i am sassa

Today is Carrie Fisher’s birthday. I didn’t know that until today. I was listening to her audiobook, Wishful Drinking (which she narrated herself), and painting her when I heard her say she was born on October 21st. I’ve wanted to paint her for awhile; maybe she chose today.

It goes without saying that Carrie Fisher is most commonly known as Princess Leia. I always thought it would kind of suck to play a role that became so famous that you carried it for the rest of your life, but Leia wouldn’t be the worst character to be stuck with. She’s a rebel, and a hero, and definitely doesn’t fit into the passive role more commonly portrayed by women at the time. In a lot of ways, she’s not that dissimilar from the woman who played her.

There was so much I didn’t know about Carrie Fisher before today. Her mother was an actress, her father was a singer, and she grew up completely surrounded by fame. Her breakdown in Wishful Drinking of the “Hollywood inbreeding” that occurred as her parents split and re-re-re-married is hilarious and full of scandal. Just one example: her father’s best friend was the third of Elizabeth Taylor’s seven husbands when he was killed in a plane crash. Being a good friend, Carrie’s father flew to Elizabeth’s side to console her. Painting away, I hear Carrie say, “He first dried her eyes with his handkerchief, then he consoled her with flowers, and he ultimately consoled her with his penis”. She has a way of turning tragedy into comedy.

It is with this same dry, surprising humor that I listen to Carrie hold absolutely nothing back in the telling of her life story. The book was written after she underwent electroconvulsive therapy (commonly known as “shock treatment”) for her depression and bipolar disorder, and it reads like a chronological inventory of her remaining memories after the treatment.

Carrie wrote four novels, three memoirs, and plenty of Hollywood scripts. She didn’t hesitate to speak openly about her struggles with mental health and addiction; topics most people at the time shoved into the darkest corners of their closets. She became a champion for both by bringing these subjects into the light. She told Vanity Fair in 2009, “If you claim something, you can own it…but if you have it as a shameful secret, you’re fucked”. Carrie unapologetically spoke out against the sexist and ageist bull-crap she dealt with constantly in her work, and encouraged other women to do the same. She absolutely owned who she was.

Carrie Fisher died way too young at age 60 of a sudden cardiac arrest. She is one of many I’ve thought of this past year, wishing I could hear what they would have to say about things we are dealing with now.

Thank you, Carrie Fisher.