The Wrong Side of 40

Last week, highly-regarded film critic Owen Gleiberman wrote about Renée Zellweger’s appearance, and how he thought she’d lost her essential self through plastic surgery. He hardly mentioned her magnificent range, vulnerability, or the legendary kindness that shines through her acting. Instead he chose to focus on the idea that, “In the case of Renée Zellweger, it may look to a great many people like something more than an elaborate makeup job has taken place, but we can’t say for sure.” So perhaps it shouldn’t be said at all.

I’m using “actress” in this piece for gender clarity even though I’m not a big fan of the word. To me, it implies a diminutive, lesser quality to a woman’s abilities compared to ”actor.” “Actress” seems to be more appropriate to an ingenue, which might be a tad insulting to an revered, seasoned woman like Dame Judi Dench.

Most of the time as an actress—especially while I’m working—I feel blessed to be in this profession. But my job is also tough for many reasons, and getting older is one of them. I am on the “wrong” side of forty, actually very close to Zellweger’s age.

Do I have lines around my eyes when I smile? Yes I do. Are my lips as full as they were when I was in high school? No they’re not. Is my body the same since I’ve had two big, healthy, happy boys. It isn’t. I live in Los Angeles where if you haven’t had your face and body “enhanced,” you begin to feel inadequate. I struggle all the time with these kinds of doubts.

I booked a job after I lost the baby weight from my first child. The head of the costume department called me up for my sizes and I proudly gave him my new weight, which was the lowest it had been since high school. I may have even been too thin. He replied, “Oh, so you’re normal sized. Good. That makes things easier for me.”  I had practically starved myself for five weeks, but in film and TV this was considered “normal.”

I was really, really hungry while filming this 

And last year my agent submitted me for a pilot in which the lead character was an obese woman. Every scene was her either having a hard time getting a dress over her head, getting winded or talking about how fat she was. I tried to explain to him that even by L.A. standards I wasn’t a good fit for the role. He consoled me by saying that if I did well in the room they might consider altering the character for me.

I laughed at this particular incident off because it was absurd, but being scrutinized constantly for my looks takes a toll. It’s hard for me to focus on a job I was hired to do when I’m worrying about how to stand so my tummy won’t bulge and my legs will look slimmer. It can even be self-destructive.

I feel like I look fine, yet I’m still ashamed to say how old I am. I don’t lie, but I avoid the subject because if I reveal my age, I’m worried I’ll be cast as a grandma (and not a young one). I should be proud. I’m comfortable in my skin, but because my profession takes place within an industry where youth is a calling card, it’s a challenge to stay grounded and honest. I’m afraid that if I admit my real age, I‘ll be judged not based on my abilities but by shallow perceptions of what unimaginative people think a forty-odd-year-old person should look and act like.

Maturity should be celebrated. Ideally, aging would benefit an artist professionally and personally. I’ve had more time to read, travel and meet people. I hope I’ve become wiser and more compassionate as a result. I understand human behavior more so that now when I’m playing different characters I don’t have to work as hard in my acting,  like I did when I was younger, covering for my lack of knowledge.

If Renée Zellweger has had work done, it’s her own business. She has the right to do whatever she wants to herself. And perhaps part of the reason she may have wanted to change her appearance is because she’s been under intense scrutiny for her looks since she first appeared on screen.

When Jerry Maguire  came out, I remember reading, ad nauseum, how unlikely a choice Zellweger was to play a Tom Cruise love interest, because of “her fetching ordinariness,” as Janet Maslin wrote in the New York Times. Her performance was breathtakingly sweet and painfully honest. Yet the big story was her “ordinariness.”

She doesn't look "ordinary" to me. Her sweetness and sincerity is luminous.

Looks can be an important tool for an actor. It’s undeniable. But it’s also unreasonable and dispiriting how often actresses get slammed (and even blamed) for their looks in a way male actors simply do not. Actresses’ lucky or “unlucky” genetics are tied to their self-worth and many times are prized more than their skill as artists.

Hollywood traffics in youth, so actresses tend to have a shorter shelf-life than their male counterparts. Harrison Ford is seventy-three and he’s still an action hero. I’m convinced Hollywood thinks actresses over fifty shouldn’t even have sex. Our earning potential decreases significantly because this business sees us as less desirable and marketable than men as we age. It’s no wonder some of us feel we have to take subtle or drastic measures to insure working as long and profitably as possible.

