Loads of people have written about their love of Leia and
Carrie Fisher. A lovely friend of mine wrote a beautiful piece about Carrie.
Please give it a read if you feel so inclined: Remembering Carrie Fisher on HerBirthday.
I’m not sure what this is going to become. It’s not going to
be as beautiful or articulate as other things you could read about Leia or
Carrie. I’ll probably ramble more than will make either of us comfortable. I’ll
do my best to keep that to a minimum, but I’ve never actually written about
what Leia and Carrie mean to me, so please indulge me in a little meandering.
I was 14 when I was introduced to Star Wars. My great
grandmother, who was more like my grandmother, died that year. It was 8th
grade. I had terrible self-esteem, as is common for many of us in middle
school. I had the beginnings of an eating disorder that would follow me around
for years. I knew that at the end of the school year we would be moving to
Indiana to live in my new stepfather’s house. It felt like small tornadoes
swirled around me, each one threatening to become big enough to sweep me away.
I don’t remember the impetus, but my new stepfather brought his Star Wars VHS
tapes down with him one weekend when he visited. He was so confident that I
would love them. Internally, I balked. I didn’t want to love them. He was the
reason I was having to uproot myself yet again. I don’t remember that first
watching. I wish I could say that I did. We may’ve watched them all together as
a family: my mom, him, and my half-brother. I may’ve watched them on my tiny
TV/VHS combo in my bedroom under the window that looked out over my
grandparents’ house.
I will not forget how I felt when I saw Princess Leia though.
That feeling is burned into my psyche. The second I saw her in front of Grand
Moff Tarkin, I knew this woman was my new hero. She balanced on the knife edge
of not giving a single fuck and giving many, many fucks. As I grew, I knew that
my love of Leia could be owed exclusively to Carrie Fisher. As a kid, I saw a
woman who was the baddest badass I’d ever encountered. The second A New Hope
ended, I had to start Empire Strikes Back. I had to know what happened next. I
saw Leia was a capable military mind and her wit was so sharp it stung. I
watched her start to fall in love. I watched her not lose a single ounce of
independence and courage as she did so. My mind could barely process the woman
I was seeing. Then in Return of the Jedi to see her break into Jabba’s Palace
to free Han then kill her captor who tried to make an object of her made me cry
in ways I didn’t fully grasp. When the last of the original trilogy ended, I
sat dumbfounded. I rewound all the videos and watched again. And again. And
again. And again, until I had every line memorized.
The prequels were disappointing in all the ways that nearly every
Star Wars fan is disappointed. Then these new films came out and there she was
again. Aged gloriously. A general. I’ll not lie and say I’d hoped she’d be a
Jedi too, but Leia was always just a touch too much her father to be a Jedi and
that military mind couldn’t be wasted while there were still space nazis that
needed stopped. Still a badass at any age, that’s exactly what I would’ve hoped
to see of my Leia. Take no prisoners but never lose hope. Hope in something
better than what was directly in front of her. Hope of redemption. Hope of a
future in which there was peace. Hope. Hope. Hope.
I became obsessed with Carrie after watching the original
trilogy. I learned everything about her that I could get my little teen hands
on. Some things I had to sneak because my mother would flip if she knew I’d
watched When Harry Met Sally or The Blues Brothers.
When I found out that her mother was Debbie Reynolds, it
made me laugh. My grandmother raised me on old musicals. We watched every
single VHS our library and local video rental store had to offer. I knew the
words to every Rogers & Hammerstein show. One of my favorite movies that we
watched was a little one called Tammy and the Bachelor, starring Debbie Reynolds.
I adored it. I used to sit at the windows I could find that were big enough and
sing “Tammy’s in Love.”
There’s a photo floating around in the family somewhere of
one of my grandfather’s brothers with Debbie Reynolds, and my stepfather has a
small little autographed photo of her from one of his family members who met
her once. It made me feel connected to their family. Or at least, it gave me daydreams
that I could be. That somewhere out there was a Debbie and a Carrie with whom I
had a link. I’ve always been prone to running away on the wings of daydreams. I
ran often to these sorts of places in which I would find out I was really
related to various people who would then sweep me up and carry me off to join their
families. It wasn’t really kind to my own family. They only earned some of
those feelings. As an Aquarius though, I tend to the melodramatic.
I didn’t find out that Carrie was also an author until young
adulthood. I’ve still not read any of her books. Though all are on my to-read
list. I had Princess Diarist checked out from the library when I found out she
passed. I’ve still not read it. I tried multiple times but just wound up
crying. After her death, I learned about all the script doctoring she did in
Hollywood. I wanted to rewatch every movie I’d seen to try and find her
fingerprints across the work. Something to try and reconnect.
It’s been almost three years now and I still cry every time I
see her face or hear her being spoken about. If you would’ve told me that I was
the kind of person who would be so profoundly affected by the passing of a
celebrity, I’d’ve laughed in your face. These feelings aren’t the fault of the character
Leia. It was Carrie in all her messy imperfect loveliness. She normalized
having mental illness. She spoke openly about her drug addictions. She gave people
voices. She made you feel seen even if you’d never seen or spoken to her. You
felt like you knew her. That’s a gift…and probably a curse. Carrie changed my
life. The thumbprint of Leia is indelibly on my heart. I think about her
regularly. The passing of my grandmother is probably tied to some of the grief
that I still feel about her. My grandmother passed on Christmas Eve and few
years previously. I’m sure there is an emotional connection there.
I’m not mentally prepared to see Carrie in this last Star
Wars film. I will sob in the theater by myself, hopefully in a corner somewhere
mostly quietly. Carrie spoke to so much in me. Her imperfection and her honesty
about it made her so wonderful. She was uniquely herself and if you didn’t like
it, then fuck you. I pray I can have a piece of the audacity to just be yourself
and to offer the middle finger to anyone who has a problem with it.
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