Barbarella's Daughter: Vanessa Vadim

Early on in The Daily Beast’s interview with Vanessa Vadim, daughter of Jane Fonda and the late Roger Vadim, we learn that she pitches glass dildos and cucumbers as ecologically-responsible providers of first-rate orgasms.

In her spare time, the 40-year-old Vadim is a single mom with two young children; a documentary filmmaker, an organic farmer, an all-around free spirit and, as much as she might wish to deny it, a member of Hollywood royalty.

Vanessa Vadim, Mother Nature Network, via Women’s Media CenterFurther south, the Atlanta Journal Constitution gets more down-home about Vanessa. In her every Tuesday “Ask Vanessa” column on NotherNatureNetwork.com, Vadim is deadly serious about giving environmentally responsible advice on topics from head lice to getting better gas mileage.

Back to New York and more talk of orgasms, this time Vanessa’s reaction to her parent’s infamous movie “Barbarella”, a movie that was reviled in its day as misogynistic, exploitative and politically incorrect.

I share Vanessa’s view of “Barbarella”: When I see something like Barbarella I think it’s such a hilarious film, when you look at some of the lines about human behavior, war, and sex. It’s just fantastic. Oh my God—when else have we seen a woman with that much power on the screen? Sexy and in no way having to feel ashamed of being sexy; powerful, in charge. She’s so not the bimbo. She’s smart, and she actually owns her sexuality.

Thinking just now about Vanessa’s comment, in a certain sense feminism did highjack female sexuality, giving women “instructions” on what’s hot and what’s not, as a pioneering Smart Sensuality woman. For many women, husbands were replaced with another powerful judgmental structure. In both cases women were instructed on how to behave properly — first by husbands and then the sisterhood.

Jane Fonda “going green’ in Barbarella, 1968 via Ms Hodge PodgeJust last winter, I came across the famous “Barbarella” blowing up the sex machine scene. I never saw Fonda as a bimbo in this movie, although I agree that she’s deeply sensual and in control of her own sexual energy. One would think that feminism could embrace such a mantra, but alas, Jane was blond and busty with a great body and sexual aura.

Within this context, Barbarella was deemed bad news for women by feminists, even if it left all but the faint-hearted, impressed with Fonda’s sexual energy and mastery. Anne

Read: J’Adore Samantha but Barbarella in the Excessive Machine Is More My Style

Triumph of the Good Guys? Captain Planet Joins Forces with Mother Nature Network