"Speak on it queen" - Internet reacts as Jane Fonda's SAG Awards speech on empathy goes viral

Jane Fonda whose real name is Jane Seymour Fonda was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 31st Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards on February 23, 2025.

After accepting the award, the 87-year-old actor and activist whose career reportedly spans six decades delivered a powerful speech. It highlighted the themes of empathy and unity.

"[Acting] bring us into community and community means power. This is really important right now when workers' power is being attacked and community is being weakened." She said, as reported by Harper’s Bazaar.

"Though you may hate the behavior of your character, you have to understand and empathize with the traumatized person you're playing, right? Think of Sebastian Stan and The Apprentice.”

The veteran actress added while making a thinly veiled dig at Donald Trump. She re-defined the term “woke” and said that, “empathy is not weak or 'woke'” adding that, “'woke' just means you give a damn about other people."

Fonda’s memorable SAG speech earned her a round of applause from the audience. Even the netizens couldn’t stop themselves from praising her.

“Speak on it queen.” A user wrote.

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Netizens reacting to Jane Fonda’s speech at the 31st Screen Actors Guild awards

When Jane Fonda delivered her acceptance speech at the 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards she was met with polarising opinions from different sections and groups on social media. While some supported her speech others were not satisfied with it.

"She’s damn right about that.” One user on X commented.

“Jane Fonda's words are pure gold - empathy is truly about caring for others” Another chimed in.

“Jane Fonda should live for like 300 years she’s such a queen” A user wrote.

“You can't govern by empathy alone. At some point in time you have to use some common sense to govern for all.” Someone tweeted.

However, a few users had different opinions and slammed her for her liberal views.

“We know what woke means. You leftists ruined the word all by yourselves.” One user who opposed Fonda's speech wrote.

“For egz.: look how much Jane Fonda cares for people working for the cosmetic surgery not to go hungry.” A user joked.

“Pretty much stopped caring about anything Jane Fonda says since the 70’s.” Another person added.

“Where was your empathy for the American soldiers in Vietnam? Woke is not giving a damn about others opinions that differ from yours.” One more replied.

In the middle of her speech, Fonda was interrupted by technical glitches including a few sound issues but that didn’t stop her from pouring her heart out and the actress continued with grace and humor.

At the beginning of her speech, the microphone struggled to project her voice, and at one point, a pre-recorded voiceover announcement interrupted her speech, saying, "Here at the 31st..." before being cut off.

She replied humorously to the voice mishap and said, “And I can conjure up voices,” as indicated in Entertainment Weekly. The report added that Fonda is a two-time Oscar winner.

Jane Fonda has carved a niche for herself in the film industry with films like Klute (1971), Coming Home (1978), 9 to 5 (1980), Stanley & Iris (1990), and Book Club (2018) among others, as per her IMDb profile.