After all this time, Jane Fonda still cannot completely get rid of her “Hanoi Jane” image. Recently she started a blog and said that she’d address some of the rumors, which have gotten out of control thanks to the internet. There are a lot of servicemen and women who fought in Vietnam that are still profoundly upset with her – and a small group recently took to protesting outside of the Manhattan theater where Fonda is performing in the play “33 Variations.”

It’s been decades, but Jane Fonda still can’t shake her “Hanoi Jane” image from the Vietnam War.

About a dozen Vietnam veterans and other protesters on Saturday picketed the theater where the 71-year-old actress is starring in the Broadway play “33 Variations,” telling passers-by that she had once visited their communist enemy in Hanoi.

“Jane Fonda is a traitor,” said Dan Maloney of the Gathering of Eagles, which bills itself as a national, nonpartisan veterans group. “She got on Hanoi radio and called every U.S. serviceman a war criminal.”

Fonda was tagged with the sobriquet “Hanoi Jane” after visiting the North Vietnamese capital in 1972, where she made radio broadcasts critical of U.S. policy and sat on an anti-aircraft gun laughing and clapping, as she describes in her autobiography, “My Life So Far.”

Though she still defends her anti-war activism, Fonda has acknowledged that the incident was “a betrayal” of American forces.

“That two-minute lapse of sanity will haunt me until the day I die,” she wrote.

Fonda currently plays a musicologist in the Moises Kaufman play about reconciliation, set against the woman’s obsession with Beethoven’s 33 variations on a waltz. It marks her return to Broadway after 46 years.

[From the San Francisco Gate via Gossip Rocks]

Jane hasn’t mentioned anything about the protestors in her blog. Emotions obviously run very high on this issue, but I will point out that Fonda did apologize for her actions in her autobiography. I’m not sure what these protestors want from her. The goal of standing outside with signs is to… what? She can’t go back in time. She’s acknowledged the error of her ways. What else should Fonda do at this point? I’m not trying to defend or castigate her; I’m just confused about what the protestors’ purpose is.

In related news, Jane is getting fabulous reviews for her role in “33 Variations” – as is the play in general. Perhaps the protestors are trying to drive down ticket sales – though it doesn’t seem to be working.

Here’s Jane Fonda at the photocall for ‘33 Variations’ held at the New York Theatre Workshop on January 29th. Images thanks to WENN.