One of cosplay’s female icons (whether one takes to latex accessories in making their Jabba the Hutt slave girl bikini or dons the white robes of a princess) as well as a true advocate for feminism and the deconstruction of mental illness prejudices, Carrie Fisher died this week.
(We won’t even begin to get into the tragedy of Debbie Reynolds dying two days later! Not to brush over her death at all, though.)
The daughter of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds suffered a heart attack on a flight from London to L.A. on 12/23 and died four days later. Coming to worldwide prominence (with Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill) in Star Wars as “Princess Leia,” Fisher had acted on stage and screen before appearing in the George Lucas epic. She was also first diagnosed with her mental health issues in her mid-20’s and began “self-medicating” in well-publicized drug and alcohol addiction. In her 2008 autobiography, Wishful Drinking, as well as her semi-autobiographical novel (and the movie of it) Postcards From The Edge in 1990, Fisher explored her demons. In her latest book, published just last week, The Princess Diatrist the lady’s usual erasable edge had not dwindled a bit as she revealed an affair she had had with Harrison Ford way back when making “Star Wars.”
We should not only celebrate the ultimate geek goddess and warrior Princess Leia, but the strong and honest woman who played her. Carrie Fisher was a true feminist, as much for what she wanted in her life, as how she got it and for talking about that which people usually saw as stigmatizing.
In her Wishful Drinking, Fisher penned her own obituary. In her usual wild wit, she is quoted as saying: “I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.” She was referencing a discussion she had had on the first Star Wars’ set when creator George Lucas chided her that Princess Leia couldn’t wear certain couture under her infamous white gown. As Fisher wrote in the book: So, what happens if you go to space and you become weightless? So far so good, right? But then your body expands??? But your bra doesn’t — so you get strangled by your own bra.
Carrie Fisher was 60.
Debbie Reynolds, an icon in her own right, was 84.
