girls, do me a favor and be your loudest, brashest, weirdest, truest you tomorrow. show the world what carrie has taught us: we don’t have to conform to be princesses
“… Remember that you have the power to be the lippy bitch she would encourage you to be. Let her legacy be a bunch of honest, powerful women who are not going to be told to sit down and shut up.” – Leena van Deventer
I know I told this, sort of, in August at the time that it happened, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot today.
I was working at Wizard World Chicago in August 2016, so I had some extra money to spend as I was on an exhibitor pass. I couldn’t pass up a Carrie Fisher autograph so I bought a ticket, but I waited too long and ended up in group B on Saturday afternoon.
Group B was supposed to start at 5:00 PM. I got in line at 4:30 and waited. And waited. And waited. The convention floor closed at 7 PM; I (hi, line friends) waited. She’d been signing autographs, more or less, since 10 AM. We could see Gary next to her, his tongue sticking out.
I got to the front of the line at around eight o’clock at night. I was tired; I’d been working the booth all day and perpetual cheerfulness is exhausting. I can only imagine how tired she must have been. “No personalizations,” said the assistant as I handed her the book I’d brought to have signed, which I understood (I was the front of Group B, and there were easily another fifty people at least behind me).
A minute later, I was standing in front of Carrie Fisher. I’m pretty sure, being a creature of vast social awkwardness, I made a stupid joke about being on the wrong side (I was wearing my Imperial Officer uniform).
She looked up at me, opened the book, and said, “They’re trying to stymie me. I will not be stymied. Who would you like this made out to?”
I will not be stymied. A life in five words, and all I can say is that I’m so, so very glad I stayed in line.
during this massive resurgence in star wars hype, i’d like to remind you all that one of the people you’re idolizing – Carrie Fisher – has bipolar disorder. don’t you ever forget that. we are everywhere, we can do great things even while we struggle, we are important, and we deserve to be recognized as such.
For real. I also love that she’s talking about it during interviews and panels, and when people bring up her dog like he’s a fun quirky pet on set, she’s very quick to remind them no, he’s a service dog, he helps her to function.
Also her book Wishful Drinking is hilarious and heartbreaking as she talks about her life and her problems with addiction (which arose as an attempt to self medicate), and Shockaholic continues on in a very frank manner as she talks about how her problems almost lost her custody of her daughter Billie, as well as her life, and how she’s finally found a treatment (electric shock therapy) which is helping her, but also eradicating chunks of her memory. To paraphrase her “she’s losing her mind to stop herself from losing her mind”.
She’s abrasively sharp, witty and frankly hilarious, even when she’s talking about heartbreaking subjects. And yet there’s still fuckers out there talking about how much she’s let herself go over the years and how she should make more effort if she’s gonna be Princess Leia again, and they have no idea, no idea how much effort she puts in to staying alive every day, let alone staying functional and appearing in a movie franchise as big and overwhelming as Star Wars.
Everyone characterizes Leia as this profoundly strong and enduring character. But the character of Leia has got nothing on Carrie Fisher.
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