mel brewster art

Just A Girl

I have been a big fan of Princess Leia for a long time – in a world of princesses who wore pretty dresses and were damsels in distress but not a lot going on besides that, Leia came along and was a strong female character who actually had her own story and personality… and that was pretty rare when I was younger. So she’s still my girl.

The words that are around her (for the Death Star and for the hills behind her) are made up from sections of the words used in the title crawl of various of the Star Wars movies. The words that make up the visually heavier parts of Leia are made up from lines that she has in the movies, and the words that are larger and that make up the lighter sections of Leia are from a song called “Just A Girl” by No Doubt (1995) because I felt like that song kind of summed up a lot of what Princess Leia’s angst might have looked like. I did this because what’s outside of her is what’s obvious and what is outside of her control: it’s literally written onto the screen and she just has to live within those parameters. Most of what is seen and noticed about Leia are the words that she says, but we can also see the song lyrics that I’m imagining into her story as the feelings that she might be having. I think that we all have some of these same elements to us: the world around us – much of which is largely outside of our control throughout our lives, the things we say and the ways that we present ourselves to the world, and then our inner feelings and personhood which end up being the most interesting and most complicated parts of us. Also, I was a teenager in the nineties and this song felt true to my experience at the time so maybe I was also just being nostalgic too.  😉