Star (Wars) in their eyes

In the same vein as the ‘popular’ Men who look like animals/vegetables series, I bring you Star Wars character looky-likeys.

Do you want to see some tenuous resemblances between famous people and your favourite rubber monsters, shiny robots and aliens? Don’t be silly - of course you do!

First up the iconic golden know-it-all and insufferable fusspot, robot C3PO

Separated at inception, from…

Charles Hawtrey!

Friends, I’m convinced that George Lucas based his golden robot on this actor from the ‘Carry on’ films. Hawtrey even plays a multilingual character in the early (and one of the only good) Carry on films, Carry On Regardless.

Second up, everyone's favourite Wookie, Chewbacca

Twinned with great actor and all round dude, Jeff Bridges

Next in the spotlight is the cuddly little fella, the Ewok. Ewoks are somewhat divisive; many thinking they're too cute and have no business in the franchise. As I came to Star Wars as a child and a child with a penchant for cuddly toys, I've always liked the Ewoks and this is my candidate for the Ewok looky-likey:

Ewok

Kenny Rogers

OK so any bearded man might be a candidate here, but let's face it, Country and Western legend Rogers ticks a couple of boxes - hairy, a bit squishy-face and with Ewok-like teeth.

I have to admit that I'm running out of steam a bit here, reader; peopele have already drawn parallels between Jabba the Hutt's toady, Salacious Crumb and fascist fuckwit, Nigel Farage (and I can't bear to pollute this post with his image. Any comparisons with Jabba himself might bring accusations of fat shaming, so I'd prefer not to go there. So, I'm going to have to end with a rather obvious, really lazy one (which is perhaps what Lucas himself was doing) and say:

Gredo

And

One of these prawns!

Thank you and goodnight.

Write it down

I was a teenage cliche; I wore a lot of black, including heavy black eyeliner, I slumped around the house in an apathetic torpor and I wrote reams of poetry.

To talk about it a little less flippantly, years ago I suffered from a dreadful, terrifying bout of anxiety and depression. It’s not a secret; I’ve written about it here:

http://msmuddles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/the-missing-piece.html

I didn’t feel that I had anyone I could talk to about this - and this is one of the worst things about mental illness/depression; that horrible sense of isolation*, but this was when I started writing poetry. Terribly earnest, revealing stuff - more of an outpouring of uncontrollable thoughts and emotions than a structured bit of verse. But perhaps, at a time when there was none to talk to, it helped.

*This is something that needs to be addressed; particularly when you consider that suicide is one of the biggest killers of young men in the U.K.

I’m constantly reading of the cathartic power of writing things down, these days. An article in Stylist magazine about managing anger, suggests writing about your angry feelings to identify what’s bothering you. The artcile suggests that this might be more helpful than giving vent to your rage:

http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/how-to-be-less-angry-the-seven-proven-ways-to-control-and-defuse-rage-temper-tips-anger-management

The NSPCC recommends encouraging children to write things down, among other things, to help them deal with stress. To try and write down or draw what's bothering them:

https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/your-feelings/anxiety-stress-panic/coping-with-stress/?utm_source=facebook_mainnspcc&utm_medium=nspccsocialmedia&utm_campaign=ownfacebook_post

There is a regular piece in the Guardian entitled ‘The letter you always wanted to write’, which is self-explanatory really.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/13/a-letter-to-my-parents-whose-favouritism-ripped-our-family-apart

I haven’t made a secret of the fact that I see a counsellor. Sometimes, between sessions, if I’m feeling troubled, I email my therapist. She always said that I could ring her if I needed to, but I hate talking to people on the phone, so I email instead. These emails can sometimes be a huge, splurgy outpouring of emotion. More often than not, I don’t actually send them - finding that the simple act of writing it down will have helped. (Sometimes I will send it for the sensation of making a connection or being ‘heard’. The adolescent poetry didn’t have an ‘audience’.) I rarely do this nowadays, finding that the longer I’m in therapy, the less I need to do contact her between sessions.

Getting back to the poetry, do you know what's great about writing about your feelings as poems? The verse form seems to lend itself better to expressing your feelings, than simple prose. Perhaps because it's it's more fluid and free from constraints, you feel like you can give vent. The repetition can give emphasis to certain points, perhaps highlighting areas you need to work on. If you tell yourself that no one will ever see it, it will give you the freedom to write whatever you want; be as self-indulgent as you need to be.
I'm not suggesting that it will solve all mental health issues; simply that it might be one thing to do to help.

Why not give it a go?  You don't have to show it to anyone but who knows, it might be the start of a glittering new career...

Flying in the face of...

