Stella, stella, celebrity and celebration
Stella Young, total BAMF. Rest in peace and power!
[a line drawing of Stella Young wearing a pink shirt that says 'inspiration boner killer' and holding a glass of beer]
I've never been too connected with or interested in celebrity. As a teenager I never had celebrity crushes or role-models, never followed them in the news, even now I'm lucky if I can get a name right every so often. And this is going to make me sound super callus and awful, but I never quite understood how so many people could feel such personal loss and grief at a celebrity death. Of course it's sad, but death is sad. And death happens every day.
But December 8th of this year found me crying on a crowded, long-distance bus and feeling supremely awkward and tense about it. (I never used to be much of a crier and oh, how that is changing these past couple of months... more on that soon). On this particular morning I had found out that Stella Young – an amazing disabled Australian activist, comedian, writer, and total BAMF – had died unexpectedly. She was 32 and had just penned an amazing letter to her 80-year-old-self the month before (sequal to her equally amazing letter to her 16-year-old-self, which I think every young disabled person, hell every young person, hell every person, ought to read).
You could say that Stella was my first real celebrity crush (finally, at 22!). It took me a while to notice her because I didn't know I was looking for her. During adolescence I'd pour over Teen-Vogue and other stupid teen-media just flipping through pages, almost frantically, without even realizing that I was looking for bodies that were vaguely like mine and celebrated. Of course I never found them.
We live in a society that makes it extremely difficult for anyone to enjoy their bodies, and certain groups of people live with daily reminders that our bodies specifically are not expected to be enjoyed. I can't even recount the many ways I've been taught to be ashamed of this little body of mine: from the ongoing “I can fix that” (even with purely aesthetic things) from doctors and surgeons to the “let's hide that” from well-meaning retail staff to awkward attention from yoga instructors and anatomy students to comments from strangers to the kid who dared another kid a dollar to dance with me at the middle-school dance (yeah I still remember that) to the dude I went on some dates with last year who said he'd be down to hook up but he wasn't attracted to me. Seriously, Okay! OKAY I GET IT WORLD. (AND FUCK YOU TOO).
I was first acquainted with Stella's writing back in 2012 with this hilarious piece about inspiration, which made sense of a huge uncomfortable facet of my childhood that I had never been able to explain before. A few months later I saw a picture of her in a friend's project, “This is What Disability Looks Like,” and I thought: damn, what a fucking badass, who IS this person. Then I found out that she was a comedian, then I found out that she has OI, then I was officially crushing.
Discovering Stella's work coincided with a massive shift in identity for me – that summer I attended my first National OI Conference since I was eight. I started to narrate disability back in my life-story, after it had been so conspicuously absent for so many years. (It would still be a few more years until I actually said out loud, “As a disabled woman...” in reference to myself). I started to feel the tiny tentative beginnings of pride.
Over the next few years, Stella continued to influence me for so many reasons. She gave this amazing TED talk on disability that went viral, she was a brilliant journalist, and she advocated for disability justice, ending domestic violence, and so much more. Obviously, all of this is super important and admirable, and there's no way or reason to order Stella's many accomplishments. But what really blew me away on a personal level was her fierce, defiant, public celebration of her own disabled body. In Stella – in the way she dressed and swore and wrote about herself, in the way she smiled knowingly in photos - I found the permission to love and celebrate my own body that I didn't even realize I was looking for.
People are charmed when I introduce my wheelchair by her first name (stella, as older readers already know!). They're surprised and delighted; it probably seems incongruous that I've tenderly named an object that carries such negative connotations, such cultural baggage. Occasionally people have asked why I chose that name, and I used to give a short off-hand response, “oh, it seemed to fit,” or, “oh I kinda named it after this writer and comedian who also has OI.” I don't think I even realized the significance of it myself until I was suddenly crying on the bus, when I finally understood how deeply Stella Young had affected me, and how intensely my choice of name was in homage to her. I named stella in hopes of invoking a little of Stella's humor, attitude, fiesty irreverence and irresistible charm. Contarary to what a lot of able-bods expect, I have no negative feelings toward my wheelchair. I have PLENTY of negative feelings toward the physical environment which so often makes using my wheelchair a painful and limiting experience, but I understand my wheelchair itself as a tool that celebrates my body, not something that limits it.
Now I can see why I was so alarmingly moved by the loss of this stranger from across the planet; my first celebrity crush. The world will never see another Stella Young, but here's to seeing so many more wild, witty, smart, defiant, angry, funny, feminist, sexy, self-loving disabled people in the media.
Stella, you are gloriously missed!
