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Jane Fonda in Barbarella, the kitsch muse of the Space Age

Jane Fonda in Barbarella, the kitsch muse of the Space Age

data-modal-image-caption=Jane Fonda in Barbarella by Roger Vadim (1968). data-modal-image-credit=PARAMOUNT PICTURES / Collection ChristopheL via AFP> Jane Fonda in Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968).

Jane Fonda in Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968). PARAMOUNT PICTURES / ChristopheL Collection via AFP

In 1968, the world discovered Jane Fonda on the big screen in a strappy bodysuit, silver thigh-high boots, and a colossal blow-dry. Some mocked the superhero's bad taste, others praised her sex symbol looks.

Floating in the cockpit of her spaceship lined with synthetic fur , wearing her astronaut suit, she is barely recognizable. "It's a wonder, wonder woman, you're so wild (...) Barbarella, psychedelia..." In a levitating striptease, the incendiary Jane Fonda slowly sheds her silver gloves, leg warmers, and metallic Michelin man suit. Lacking digital special effects to simulate weightlessness, the beauty wiggles, filmed from above, on a window. The cleverly placed letters of the credits conceal just enough of her body to escape censorship.

“But I still ended up completely naked. Vadim had promised me that my breasts would be covered by the opening credits, but that wasn’t the case ,” Jane Fonda recalls in her biography My Life so Far. “I was very shy, believe it or not, and to shoot that scene, I had to be drunk. So I drank a lot of vodka! When we watched the rushes again, we understood…

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