Post-Jerry Maguire, Renée Zellweger did something particularly daring for an actress. Something I’m not sure I’d have the guts to do: she gained thirty pounds to make her character believable in Bridget Jones's Diary. It was essential for the part: Bridget’s self-deprecation about her weight, her humor in battling through her awkwardness, her sense of being an outcast, a “singleton” in a sea of “smug marrieds” we're all features of her enormous charm. When she drunkenly lip-synced “All By Myself” after a breakup, alone in her tiny flat, I cried. And when she reunited with Colin Firth, who said he liked her just the way she was, I don’t think I was the only one who wanted to give Zellweger both a standing ovation and a hug.  

Bridget Jones's Diary

Gwen Inhat, of the A.V. Club states it beautifully:

“But this imperfect heroine resonated with readers who also occasionally nestled beneath that low bar, taking two-and-a-half hours to pull together a simple outfit for the office, or frittering away an entire day supposedly spent working at home by looking at vacation brochures (followed by: “1:00 p.m.: Lunchtime! Finally a bit of a break.”) In a world where many chick-lit heroines and rom-com stars were often passed off as some sort of adorable type-A superwomen (like Jennifer Lopez’s super-organized Wedding Planner or Sophie Kinsella’s uber-ambitious Undomestic Goddess), the smoking, drinking, swearing Bridget Jones was funny, likable, and most of all, relatable. Many singletons of a similar ilk chose Bridget (or Fielding, more like) as their own personal heroine.”

It’s sad that I have to say it’s “brave” when an actress gains weight for a role. Did anyone in the Press criticize Robert DeNiro when he put on weight to play Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull?  The gossip magazines breathlessly tallied every pound Zellweger gained or lost. It was a national fixation. She’s too fat. She’s too skinny. She has chipmunk cheeks! On and on and on. I’ll admit I was complicit in this ugly fascination too, which makes me feel ashamed. But at least I’m not a professional critic.

Google search for "Renée Zellweger weight gain"

How do you think this scrutiny makes an actress feel? Especially one possessing such openness and sensitivity? How did she block out all this toxicity? I’m guessing that no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t. It’s insidious and powerful. An actress can’t help but judge herself, to question her worth and to worry about her professional viability in the future. I have a hard time with my own efforts to be selectively sensitive. If Zellweger did have plastic surgery or fillers, she was probably trying to make herself feel better. To stave off the criticism and make her career last longer. To be proactive.

Whether he meant it or not, Gleiberman’s article was mean-spirited.  He mused her changed appearance would affect his enjoyment of her performance, all from the Bridget Jones's Baby’s trailer. He’s a film critic, not a pageant judge. I hope Renée Zellweger didn’t read his piece, but I’m guessing she’s at least heard the gist of it. When I read it I couldn’t help but think about myself: if I became famous, would I be placed under the same cruel microscope?

When a respected, influential film critic starts reviewing an actress’ looks instead of the movie she's in, he becomes no better than an tabloid gossip columnist. It’s demeaning to his profession. I think Renée Zellweger and his readers both deserve better.

Bridget Jones's Baby

Prince

I hated Prince in high school.

I was a timid, unsure girl. Up until ninth grade I was skinny, wore thick glasses and I parted my freakishly long hair—my dad wouldn’t let me cut it—in the middle and let it fall down my back in one long braid. I attended an all-girl school whose student body was almost exclusively wealthy. Although my family was by no means poor, we were middle class which made me feel poor by comparison. I saw no hope of moving up any rungs of the ladder.

Do you see what I mean?

And then I defied my father by cutting my hair slowly, inch-by-inch, at each sleepover at my friends’ houses. And I started parting my hair on the side. And I discovered vintage clothing so I could rebrand myself as vaguely quirky and disguise the fact that I couldn’t afford Agnes B like my classmates. And most importantly, I switched to contact lenses.

Life changed. I sensed attitudes about me shift seismically. The cool girls felt more comfortable talking to me and invited me places.  I started going to clubs and bars (carding people was extremely lax in 1980’s New York) and my new friends invited me to their country houses. It was a socially significant improvement.

But the most bewildering byproduct was that boys noticed me for the first time. Fear and maybe a little bit of anger clouded my happiness. Why now? I was the same person I’d always been, only the husk was different. As soon as they got to know me, these guys would see how profoundly awkward I was. If we kissed, they’d understand I didn’t belong, that I didn’t know anything, that other sophisticated, experienced girls would be more compelling, more aligned with their tastes.  

