Carrie Fisher is not going to take your shit. The actress, who returned to the role that made her a household name with The Force Awakens this month, had already spoken about the pressure she was under during filming to lose weight. Now, thanks to the "progress" of social media, Fisher has been dealing with a number of (alleged) people who have been critical of how well she has aged. While admitting that the comments are painful, she’s also made it clear she’s aged just fine. The haters can all go screw off.
As it’s been nearly 40 years since the last time we saw the original trilogy actors playing these roles, all of them are older. That’s how time works. Nobody, however, is talking about how well Harrison Ford or Mark Hamill have aged. That honor is left to Fisher, who has had to deal with the issue of her physical appearance ever since returning to the franchise. She has spoken very publicly about how she was expected to lose 35 pounds in order to play the role of General Leia again. She’s also stated, though always in a joking manner, because she’s cool like that, that part of the reason she was willing to return to the role was that, at nearly 60 years old, it was the only acting job open to her. She’s very politely been bringing attention to the issues that older actresses are dealing with for months.
Fisher makes a point to differentiate between herself and her body, calling her body simply a "brain bag."
The point being that Fisher, as a person, has aged just fine, thank you very much. The body may be having some problems, but that’s to be expected, as it happens to all of us. It also doesn’t have an impact on who she is. She is a human, with a personality. That personality is not impacted by the state of her body, and that’s the thing that we should all be concerning ourselves with anyway.
To be fair, the vast majority of the responses on Carrie Fisher’s Twitter page are positive. The trolls may be loud, but they’re a vocal minority. Either way they’re going to have to deal with their issues. General Leia isn’t going anywhere. There are at least two more movies in this series, and we hope to see Carrie Fisher in both of them.
