Carrie Fisher passed away yesterday, and that sucks. She's fine - - it just sucks for the rest of us.
The public grieving of Carrie Fisher and the explaining... always the explaining.. I don't know if it comes with that variation of geek grief, but everyone seems to not only be grieving, but explaining WHY WHY WHY.
(Sidebar - - growing up, I had no one to talk about science fiction fantasy comic books etc. with. I kept it mostly to myself, except for getting really excited when my fifth grade teacher chose to read Lloyd Alexander's "The High King" out loud. I remember Alana Olson complaining something about how I was the only one in class who liked books like that... but having her read that particular book was magic. After I grew up, and found myself at a couple of Science Fiction conventions, I grew pissed. Here are a group of people with your like-minded interest.. and they were arguing over who knew the most. They were one-upping each other on the trivia vs. celebrating the amazingness of it. Pissed Jen. It was like playing with musicians who were gear heads. I don't care what your instrument is: I care about how it treats you and you treat it. Maybe I just didn't find the right folks. Who knows... )
And here I am explaining why...
Princess Leia was the bomb.
She was not only my hero, but basically my only choice of hero. Visually represented speaking. The 80s were a great time for adventure movies, a rough time from heroines. Most female characters were just plot devices to get the white straight hero in trouble. There was a lot of screaming. So much screaming.
Princess Leia did not scream. She got shit done.
She had awesome outfits and wore her long brown hair (representation matters, folks) in actually practical ways. She was brave without saying she was brave. She was frustrated at the ineptness of the males around her, and just wanted to get the shit done.
SpeederBike Chase! Communing with Ewoks! Cloud City Dinner with Vader! Garbage chute! Bustin' up a Starbux! WHY DID SHE NEVER GET A LIGHTSABER! GAH!
I was her for multiple halloweens, and when in Kindergarten, we were able to make hand puppets out of paper bags, I made Princess Leia. With a tiny black blaster.
All my other heroines of note were letters on a page, until the edited-for-TV version of "Aliens" showed up and suddenly I had 3+ badass female heroines (I include Newt. Newt survived for a very long by herself in a spaceship full of monsters. Newt's great. And Martinez! And that poor pilot!) And of course Ripley, who, again, frustrated by the ineptness of the males around her, got shit done. Points for being a brunette.
And that was about it.
Marvel comic books eventually entered my household, and I got that weird mix of often poorly written but pretty awesome heroines (Hi Kitty Pryde. What. You also have a pet dragon. What? You're a brunette? That's fantastic.) and boobs. As the 90s continued, the scale tipped to all boobs all the time, and I gave up.
Things (obviously) have changed, thank god. The YA genre is filled with very capable heroines, and new comic book heroines have appeared, fully dressed. And, visually speaking, we've got a Rey and a Jyn and a Katniss and that poor tortured looking girl from whatever Divergent is. Hopefully we'll get some non-white heroines in there eventually please.
And Carrie Fisher. We love you, Carrie Fisher. You were smart capable honest flawed and funny. Your smile was amazing. Thank you for putting up with us, and not putting up with our shit. I wish you were still here.
The public grieving of Carrie Fisher and the explaining... always the explaining.. I don't know if it comes with that variation of geek grief, but everyone seems to not only be grieving, but explaining WHY WHY WHY.
(Sidebar - - growing up, I had no one to talk about science fiction fantasy comic books etc. with. I kept it mostly to myself, except for getting really excited when my fifth grade teacher chose to read Lloyd Alexander's "The High King" out loud. I remember Alana Olson complaining something about how I was the only one in class who liked books like that... but having her read that particular book was magic. After I grew up, and found myself at a couple of Science Fiction conventions, I grew pissed. Here are a group of people with your like-minded interest.. and they were arguing over who knew the most. They were one-upping each other on the trivia vs. celebrating the amazingness of it. Pissed Jen. It was like playing with musicians who were gear heads. I don't care what your instrument is: I care about how it treats you and you treat it. Maybe I just didn't find the right folks. Who knows... )
And here I am explaining why...
Princess Leia was the bomb.
She was not only my hero, but basically my only choice of hero. Visually represented speaking. The 80s were a great time for adventure movies, a rough time from heroines. Most female characters were just plot devices to get the white straight hero in trouble. There was a lot of screaming. So much screaming.
Princess Leia did not scream. She got shit done.
She had awesome outfits and wore her long brown hair (representation matters, folks) in actually practical ways. She was brave without saying she was brave. She was frustrated at the ineptness of the males around her, and just wanted to get the shit done.
SpeederBike Chase! Communing with Ewoks! Cloud City Dinner with Vader! Garbage chute! Bustin' up a Starbux! WHY DID SHE NEVER GET A LIGHTSABER! GAH!
I was her for multiple halloweens, and when in Kindergarten, we were able to make hand puppets out of paper bags, I made Princess Leia. With a tiny black blaster.
All my other heroines of note were letters on a page, until the edited-for-TV version of "Aliens" showed up and suddenly I had 3+ badass female heroines (I include Newt. Newt survived for a very long by herself in a spaceship full of monsters. Newt's great. And Martinez! And that poor pilot!) And of course Ripley, who, again, frustrated by the ineptness of the males around her, got shit done. Points for being a brunette.
And that was about it.
Marvel comic books eventually entered my household, and I got that weird mix of often poorly written but pretty awesome heroines (Hi Kitty Pryde. What. You also have a pet dragon. What? You're a brunette? That's fantastic.) and boobs. As the 90s continued, the scale tipped to all boobs all the time, and I gave up.
Things (obviously) have changed, thank god. The YA genre is filled with very capable heroines, and new comic book heroines have appeared, fully dressed. And, visually speaking, we've got a Rey and a Jyn and a Katniss and that poor tortured looking girl from whatever Divergent is. Hopefully we'll get some non-white heroines in there eventually please.
And Carrie Fisher. We love you, Carrie Fisher. You were smart capable honest flawed and funny. Your smile was amazing. Thank you for putting up with us, and not putting up with our shit. I wish you were still here.
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