I’d always loved acting and maybe one of the reasons I’m good was because I spent a lot of time practicing in my daily life during my teenage years. I’d already figured out my costume, now I just had to figure out how to look and feel like I belonged. I favored the British method: start from outside and work my way in. I hoped with much rehearsal this act would stick.

But I was deeply afraid. I thought everybody saw me as a good girl and I’d put so much effort into that role: I did my homework. I was neat. I was polite. I didn’t make waves. I followed rules. And to me, all these qualities didn’t jibe with sex.  Somehow I got it in my mind that I couldn’t be good and also be sexual person, at least looking and feeling the way I did. You’d think going to a single-sex school would have built up my feminine self-esteem, but my high school was not that type of school. So I had these dark feelings I couldn’t parse because they didn’t match my exterior and I felt there was nowhere I could go. I talked to no one and was scared to go searching on my own.

I thought Prince was gross. Repulsive. Tiny, absurd, vulgar and a show-off.  But truthfully, he frightened me.  He wore sex graphically on his paisley sleeve. Like Bowie, he toyed with sexuality, but unlike Bowie, it wasn’t an intellectual exercise. It was dirty, explicit, flaunting and mocking. It dripped off him. “Darling Nikki” rubbed sex in my face. His music made me want to run away and hide.

In college I made a good friend named Gooey. No, I’m not making this up. Gooey was an honest-to-goodness eccentric and she took pity on me and held me under her wing. She lived in a one-room treehouse. She was from deep, rural North Carolina. She said without irony that her family was white-trash. In fact, they weren’t talking to her because she was dating a black man. She made her own clothes, she hardly drank and didn’t do drugs. She introduced me to her circle of smart and interesting friends, many of whom were musicians. She made me chicken and dumplings. I wrote her a recommendation when she applied to and was accepted into the Peace Corps. She was an extraordinary person.

Gooey probably explaining something to me

But perhaps what I associate most with Gooey was Prince. She played his music constantly. Pretty much exclusively and I was too much in awe of her to ask her to play anything else. So I sat in her treehouse and listened to the musician I couldn’t stand while she fed me dumplings.

Then one day I admitted that “Raspberry Beret” was pretty catchy. Come to think of it, “1999” was fun. “Purple Rain” was long and ornate, but the ending was mysterious and beautiful. Hmmm…maybe Prince wasn’t all that bad.

And then Gooey took me to the campus movie theater to see Purple Rain (of course I’d avoided seeing it when it first came out). Personally, I think Purple Rain is overblown and badly-acted (which doesn't stop me from watching it every time I'm flipping channels and happen to see it on TV). But those songs. Oh my god, those songs. I’d never seen any concert footage of Prince before and my mouth dropped to the floor. He played the guitar —and everything else—like an alien. And his dancing was unearthly too. For the first time, I understood Prince’s charisma. He was electric.

He was a virtuoso.  He was a genius. Yes, he was strange but I finally realized that with his songs, he was both serious and in on the joke. And it dawned on me I was the one who had been humorless.

One of my most prized possessions

I’d been wrong. I didn’t hate Prince at all. In fact, I realized I was actually crazy about him. I’d been running away from him and he was waiting for me all along, quixotic smile on his face, to wise up and realize he was exactly what I’d needed.

Girl, come here and let me whisper a secret in your ear you already know.

Sex. It’s part of life. In fact without it, there’s no life at all. Sex can be dirty and complicated and confusing and twisted and beautiful, sometimes all at once. Oh, also sex is fun! Why cut myself off from that just because I was scared to see it?

I’m fairly agnostic and Prince clearly was not, but we both agree that sex is a divine gift and maybe the closest most of us can come to god. Ecstasy makes us both intensely aware of our bodies but also transports us outside ourselves. In the moment it’s impossible to think of anything else but that light. Prince may have seen purple, but I see blue. It’s the brief Rapture that allows us to return to Earth. And in the Church of Prince, it’s not a sin. It’s a duty. Fucking, for Prince, is a way of praying. Prince’s glorious music is the choir and his lyrics are the prayerbook.

The Ladder. Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. Take Me with U.

And while Prince was sincere, he also toyed with and mocked sexuality. He looked both sensual and ridiculous. It was like he was daring us to try to classify and compartmentalize him: “Am I black or white, am I straight or gay/Controversy”

The hair, the make-up, the clothes - they were costumes. They weren’t how he dressed privately. Prince was genuinely eccentric, but his eccentricity also had a purpose. With each album he had a new look and a new sound, but one message he repeated over and over was this:  we are complicated people. No matter what sex we were born into, we are composites of both man and woman and sex lets us explore how we fit into the world.  

