Book #1: Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

Alternate Title: The Original Strong Female Character

Truth be told, Wishful Drinking is not book #1. It’s actually book #7. All six of those books (read before the time I took this pledge and started this blog) were about the women of World War II, and one day, I may write a teary, ridiculous post about how much those stories mean to me, how much they changed my perception of the war, blah, blah, blah…. But today is not that day. Today is a day for Star Wars.

At least, that’s what I thought when I picked up Carrie Fisher’s first autobiography, Wishful Drinking. “Today is for Star Wars.” After all, it’s written by Princess Leia and it’s got Princess Leia on the cover. Surely, this is the behind-the-scenes scoop on Empire Strikes Back that I have always hoped for.

What I got instead was the tender confessions of a woman- not a character or a celebrity- trying to organize her memories after undergoing Electro-Shock Therapy (ECT). From her childhood with her mother, Debbie Reynolds, to a recent stand-up show, Fisher catalogues the stories of her life in the biting conversational tone that anyone who saw The Force Awakens press tour is familiar with.

As I’m still trying to find this blog’s voice, and what I’m trying to say with it, I keep returning to my initial mission statement. To answer the question that so many elements of the patriarchy seem insistent on asking: Why are women’s stories important? So, why is Carrie Fisher’s story important? In her own words:

“I frequently feel better about myself when I discover that we’re not alone, but that there are, in fact, a number of other people who ail as we do- that there are actually a number of ‘accomplished’ individuals who find it necessary to seek treatment for some otherwise insurmountable inner unpleasantness. I not only feel better about myself because these people are also fucked up… but I feel better because look how much these fellow fuckups managed to accomplish!”

It’s fitting that my first book follows Carrie Fisher. After all, the women of Star Wars have always been my heroes (After all, the first fight I can remember having with my father was over the fact that he wasn’t going to let me dress as Queen Amidala for Halloween the year I turned five). Now that- in seeing the world through her eyes- I can properly divorce Princess Leia and Carrie Fisher from one another and see them as distinct, separate entities, I am proud to say that, through this book, Carrie Fisher, another woman of that galaxy Far, Far Away, has joined her imaginary counterpart in my pantheon of heroes.

Women are told a lot of things in their lives. Be small. Be pretty. Be dainty. Polite. Private. Available. Go to no extremes. Be…. Perfect. And yet… Carrie Fisher, one of my heroes, considers herself a fuckup! Wait, you mean to be exalted and loved and heroic, I don’t have to be perfect? I can be as flawed and as blemished and messy as I am, and I can still be worth multitudes? I can accomplish great things?

If a realization of that magnitude can come through several stories about addiction (“What I did have was an opiate problem, but frankly that was none of Cary Grant’s fucking business.”), space underwear (“He says there’s no underwear in space, like he had been to space and looked around and he didn’t see any bras or panties or briefs anywhere”), and calling in favors to get into mental hospitals (“there’s no room at the bin”), then the entire premise of this whole blog now feels a little silly.

How could women’s stories be unimportant?