How Carrie Fisher can body shame Hollywood

Dear Carrie,

Recently, I  wrote an article that expressed my concerns about the facelift/botox/rhinoplasty/lipsuction or whatever it was you used to hide the aging process in The Force Awakens.

Was I wrong to be concerned?

Perhaps it’s the Force that keeps you looking so young. But why does Mark Hamil look his age? Does the Force discriminate? Or is it something more sinister? Ageism, anyone?

Oscar Wilde once said that if you want to know how well a woman will age then look at her mother. Debbie Reynolds is your mother — a famous actress in her own day but someone who’s had as much, if not more, plastic surgery than you. In fact, you could be mistaken for sisters. What would Oscar Wilde have said about that?

Why not be a role model like Judi Dench?  Everyone loves her and she’s nearly 80 and always cast as a mature, intelligent woman.

In the next Star Wars, why don’t you take the opportunity to reject our culture’s obsessive denial of age.

Don’t let the men who run Hollywood pressure you to look twenty years younger.

Of course, you can’t do this alone and all actors need to unite and challenge ageism.

You’re a clever woman and a good writer. You once scripted speeches for the Oscars. Why not write one for Patricia Arquette and link it to Hollywood’s gender-inequitable pay scales? And while you’re at it, warn the industry that from now on each time a female actress has plastic surgery, all the men in Hollywood get a pay cut.

This will guarantee that studios cast women in age appropriate roles.

Carrie, you have a long fight ahead.

May the Force be with you.