Not sure very many people could get away with this and still be taken seriously besides Prince. 
Pricilla wrote this wonderful piece about Prince. 

In the song “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” Prince tackles all of this:  If I was your girlfriend, would U tell me?

Would you let me see U naked then?

Would U let me give U a bath?

Would U let me tickle U so hard U’d laugh and laugh

And would U, would U let me kiss U there

U know down there where it counts

I’ll do it so good I swear I’ll drink every ounce

And then I’ll hold U tight and hold U long

And together we’ll stare into silence

And we’ll try 2 imagine  what it looks like

Yeah, we’ll try to imagine what, what silence looks like

Despite his bravado, it’s clear that Prince loved women. As you can see from those lyrics, he seemed very generous. He wrote very few fuck-and-run songs. He’s bold without being macho or sexist. Most of the artists he mentored and wrote songs for were women and most of his songs were about them. He put women on a pedestal but he was also more than happy to knock that pedestal over so they could get down in the mud and have fun together. His opinions altered when he became a Jehovah’s Witness, but when I began loving him, this was the message he gave to me:

You can be a Madonna and a whore at the same time and there are no judgments.

Maybe I would have explored this anyway during my college years, but his music in my consciousness encouraged me not to define and limit myself to being a chaste, “good” girl.  Good has nothing to do with denial. If I were truly good, I could search the deeper, darker parts of myself by myself or with other people and not compromise my essential nature in the least. This journey has gone in fits-and-starts and it’s not over yet, but despite never meeting him in person, Prince was one of the first to open my eyes to the notion that sex was crucial to my happiness and well-being.

There are so many reasons I love Prince other than his otherworldly talents. He was loyal to his fans, the people he worked with and his hometown. He could have lived anywhere but he chose to stay in Minneapolis and give back to the community. Despite his enormous fame and draw, he always played small, surprise venues to allow himself intimacy with his audience and to experiment musically. He honored and elevated the musicians who had influenced him not by copying them, but by filtering their music so that it was reminiscent but was its own transformed, unique creature. He also nurtured and promoted new artists. His battle with his record company was epic and brave. He was nobody’s slave. His music was for everybody, but he was always deeply committed to his community. He had a clever and sly sense of humor. For example, HE KICKED KIM KARDASHIAN OFF HIS STAGE BECAUSE SHE REFUSED TO DANCE!! How can anyone not love him for that?

I had hoped to see him perform. I thought there was plenty of time. As with Bowie, I stupidly believed, because he seemed superhuman, that Prince was immortal. He never lost his energy, his creativity or his edge. He almost looked the same as when he was nineteen and first appeared on American Bandstand. I can’t imagine anybody ever said “You know, it’s getting embarrassing. Prince should retire.” I never saw him live and I should have tried harder.

Perfect pop songs are almost impossible to write because they should be taken seriously but should also be catchy to reach a wide audience. My conservative guess is that Prince probably wrote at least 100 great pop songs (that I know of), appealing to people who liked not only that genre, but blues, soul, funk and rock n’ roll and music I can’t define. Black and white and all shades in between. “Money Don’t Matter 2 Night,” “Anotherloverholeinyohead,” “I could Never Take the Place of Your Man,” “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” etc. That’s insanity. There’s a vault in Paisley Park with thousands of Prince songs we’ve never heard. I’m overwhelmed by the thought of what gems are lying inside waiting to be loosed upon the world.

I’m crushed by Prince’s death. I can’t believe I feel this much sadness for someone I didn’t know in real life. I’m worried about what medical examiners will discover from his autopsy. I think he was in deep physical and psychic pain. Although I couldn’t hold Bowie in higher esteem, when he died I didn’t cry. I felt Prince’s death viscerally because he is partially responsible for teaching me how to live my life viscerally and with more passion. He sent a scared girl on her way with a gentle push to explore a dark, vast forest, like a benevolent version of the Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. I’m sure I’m not alone in my feelings and I’ll keep him and his music alive in my heart for the rest of my life.

Watch D'Angelo covers Prince on the Tonight Show

David Bowie

I didn’t think I’d write about David Bowie. There are so many people who are more devout and knowledgeable than I am. A few weeks ago I thought I’d have nothing to add to everyone's tsunami of grief.

