Carrie Fisher: Princess, General, and Role Model

Carrie Fisher has been a princess since 1977, but throughout her less than glamorous life with bipolar disorder, she has become more than that: she is now a feminist role model in both the galaxy far, far away & the real world.

When you think of actresses who double as feminist role models, you think of women like Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, and Emma Thompson. A-list celebrities who hold a monopoly on the feminist ideal. In Hollywood, they number among the powerhouse women who are first in line to play real-life women on the big screen. They speak out on women’s issues like unequal pay between the genders, and represent charities around the world.

LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 17: Carrie Fisher and dog Gary on stage during Future Directors Panel at the Star Wars Celebration 2016 at ExCel on July 17, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty Images for Walt Disney Studios)

And then, you have Carrie.

At nearly sixty years old, Carrie Fisher is short, frank, eccentric, and irrepressibly hilarious. Before Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise in 2012 and Carrie was asked to reprise her role as Princess Leia in the new movies, her career had changed from actress to comedian and writer. When she rejoined the Star Wars franchise after thirty years for The Force Awakens, she had to undergo training and diet changes to slim her figure. Clearly, she’s not viewed by Hollywood as being on that A-list with Streep and Jolie.

Publicly, Carrie is not exactly the belle of the Hollywood ball, either. She is not asked (nor does she volunteer, as far as we know) to take on Oscar-worthy roles. Neither does she often grace the red carpets of award ceremonies. She has gotten more attention of late, but only because of her return to a famous blockbuster film series.

But it’s for these reasons that she is as much of a feminist role model as those more famous than her who already hold that title. Perhaps, in fact, we should look up to Carrie a little bit more.

Before and after her big break – landing the role of Princess Leia in a little film from Fox called Star Wars – Carrie was experimenting with drugs. During her lifetime she struggled with, and finally overcame both drug and alcohol addiction. Then, when she was thirty years old, she was officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder. (She remains on a bevy of medications to keep it under control.) She now has a therapy animal as well, a tongue-lolling French bulldog named Gary, whom she is rarely seen without.

Amid her health difficulties, Carrie experienced two marriages, both of which ended in divorce. (The latter after she discovered her husband was gay). She gave birth to a little girl, Billie Lourd. Today, she remains single, and seems happy with her life after having found her niche as an aging, but still vital humorist. Thanks to Star Wars, she is back in acting again. She is reuniting with old friends like Mark Hamill, who plays her twin brother in the Star Wars universe. She’s also working on a new book, which is as yet untitled.

via Amazon.com

Some might be trepidatious about sharing all the sad, shocking, and sappy ups and downs of a life like Carrie’s. But she herself isn’t shy about broadcasting these experiences with the world. Her memoir, Wishful Drinking, looks back unabashedly at her turbulent younger years.

You shouldn’t go out and do drugs and drink alcohol excessively just because Carrie did. She’s not that kind of role model. It’s also not wise to believe you have to go through some health or mental disorder in order to be a role model. What makes Carrie Fisher a role model is not what she did in her past or what demons she struggles against every day. It’s how she struggles against them. It’s how she can look on her past and talk about it without shame which makes her strong.

In a 2013 interview with the Herald Tribune about living with bipolar disorder, Carrie was asked to talk about the “vulnerability” she showed in sharing the story of her life so openly with the public in her books. The answer she gave was classic Carrie:

"“It’s sort of a defense, like “You can’t fire me, I’ll quit.” If I tell you what I’m like before you decide, then it’s sort of a control mechanism. There is no vulnerability that I’m aware of.”"

Carrie owns her past. She doesn’t shy away from it. Perhaps she regrets some of the ways she chose to cope with her bipolar disorder, like taking drugs and consuming copious amounts of alcohol. But there’s a difference between regret and shame. Carrie does not act like she is ashamed.

When asked by HT what advice she would give to others with mental illness, Carrie encouraged sufferers to push forward and take risks in spite of their struggles.

"“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.”"

What’s refreshing about Carrie, though, is she proves her own words in real-time. When she spoke to Good Housekeeping in December 2015 about losing 35 pounds for The Force Awakens, she was well aware of the pressure to look good for the camera.

"Nothing changes: it’s an appearance-driven thing. I’m in a business where the only thing that matters is weight and appearance. That is so messed up. They might as well say get younger, because that’s how easy it is."

Carrie also said she didn’t like how losing weight made her feel.

"And when I do lose the weight, I don’t like that it makes me feel good about myself. It’s not who I am. My problem is they talk to me like an actress, but I hear them like a writer."

We hear Carrie say this and become her biggest fans. Carrie was and still is beautiful. And though she absolutely rocked that bikini body in Return of the Jedi, today she is more like us. Full of all righteous beliefs about what societal standards should be like, but still having to just “do it” and let the confidence come afterwards. She’s still insecure. She is, in other words, human.

via YouTube

As a human being, Carrie has a rocky history of mistakes. Like most of us, she has an outsider’s view of Hollywood’s destructive image standards. She doesn’t fit the bill of the typical hourglass-figure actress anymore. Even if she could achieve that physicality, she wouldn’t like it. Because she understands there’s a system in place that shuts you out if you don’t look or act a certain way. It’s a system most actresses, feminist or not, still play in.

But not Carrie. Or at least, not willingly. Like how her character in Star Wars evolved from a princess in the first Star Wars movie in 1977 to a general in 2015’s The Force Awakens, Carrie has taken command of her own life. She still faces difficulties, like coping with her mental illness and staying strong against the demands of Hollywood perfection. But she faces those difficulties as every human being must: with determination, a dog, and a cutting joke ready on her lips.