The last thing I wrote was about trying to embrace ‘body positivity’. I’d really like to adopt the whole ‘good enough’ mantra of the Body positive movement, I feel that it would make life happier. But there is a great disparity between agreeing with something theoretically, and feeling it and really taking it on board, emotionally. It’s very hard to override a lifetime of conditioning, let alone the media onslaught of unhelpful and restrictive beauty ‘ideals’.

Let's a a quick glimpse at The Media. The Media; that big glossy, shiny playground bully, whispering bitchy put-downs in your ear.

Where to even start with it's reach?

Page 3 and the commodification of women’s bodies/Representation: lack of variety in the ethnicities of models, not to mention body sizes*/Fucking articles about celebrities getting their ‘pre-baby’ body back/Fatphobia as the ‘acceptable’ and perfectly legal form of discrimination/The dark, murky corners of the comments sections…

I could go on and on but I feel that I’m preaching to the converted here. We all know about the subtle and not so subtle messages that we’re bombarded with on a daily basis, don’t we? Even if you only read ‘reputable’ newspapers (online) you might still see links to clickbait articles about people who’ve had the temerity to put on weight and/or surrender to the biological ageing process: ‘You won’t berl---eeve what these formerly hot stars look like now!’ That sort of thing.

*It’s testament to how little we see a range of female body types in TV that it was just so groundbreaking to see a ‘normal’ looking naked women in Lena Dunham’s Girls (Lena Dunham herself). If you want to see a greater range of bodies and ethnicities, you might want to watch Orange is the new Black.

The cast of 'Orange is the New Black'

Whilst researching the Body Positivity movement I found this post very helpful, it’s 5 things to do to help you feel more body positive.

http://www.themilitantbaker.com/2016/07/5-simple-things-you-can-do-to-start.html

I was particularly struck by point 5:  Stop any negative talk about other people’s bodies.

This strikes me as being an important step to becoming more accepting of your own body. We are programmed to be highly critical of other women. (see the clickbait ‘You won’t ber-leeve…’ story again.) And if you can’t be neutral, non-judgemental or kind about others, it flicks back in a negative loop onto yourself. That omniscient critical gaze has got its sights on us all. (A wise woman has also told me that it’s a way of transferring your own insecurity onto someone else and, because it’s only temporary, it doesn’t work.) Being judgemental about another woman’s fat arse will not make you feel better about yourself, in the long term.
If that all sounds sanctimonious and preachy, I’ll admit that I do assess other women - strangers, critically, sometimes. Even if I try not to give voice to those feelings, I can’t quite stop thinking them. I went shopping the other day and, with very little time to spare, tried on some clothes from the 'sales' rack. Everything I tried on looked shit and I came away feeling gargantuan and hideous. I then tried to deflect these feelings by negatively assessing the other women I saw. Why was I getting so het up? I thought, wryly, when many of the women I walked past looked like Easter eggs with pony tails? I’m not proud of this. Writing it down makes it look even worse! But what the writer of the article in the link above suggests, is to slightly alter your thinking by saying ‘I’m noticing this…’ to yourself. I’m noticing that that woman is wearing a Minions hair clip’, etc. Rather than giving full negative force to what you were thinking.

In some circles  there is an intellectual denial of the body and its concerns and a person could be perceived to be shallow for worrying about it at all. In a floating head Utopia this would be the case but when women in the public eye are trolled for not being perceived to be attractive, it impacts on women as whole. How ludicrous would have been for David Starkey or Simon Scharma to have been vilified and abused about their appearance in the way that prominent Cambridge historian, Mary Beard, was? Imaging the furore if there had been a front page spread comparing the legs of Jeremy Corbyn, to those of David Cameron? (And of course Jezza would have come off worse)

I feel the need to state that this is not an anti-fitness and health stance, not for me anyway. In fact I kind of feel that if you like and respect your body, you are more likely to treat it with care and respect. I wrote in the past about striving to not pass on any body neuroses or issues around food onto my daughters: http://msmuddles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/trying-not-to-pass-it-on.html

God knows they are going to be bombarded with enough toxic messages from the outside world as they get older. I feel that we need to give them a solid base of self-esteem and a healthy perspective about body image. The thing is, am I really able to provide those things if I don’t adopt that stance myself?
One of the many pages I follow on Facebook is ‘A Mighty Girl’. Their mission statement is this:

A Mighty Girl is the world’s largest collection of books, movies, and music for parents, teachers, and others dedicated to raising smart, confident, and courageous girls.

One of the books they recommended for fostering self esteem in young girls was this:

I duly purchased the book. The first time I read it to them, the older child said;

‘I like myself!’

And I thought - YEAH!