But the night he died I couldn’t go to sleep. It was such a shock. True to form, Bowie kept his illness a secret. He’d released his latest album two days earlier to acclaim. On his sixty-ninth birthday. Of all rock star icons, he seemed immortal. He was unearthly and intangible. Like a mirage, never real to begin with.

I went on Twitter and listened to the people I follow and respect write one-hundred-forty-character tributes and prose-poems of admiration. I read old articles, I watched concert videos and songs my friends posted from YouTube. Twitter is wonderful at times like this. It was a late-night wake for a man whom almost everyone revered. I say "almost" to cover my ass, but I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t respect him. We all held invisible hands and shared thoughts, feelings and remembrances of him. It was quiet, sad and beautiful. 

I texted my friend Christiana who had schooled me on everything Bowie when we were in high school. Even though it was 4am on the East Coast, I knew she’d be up and she was. 

We reminisced.  We watched part of a concert Bowie had performed for the firefighters and policemen who served during 9/11. He sat at a toy piano singing Simon and Garfunkel’s “America” while a montage of New York City scenes played behind him. There was no grandstanding, no self-indulgent emoting. It was apolitical, egoless and simple. He sang to say thank you to them. That was it. And because he was unsentimental the song was moving beyond belief. 

That night Twitter engaged in the best kind of competition: “Isn’t this Bowie video great?”  “Yeah! but watch this!” "Yes! That's amazing, but look at this." I heard “Station to Station” for the first time thanks to @PixelatedBoat. I downloaded it and danced in my kitchen at three in the morning. The next day I listened BLACKSTAR. I had to pull over to the side of the road when I heard “I Can’t Give Everything Away.” Knowing what we know now, the song is devastating and brave. It must have been heart-wrenching for him to write but also imperative. 

I don’t pretend to understand all of David Bowie’s alchemy, but after many days thinking this is what I can articulate halfway. He was artificial but uncontrived. He was never out of fashion because he created fashion. His music was timeless. I shouldn’t even use the past tense because his songs will prove their own permanence. He was an approachable superhuman. Despite his stylized, aloof appearance he projected warmth in concert. Sometimes he was grotesque but he was always beautiful. He had an elementary sense of drama. Alien strangeness. One green eye, one brown. 

I could never put my finger on him. As soon as I became comfortable with one of his personas, Bowie slipped away from me like mercury. He claimed his songs weren’t autobiographical and never would be, but once again he tricked us. BLACKSTAR is intimate and personal. It’s his own retrospective he allowed us to experience fully only after he died. Ironically it was his best selling album. I imagine Bowie Cheshire Cat-smiling.

He was a great actor and he was very funny. All his performances, dramatic or comedic, revealed an oblique sense of humor. His correspondences and interviews displayed his wry wit repeatedly. It seemed like he could do anything.

Bowie even handled aging well which most Pop Stars' egos won't allow. Bowie’s innate dignity, intelligence and elegance wouldn't permit him to act the fool. Unlike many other musicians who travel to India for three months then add a sitar and "exotic" backup singers to their next album to look worldly, Bowie seamlessly and respectfully incorporated different forms of music into his own sound. He supported and promoted other artists. He simplified his look as he got older without losing his style. He never became a parody of himself. 

I’ve felt David Bowie’s death more acutely and enduringly than when most celebrities pass. It's obvious I’m not alone. We've lost someone unique and that's painful and hard. Thank god we have an embarrassment of riches from him to soften the blow. We will marvel at Bowie’s songs for as long as we live and we are lucky he came for a brief visit to our little planet.

The Force Awakens: One Woman's Conversion

After we found our seats in the movie theater, the woman sitting next to me and my two boys (five and eight) looked over at us and smiled. “Are your kids excited?” I told her yes, they were. “I think I was your older son’s age when I first saw Star Wars," she said. “I hope they love it as much as I did.”

I’m not a true Star Wars fan. I didn’t hate these movies—although I have completely forgotten The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith—I just  never felt any particular passion for them. As I drove my boys to The Arclight theater in Sherman Oaks, I had to call my ex-husband so he could tell me the Cliff Notes. I appreciated the series’ impact, but the movies seemed overblown, ponderous, not to my taste—like an overdone steak with Bleu cheese.

