I’ve never seen Star wars, but having met Fisher through the film Stephen fry on manic depression, I immediately felt less alone.
Let me tell you a secret. I’ve never seen “Star wars.” But I have a terrible sin: I don’t have the slightest desire to watch these films. However, I reacted to the death of Carrie Fisher as keenly as any fan of science fiction. The fact is that for me Carrie Fisher was more than a Princess Leia — though it will surprise the editors of the Mirror, considered possible to title an article on the first page of “Princess Leia died at the age of 60 years.”
In 60 years died Carrie Fisher. Of course, the actress Carrie Fisher. Actress Carrie Fisher, known not only as the performer of the role of Leah, but also as a performer of many other roles. And she has written seven major books and often advised the writers. She was on the side of people with mental disorders, helping them out of the darkness of depression and guiding them to the light. Carrie Fisher, a lover of dogs, the eccentric twitterank, mother and storyteller.
I can’t say anything about the game Fisher the role of Leah. Leah I only know as an icon of pop culture, like a suit with Halloween as the owner of hairstyles with two bagels. But I know she means a lot to a large number of people. I know that kids from the 70-ies just loved it. I know that fans paid thousands of dollars for costumed presentation with Leah, for the events with her participation. I know that in the next episode of this franchise it is present in movie theaters in digital form. Colleague Fisher on the set mourn her departure.
But Fisher dear to my heart as Leia. The first time I met this woman with big brown eyes, sharply defined nose and a husky voice in 2006 when I watched the documentary “The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive” (the secret life of a sick manic-depressive psychosis). Stephen fry comes home to suffering from this disease, Fisher. I didn’t recognize, but the disease was familiar to me. Who is this woman? I immediately threw myself down the rabbit hole YouTube to watch interviews and performances with her participation. As time went on, hour after hour. I was crying from laughter, then my eyes were dry from fatigue. Night gave way to morning. I climbed into bed and felt like something had changed. Someone might consider this trivial, but I don’t care — she told it like it is actually. I felt not so alone.
Fisher talked about his drug addiction and mental illness directly and without equivocation: “I’m a mental patient. I can say about it. I’m not ashamed. I got over it. I still experience it, but move on.” Fisher said all this long before it began to speak; long before celebrities stood up for the protection of patients manic-depression; long before the advent of analytical articles; long before people became for this award. (It is remarkable that it was called “Bipolar woman of the year”.)
After an attack of manic-depressive psychosis on a cruise ship in 2013, which, as usual today, took video and posted in social networks, Fisher simply said, “my medication had a little problem. I need balance, and I went out of balance in public.” And that’s all. It has destroyed stereotypes and erase the stigma attached with his diagnosis and treatment. She gave the advice of others, including a few weeks ago in the pages of the Guardian: “it is hard, you are ahead of the game… being your bipolar sister, I’m watching you”.
We saw her at her best, and she showed us how to behave.
She’s a brilliant and very ingeniously wrote about mental illnesses. There are very few people who can write; who can expose the truth, to get to brute fact and to make it softer, or at least, not so raw and painful.
Very often it came from Fisher pretty funny. It is an even greater gift. A good example is written in her 2008 memoir, “the Subjunctive drunkenness” (Wishful Drinking) (what a name, what a masterpiece, I swear). “No matter how I go, I want my care reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.” Scene in his novel “Postcards from the edge of the abyss” (Postcards from the Edge), released in 1987, she writes in detail about the process of their own rehabilitation. In his second book of memoirs, “the Princess Diaries” (The Princess Diarist) she told about her affair with Harrison Ford, writing about your feelings for him (“at least five, and sometimes seven”).
But she had an acting career beyond Star wars. In the role of best friend Sally Mary in the film “When Harry met Sally” she was a Rolodex of potential suitors for her friends. (Today Mary would be the type of girlfriend who won’t give you drunk call your ex at three in the morning. Fisher was probably the same friend.) She was great and very bright cameo in “Sex and the city” and “Studio 30”. And was recently introduced to a new generation in the television series “Catastrophe”, where she played the exuberant mother of Rob Delaney (with her there starred her beloved French bulldog Gary Fisher).
This week I read an interview with the British premiere of Theresa may (wait, don’t go), in which she said that no woman was her role model. Weird. I only this year lost three role models: Victoria wood, Caroline aherne, and now Carrie Fisher. The fact that Fisher was for me a real role model as a woman. The entire year she fought with the insidious male chauvinism (“stop arguing about how well I’ve aged”). She was a woman with a mental illness, banning to paint themselves in the image of a hysterical and inspirational ladies, what was so fond of the first psychoanalysts. She succeeded not because her Golden bikini or famous parents, but because of the intelligence, talent, beauty, wit, determination and kindness.
She sparkled with life on our planet, in our galaxy. Calming people with mental disorders, she said, “You can lead a normal life, whatever it was.” From Fischer’s life was a remarkable and wonderful.
