Princess Leia has lost the force so she says and joined Jenny Craig last year to become its newest celebrity spokesperson. I was kind of shocked as Leia aka Carrie Fisher at one time said,
"I'm sorry I didn't eat just lettuce and sunflower seeds!” Here’s what I'll do: I'll stop eating, stop the meds and you can come visit me in a mental hospital, where I'll be really super thin and probably wearing the metal bikini."
So what happened that she suddenly became so hypersensitive about her weight?
Why has she dimmed her positive light saber on who she is? Obviously these days the fat and age bigotry train runs amuck on the rails. If you are not skinny or have tight facial skin you seem to be on the lower rungs of the storm troopers. How come men are not criticized as much on their looks as they get older and expand?
If we do not age gracefully should we be used as some sort of target practice by the young and the thin?
Maybe anyone over the age of 30 should be sent to special farms. Well to be truthful that was my idea. In the 60's at age 16 I once told my father that anyone over that particular age should be processed to special aging farms. I was quite serious about this and said it with a straight face.
When I turned 30 my father looked at me and asked when I was leaving for the farm. That man waited 14 years to ask me that and I am sure the days leading up to my 30th birthday were filled with gleeful anticipation for him.
Public opinions about weight and appearance send people on the quest for anything that makes them look younger. We have men that no longer just trust the Grecian Hair Formula trying to look 25 years younger than they are. Mothers are shown borrowing their teenager’s clothes on Tide commercials. What kind of messages are we sending to our younger generations? Wait, they already have it and the rumour was that Britney got implants for her 18th birthday.
No matter what some of these women look like after going overboard through the car wash of self improvement they still receive criticism. I remember meeting a former customer five years after my store closed and he wondered why my face had changed in appearance. He kept asking me,
“What happened to you after that particular newspaper picture was taken of you? Did you have some sort of mental breakdown?”
I looked at him and laughed and told him it was nothing but aging. I most certainly was not built by Madame Tussaud and as Carrie Fisher said,
"I didn't know when I was 20 and adorable that I'd signed a contract to look that way for the rest of my life."
Exactly - and my hair turns grey if I do not dye it, my butt is big and I am starting to get comments from close friends that I look just like my grandmother.
Carrie Fisher has always been a one of a kind woman. She is clever, outspoken and has a ‘do not mess with me’ attitude. Even when she was Princess Leia in Star Wars she looked way smarter than the rest of the characters. So why is she suddenly laundering her weight issues out in public?
"What are we pretending not to know? I'm not overweight? I am overweight. I'd rather claim it. Then it has less power over you," she said. This way you don't have anything on me. Better to have the good news out there with it."
Maybe Carrie was doing this for the money or to be more
visible in the public eye. One thing that I have always known about Fisher is that she has always accepted herself no matter what problem she was dealing with. Carrie was Carrie and she made no bones about it.
Our age, what we weigh and how we look is not our real worth. Accept yourself and remember that you are perfect just the way you are. Carrie, I love you and it does not matter how much weight you lost with Jenny Craig and now
have gained back.
You will always be Princess Leia in a metal bikini to me and are a force to be reckoned with.
Linda Seccaspina for Zoomers Canada
Author of "Menopausal Woman From the Corn"