I dismissed the The Force Awakens frenzy on Twitter. I didn’t want to spoil other people’s fun, but my general attitude was, “Oh, guys are so silly.” I'd exempted myself from the discussion and didn't really want to see it. But, along with sacrificing one’s body, sleep, sex-drive, independence and sanity, another thing a mother must endure is watching movies she’d have no desire to see if it weren’t for the sake her children.

But something happened when I entered the theater. It buzzed and vibrated with anticipation. There was a sense of belonging, of communion and strangely, of support. The excitement was contagious. At that moment it hit me: The Force Awakens was going to make me eat my hat even if I wasn’t wearing one.

The lights dimmed—no one really paid attention to the previews, just get to the main event, already—then faded to black. People started clapping and whooping. That unmistakable logo flashed up on the screen and the familiar, soaring music blasted through the speakers. Everyone burst into spontaneous applause, gasps and grateful laughter. I scanned the theater and I felt everyone’s bliss surrounding me, a quasi-religious experience. The hairs on my arm stood up. As I whispered the expository scroll to my five year old, I felt a slight catch in my throat. What the hell was going on? Why did I care about this movie all of a sudden?

Apparently, I'm not the only one who loved The Force Awakens.

I loved The Force Awakens. My boys and I went back again. Two times in one week. I feel as uncomfortable and guilty as when, as Yankees fan, I jumped full-force on the Mets bandwagon during the World Series. Yes, I am a Janey-come-lately. I understand your disdain. I acknowledge it, and I accept full responsibility.

Not only did I think The Force Awakens was great for a Star Wars movie, it was up there with Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I saw five times in the theater the summer it came out. Both movies shot me out of a cannon and never stopped moving. Both never sacrificed fully-rounded characters for action. The script was lean and quick. The filmmakers  handled the exposition with grace and efficiency. The slower, more dialogue-heavy scenes only enhanced the speed and excitement of the action scenes that followed. I caught up on 30 years of backstory in under three minutes.

Chewbacca and Han Solo, back in the day.

The Force Awakens didn’t fall prey to the relentlessly solemn, self-important and dreary tone that seems to be the current fashion in other action movies. J. J. Abrams created a deft balance of light and dark—entirely appropriate considering its theme. And almost every character—not just Han Solo and Chewbacca—got to have his or her comedic moment in the sun, so to speak. The Force Awakens respected the reverence of its fans, while never taking itself too seriously, just like Raiders.

And speaking of Raiders: Harrison Ford. The audience cried out with pleasure when Han Solo  and Chewbacca burst into the Millennium Falcon. I certainly surprised myself by laughing and clapping. For me, Harrison Ford  always was the heart and soul of those movies, and he was back in true form. I don’t think I was alone in feeling I was reconnecting with an old friend, even more poignant because Han Solo actually was old this time. Curmudgeonly, irreverent, smart, sly and sarcastic; a good mask to cover up his sensitivity and vulnerability. That crooked, ironic smile. The perpetual loner and outsider. Perhaps, he connects to those of us who feel the same way in their own lives. In a world that often seems to run on incomprehensible rules (for example, the perpetual teenage state of being), he is a rebel who charts his own course and gets by on his intelligence, his wit and his ability to improvise. For his constant companion, he chooses  an odd, loyal, hairy creature who speaks a language few people but he can understand: an imaginary friend come to life. Han Solo helps those of us who feel we might be a few steps out of rhythm with the rest of the planet at least pretend we are attractive and singular instead of just being alone. Again, I felt a catch in my throat.

Old pro's.

And when Han Solo, dying on the Starkiller Base’s vertiginous bridge, reached out and stroked the face of the son he lost to the Dark Side, my eyes welled up again. I am neither a father nor a son, but I do sympathize with that often difficult, conflicted relationship.

Fathers don’t carry a baby in their body for nine to ten months. Their feelings for their children often manifest later than mothers. When struggling with the concept of what it means to be a man, how does a father teach his son what he’s not sure he understands himself?  He loves his son, but he’s competitive with him. Historically, fathers often left their sons for the majority of their childhood while they worked, but then were resentful when their sons wanted to distance themselves psychologically from them as well. I see with my own own boys how difficult it is to raise good men. It’s confusing. Signals are often crossed. Messages are mixed. Even if there is a backlash against the term “manly,” many still look down on men if they cry. (You only have to listen to last week’s scathing criticism of Obama when a few tears involuntarily ran down his cheek as he talked about first graders gunned down at Sandy Hook. This from the same people who have alternately accused him of being too remote and professorial on every other issue). I’ve seen for myself the stay-at-home fathers in my sons’ schools unconsciously ostracized by moms at social gatherings, as if we still don’t know what to make of them.

