Why Carrie Fisher Was Right and Kyle Smith Was A Tool

You’ve probably heard the furor about actress Carrie Fisher’s looks in the latest “Star Wars” movie.  An enormous online discussion began concerning how she had “aged”.  Not surprisingly, a lot of the comments were pretty rude.

Fisher responded with a quick Tweet:

Please stop debating about whetherOR not👁aged well.unfortunately it hurts all3 of my feelings.My BODY hasnt aged as well as I have.Blow us👌🏼

There was plenty of response and support for Fisher striking back.  But there was also the New York Post’s Kyle Smith, who pronounced that “If Carrie Fisher doesn’t like being judged on looks, she should quit acting” (LINK).

Sigh.

Smith makes a variety of stupid points in his column.  Let’s take a quick look at some of the more egregious:

  1. The “benefits” of losing weight – Sure, a lot of us could stand to drop some weight to improve our health.  I happen to be one of them.  But here’s my question to Kyle – are you familiar with Ms. Fisher’s medical records?  Was she at an unhealthy weight?  Did Disney ask her to drop 35 pounds for her health?  Or did they do it so she could meet some arbitrary and historically UNHEALTHY standard of female beauty?
  2. Leveraging her looks – Really?  Let’s be honest here, while Ms. Fisher has always been attractive, it was a “girl next door” kind of cute.  We’re not talking “leveraging her looks” on a Farrah Fawcett, Cheryl Tiegs, Bo Derek kind of level.  The whole “Luke falling madly in love with Leia” from the rather poor quality droid video never really rang true for me.  And let us not forget that, with a single exception, Leia wore outfits that were more about concealing her looks than showing them off.  From the classic nun’s habit (crowned by the dumbest hairstyle in movie history) to her forest poncho on Hoth, Lucas chose costumes that had nothing to do with “leveraging” Carrie’s looks.  Oh, but that one exception.  Let us all be perfectly honest about the first time we saw the slave costume.  Your reaction was “HOLY #$%^!  Where has she been hiding?”.  It’s just a stupid argument.
  3. Buying into the whole female beauty lie – Smith just glibly buys the whole package.  That women can’t age somehow and be beautiful.  That beauty begins with boobs and ends with butts is the standard of adolescent boys.  Sadly, too many adult men have never developed a mature understanding of beauty.  Meanwhile Harrison Ford (who, admittedly is about 13 years old than Fisher), looks like an old boot that’s been left in the weather for a decade.  Not a word was spoken about it.  Nor should it be.  He looks like a 70+ year old guy.  Carrie looks like a 59 year old woman.  Kyle Smith is perfectly comfortable telling Fisher that if she doesn’t want to play the game she should just quit.  Which certainly implies that the beauty game in Hollywood is right.
Except it’s not.  Carrie Fisher is an actress, not a mannequin.  She (along with every other woman or man in the industry) deserves to be judged by the totality of what they bring to their work.  In “Star Wars – The Force Awakens” she’s playing a woman who has been leading a rebellion for almost thirty years.  Yet somehow Smith and man children who are all affronted by an actual mature woman’s looks insist that she look as much like her twenty-something self as possible.  It’s not about the work but about the shallow, puerile standard of Hollywood “beauty”.
Kyle Smith could have used his platform to talk about Hollywood’s hypocrisy.  But that would have been the harder option.  The young padawan did not choose wisely.
Finally, to make matters worse, when Fisher tweeted a rejoinder to Smith’s juvenile comments he tried to get all gushy, fan boy on her.

Kyle Smith 

✔@rkylesmith

I just got subtweeted by Carrie Fisher! @carrieffisher Loved WISHFUL DRINKING, by the way Carrie! (The rave in People mag was by me)
9:58 PM – 30 Dec 2015

Carrie, you’re beautiful.  Kyle?  You’re a tool.

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