Jane Fonda joined journalists, musicians, writers, and other actors and artists at a rally outside the John F. , on Friday. The rally was hosted by Jane Fonda's Committee for the First Amendment and dubbed 'Artists United for Our Freedoms', with around a hundred invited guests gathered.
Jane Fonda said the Kennedy Center has become a symbol of what is happening, with artists refusing to bow to ideological demands and racist erasure of history. Speakers at the rally criticized book bans, political censorship, threats to free speech, and the administration's crackdown on the press. They also targeted President Trump's control of the Kennedy Center, including his seizure of the institution, targeting of 'woke' programming, addition of his name to its marble facade, and announcement it will close for two years of renovations, with dozens of layoffs beginning this week.
Today, books are being banned, plaques and monuments depicting historical events this administration wants to forget are being removed. Museums, the National Endowment for the Arts, state arts councils, public broadcasting – they’re all being defunded.
Trump ousted the Kennedy Center's previous leadership and replaced it with a hand-picked board of trustees who voted to rename it the Trump Kennedy Center, and LGBTQ-friendly programming has been scrapped amid the MAGA takeover. Billy Porter blamed Trump for attacking the arts, stating that authoritarian governments go after the arts first. According to Daily Mail - News, Billy Porter described opportunities for LGBTQ creatives and people of color drying up under Trump's administration due to the end of 'performative wokeness'.
The rally kicked off the 'No Kings' protest weekend, with millions gathering coast to coast for coordinated demonstrations against President Trump over the weekend. Bruce Springsteen led the lineup at the Minneapolis-St. Paul branch of the No Kings rallies.
This beloved citadel of the arts has become a symbol of what is happening. The centre has been effectively silenced after artists refused to bow to ideological demands and the racist erasure of history.
As a cover, Trump is shutting it down for at least two years, supposedly to make repairs, and he even suggested it may be necessary to take it down to the studs. What’s he gonna do? Build another ballroom where he can dance and, like Nero, fiddle while his country burns?
As a black, gay, out artist, I caught the wave of what we now know as performative wokeness. And I crashed through glass ceilings that were concrete. And I have noticed the opportunities slowly drying up for the work that I do.
The Midwest CBS shows, and the cop shows, all of that stuff still exists, but when it's time to talk about heart, when it's time to talk about connection and when it's time to talk about people that don't look like everybody else, those of us who are on the margins, there's not a lot of that going on right now. There's not a lot of that work going on right now.
Authoritarian governments go after the arts first, because the arts have the power to reach inside of people and change the molecular structure from the inside out.
If we don't fight back, the news we get will be increasingly fake. We won't be allowed to know what's really happening. Our children's academic curricula will be actually censored. Ticket costs for cultural events will go up, while the quality will go down. Books and films will be shallower, lacking nuance and complexity.