I first saw Star Wars in the theater when I was eight years old. Being a little kid I loved the movie, of course, but it was especially Carrie Fisher who had the strongest impact on me. There were strong feminine role models all around me; in real life, in books, in music and in film. But for a child there seemed to be an absence of strong women role models in popular culture. I was too young to appreciate what Mary Tyler Moore represented portraying a single working woman on television and far too young to read and appreciate strong female characters in classic literature. Linda Carter was playing the super hero Wonder Woman on television but her costume made the production seem more about sexuality than about character. And then boom, here comes Princess Leia. Yeah, they named her princess but she was brash, brave, fierce, and funny. She was ballsy (and I don’t mean in the testicular way). As an eight year old she was the first fictionalized woman I had ever seen that I could truly relate to and admire. Carrie Fisher’s character was someone I could identify with and represented someone I would want as my friend or ally. And it wasn’t because she was cute or sexy. It was because of her strength and intelligence and humor and the nature of her character that attracted me and ultimately influenced the very way I regarded women. This fictional bad ass rebel helped to create a new paradigm for the representation of what a woman could be in my imagination, in my mind, and more importantly in my life. My favorite characters in print, film and in life are mainly strong women, whether it is Hermione Granger, Lisbeth Salander, Elizabeth Warren or Scout from “To Kill a Mockingbird.” It may sound strange but a space princess from 1977 made me a feminist.

You can read my full thoughts of this work in the painting section of this website.

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#painting #carriefisher #princessleia #portrait #starwars