R.i.P. Michelle Trachtenberg

[cjlasky7]

No.

At first, I couldn't believe what I was reading. It had to be a sick internet joke. But no--it was all too real. My last sustained memory of MT was the final episode of BUFFY and she was still a child. Now, she's dead before the age of 40, supposedly due to... natural causes.

"Natural"?! Dying at 39 is not natural.

As a BUFFY fan (and as a moderately empathetic human being) this was all upsetting enough. But then you dig into the reports about her life as a child actor, how she was abused by her schoolmates as "that girl on TV" during her pre-teen years and you wonder if the Hollywood that brought her fame and wealth also destroyed her health. And as a BUFFY fan, you are also forced to remember the horrifying rule on the set of BtVS:

Never, NEVER leave Michelle alone with Joss Whedon.

The reason behind that rule has never been made public, and until one of the cast breaks the silence, we can only speculate. But it's not speculation that her self image took a battering on that set. It's a chilling reminder that the Hollywood Dream Factory is, at its core, a factory. And factories often do not care who gets caught up in the gears.

Comments

[ann1962]

She had a liver transplant recently, and they suspect rejection. She dealt with so much.

[shadowkat]

Eh, Michelle was a child actress who came up through Nickelodean, which...kind of makes Buffy seem like a cake walk in comparison. They did a documentary on how bad it was a while back, that I kind of jumped over. But from all reports? Bad. It's better now. But the industry wasn't nice in the 20th Century and early 00s. That's actually true of most industries, in particular the glamour ones. Publishing is horrible - I know someone who wrote a book about serial bullying and 90% of the stories were from the publishing industry. NBC? I was told that interviewing for NBC was akin to being put on a chair and interrogated while they shown a spotlight on you. GE was run like a machine - they watched every move you made. It was horrible. No, it's not just Hollywood. I worked for a bank where they just yelled at people constantly. Theater? Ugh. Music Industry? Oh dear, no. Ballet? