she apologizes and so do we," Vieira said. "We would do nothing to offend the audience, so please accept that apology."

"Today" moved quickly to silence the word and cover up Fonda's face with a still photo when the show was aired in the Midwest, Mountain and West Coast feeds.

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It's been a month's worth of apologies for NBC News, owned by General Electric Co. MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews said he was sorry for suggesting that the reason Hillary Clinton was a presidential candidate was because of her husband's infidelities. MSNBC correspondent David Shuster was suspended for two weeks for saying the Clintons had "pimped out" daughter Chelsea for presidential campaigning.

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Watch the clip:

Watch Meredith's apology:

Comments

[CaveatMagnusFrater]

I swear, there ought to be yellow brick roads all over this country. Oops, if one were to read this aloud, they'd say cunt. As one poster pointed out. Something is wrong in a society where using a word that indicates a part of anatomy is profane but killing is on the television regularly.

I used to hear a phrase when I was young about making love instead of war. I thought that was a good idea.

[msfiskvletterman]

2/15/08
10:49pm
Alexandria, VA

I remember that phrase, "Make Love, Not War." It was a good idea then and it is now.

Also want to say that I agree with you that there is something wrong with a society in which a 4-letter word is considered offensive but a CBS TV show about a mass murderer (DEXTER) is acceptable!!

[tumblewind]

I will have to agree with the guy saying that dirty words are offensive but find some sleaze queen like Ann Coulter to be acceptable?????? Give me a break! That has to be the filthiest mouthed woman on the air. We as a nation have become bottom feeders since the talking heads took over. I think our society has become all screwed up by the Republican Noise machine!

[Economike]

You don't have to watch them

[gonavy]

Most republican cannot stand Coulter. She goes for the shock factor just to sell books. She has no loyalty to the republican party, only to her book sales or speaking fees.

[Plowboy]

What's dirty about cunt? Are you perhaps some kind of woman hater?

[kappa08]

Discussing political correctness with me "gay" friend. Apparently "fag" is a bad word these days too.
Apparently the ONLY group that can't lean on an offensive word or get any kind of apology are straight white men. Everybody else has a back door to civil rights. And those of you think we get all the breaks hasn't applied for a corporate job against a black female professional. Good luck...

[zoner]

oh, boo hoo for you. poor, poor white men. so oppressed.

how you use words matter. if jane had called someone by that term as a slur that would have been bad. to use it in a rational conversation, you know--in context, is or should be acceptable. americans really need to grow up or get some better education.

call a gay man a fag while you're whining about him getting a job you didn't is not only bigoted, but pathetic.

think.

[gonavy]

Have to agree. It was quite startling to me when my husband was looking for college scholarships. White men need not bother to even look. The only scholarship available is the GI Bill. Reverse discrimination is all the rage today.

[Boobaloo]

A real class act that Jane Fonda.

(*sarcasm ON)

[HLMerkin]

Sarcasm - "the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded."

[elr50]

A classier act than ANY republican­...especia­lly the bush family.

[vippy]

Hey, Jane Fonda, you still look very nice!!!
She was the American Version of Brigitte Bardot.
She sure looks classy.

[marko77]

Please....­The Today Show is hyping "The Vagina Cronicles?" Nothing like a little class and good taste. Given that, why get upset with what Jane Fonda said?

"The Vagina Chronicles" - how about putting Allotavagina from the Austin Powers movie on the show?

[grisgris]

That's "the Vagina Monologues".

[marko77]

That's "the Vagina Monologues". by grisgris

Thank you, GrisGris. I must have gotten it mixed up with Ray Bradbury's Sci-Fi classic, "The Vagina Chronicles­." He can be on the Today Show as well as Allotta.

[jubo]

Come to think of it a chronicle would be more interestin­g...

I saw the 'monologues' and it was more fad than wit.

Hmmm. The Cunt Chronicles­... we're onto something here...

[lesolini]

Excuse me, but cunt is not a vulgar slang word but a real Anglo-Saxon word that almost certainly precedes the word vagina. Jane was using it within context and so no apology is needed. Just because our puritanical society uses it as a vulgar word as it does other real words that are related to sex is no reason to remove it from the language.

[Economike]

When a man uses it to describe a woman it's comes across as disrepectful to me. Not as much as twat but..

[gonavy]

You know a hundred years ago the n-word was also accepted in polite society.

The c-word is one of the most disrespectful words in our language.

Is it OK if a black man uses the N-word, and OK if a woman uses the C-word. How do we explain these new language rules to our children. What do I say to my son when he calls his sister a C@@t.

But I heard it on the Today show mommy....

[HypocrisyAlarm]

Hello, Puritan America, land of the world's largest sex industry, land that lost its collective mind over an instant of almost bare breast. I find this episode, among others, ridiculous. Jane, like most celebrities, has a sort of standard interview. I heard the same one on her book promotion tour. Surprisingly, she used that word, and no one took more notice of it than they did of the word "and". Of course, the interview did not take place in the US. It is precisely these silly, knee-jerk reactions that give these words such power. Societies that are more open about sex (including frank, early sex education) seem to have far fewer sexual criminals. America should take notice.

[kappa08]

This is why Europe and nations that have 3000 years of rank on us look at us like immature children.
This why our repressed society has more cases of pedophilia and rape than any other industrialized nation. Because we can't "witness" words or human flesh.
Grow up America! Get laid and don't feel guilty about it!

[Economike]

I thought it was the Catholic church.

[jaycasey]

I don't want it on broadcast TV. Just keep it out of my face.

[grisgris]

Change the channel. Nothing is as vulgar as "FauxNews".

[anons]

First, we have got to be one of the most repressed, hypocrtical nations on earth. THis is beyond a non issue. We're more cautious with abusive words than we are abusive images- the latter being much more impressive and prevelant in media. Second, this is kinda like the "ni**er" issue, just the female version..

[Blurp]

This is such a stupid country. Filled with people with braces on their brains.

[TakLoufer]

Some wack job wastes a bunch of kids attending a college lecture in Illinois and Focus on the Family thinks Jane Fonda saying 'cunt' is nasty. Happy Valentines Day, values voters!

[Economike]

Yeah it's how they get the public to vote against their own interests.

[Timpanist1]

So I heard that Michellita Malkin referred to Fonda as "classless­." WOAH BABY -- now THERE's the pot calling the kettle black!!!

[simplysimon2]

Go Jane. Right on. Call a c... a c... Rather that than the lies that come out of W's piehole, the brazen liar as a role model for us all. Jane has my vote for prez over the other 2 democrats. Of course, I'm so low class that I'd want Kucinich on the ticket with her. Beautiful Dreamer.

[Boris]

Love you, Jane...scr­ew them network pussies.

[plages]

What a kuntry! The only reason there was an apology, was because the idiots ruining this nation will bitch slap NBC with a fine, nothing more!