The struggle between fathers and sons is a dominant theme throughout the Star Wars series. The wish for connection and understanding verses the battle for control. A longing for each other, however perverse and fraught. Abandoned sons, unknown fathers. Love and death inextricably linked. Luke helped lead “the Rebellion” against his yet undiscovered father. The audience saw the conflict even reflected in the color of their costumes. As clear as black and white. Both fathers and sons are lost in space looking for the gravitational pull of the other.

Kylo Ren wore a mask to disguise the fact that secretly he was a scared boy. The filtered, altered voice hid any vocal nuance and hesitancy. It shielded the eyes that brimmed with tears. But when the mask came off, Kylo Ren was Ben again. A boy who missed his father but felt reconnecting was capitulating to weakness and failure. I looked over at my older son after Han Solo tumbled off that bridge and thought about the inevitable struggles he will face as he navigates manhood, and I felt my chest tighten.

I loved Rey, too. As a woman, I felt validated. She was the opposite of a helpless victim. She didn’t want to hold Finn’s hand when he tried to help her escape. She overpowered Kylo Ren’s Dark Force with her righteous one. She impressed Han Solo with her abilities. Leia noticed a younger, shimmering reminder of herself. Rey was a “princess” also, but not in the classic, passive, Rapunzel mold.

New favorites

Alone on Jakku, she learned how to make her way and survive in the desert wasteland.  A weaker person would have perished from thirst, famine and maybe worst of all, loneliness. She hardly talked to a soul until BB-8 appeared, but she had a purpose which kept her company: to survive until her “family” came back for her. She carved a wall with chit-marks for each day that passed, like prisoners do in their jail cells to keep from going crazy. She taught herself how to scavenge.  She taught herself how seemingly random objects she found fit together to make something useful to her.  

In a series that has been dominated by male characters, it was refreshing to have Rey, like Finn, expand the diversity of the Star Wars “world.” I loved seeing Leia’s role deepen as well. C-3PO called her “Princess Leia,” but then immediately corrected himself:“General Leia.” It was a nice, subtle, but significant touch. 

Then and now

In addition to Anakin/Luke and Han Solo/Ben relationships, The Force Awakens also touched on what happens to daughters when their fathers abandon them. When George Lucas ignored how Leia felt about being Darth Vader’s daughter, it grazed sexism. There was loneliness in Rey’s eyes as she waited for whomever she thinks would come rescue her from Jakku. Because she had spent almost all of her life alone in an uninhabitable world, she was stoic, serious and mature beyond her years. But she was still a young woman, full of feeling and longing as hard as she tried to hide it. When she met BB-8, Finn, Han Solo and Chewbacca (her non-related family) and left the limbo of Jakku, she learned to trust and rely on people other than herself. Even moments of happy surprise, relief and delight began to flash across her face.

Whether Luke is her real father or not, The Force Awakens tied them together intrinsically. I saw them begin to bridge their two isolated worlds—one formerly from the desert, one now atop a rocky island—in the final moment of the film. Rey held out the lightsaber to Luke. It’s the start of a connection, an understanding, an alliance and perhaps even a family. I can’t wait to see how their relationship develops in Episode VIII.

My five year old—perhaps too young for this movie—curled up and fell asleep on my lap. His warm little body lay across mine, his head pressed up against my neck. My older son sat two seats away from me, transfixed by the images on the screen, the blue light of the final battle flickered on his attentive face. It seemed to me, from the alternating cheers, laughter and rapt silence, that everyone watching The Force Awakens was enraptured. We were transported back in time, before life got complicated. This was a “long ago, far away” world both exotic and familiar. We were lost in the uncertain vastness of space, looking for our home. This was an adventure grounded in the search for family and identity based in real human emotions of fear, longing, sadness, love and regret. We were a bunch of strangers sitting in a shopping mall theater in Sherman Oaks, California, all travelling  together on the same journey.

We clapped, we stayed until the Bad Robot tag. No one wanted to leave. Like a great production of Shakespeare, I didn’t have to understand every plot point or word. The writers, director, producers and actors did, and they made its meaning fluent. I left The Force Awakens feeling I had an experience that was bigger than myself, a universal one that the moviemakers passed on to my kids and all the kids in that theater, the way legendary tales have always been.