The VHS/DVD availability debacle: Case Study#1
Jane Fonda’s Original Workout: 1982 – Beginner and Advanced Level: 60mins each section. Well loved/needed/gone…….but not forgotten.
This may seem an odd choice for a site devoted to cult movies, but not if you look on Fonda’s blog: women the world over are literally screaming for this gem to be available on DVD. It is however a cult favourite. Loved and needed in a world consumed with ideas and notions about the causes of and solutions to obesity.
Why is it cult? Because it revolutionised home exercise at the cusp of VHS PAL production and accessibility. A moot point is that the exercises actually work.
Jane Fonda has had many incarnations – usually attached to the men who where important in shaping her and her talent. Henry Fonda – her father, husbands Roger Vadim and Ted Turner, however, this is something that is hers and hers alone. Besides, this video stands as a best seller outstripping the sales of any movie – by a considerable margin.
Her career as actress helped: many minor celebrities have since cashed in on the idea that a famous person can help any of us get into shape, but none have done this with the professionalism, and vigour of Jane. Besides, Jane was and still is a Hollywood A-lister and a gifted and fine actress. Klute, They Shoot Horses Don’t They?, The China Syndrome, The California Suite – all wonderful. She is not a B celebrity who decided to bring out a regime to the world after successfully losing weight. She made 15 exercise tapes of varying intensity levels and styles from 1982 – 1995. It was a career – a gift. It allowed all of us to feel that Hollywood glamour and the body to go with it could and should be ours. If only we put in the time and required effort.
At the time she was greatly criticised for her protracted use of jogging on the spot – ‘go for the burn’ was a catch phrase strongly associated with her method. All she was doing was promoting the idea that losing weight and getting fit is hard work and that the feeling of burning in the muscles is lactic acid – the substance that the body produces when the muscles are being worked to an anaerobic level. Fat burning level. Long before the cult of the personal trainer of the 1990’s became a lifestyle accessory of the wealthy, Jane Fonda helped hundreds and thousands of folk get fit with the investment of a few £/$ and some allocated down time.
The original is still the best. It works as a reminder of eighties cheese. All the members of her classes that stand behind her are evidently dancers. But who wouldn’t want a dancer’s body? There are the leg warmers, leotards, all the accoutrements of an episode of ‘The Kids from Fame’, but with the sense of me – to – you attainment attached. Putting herself in our living rooms and instructing us directly in what to do with our bodies was a good and noble thing which brought results.
There was a shift in emphasis to the gym as the place to go to get fit. Here all the exercises are floor work. No need for standing order direct debit commitment that will never be used and serves an institution to make money long after initial enthusiasm has waned.
This review is meant not just to highlight this piece of work – which is culturally and historically important, but to isolate and vent the frustration of something that is from the past, but not in our present due to formatting and compatibility issues.
One of the jobs of this site is to look at some of the ways at bridging this gap and sharing frustrations of what is and is not out there that is loved for us to enjoy in the way that the onset of videotape made possible. DVD is a noughties incarnation. It is hard to believe but we all used to depend on VHS at one time – just as we did vinyl – but there is no need to feel this ‘gap’ if we don’t have to.
At the bottom end of this review is a list of companies that will put VHS – to DVD for you on either a small or large scale. There is a UK bias – but mostly they – like companies associated with amazon, go through the post. May your frustrations be abated……
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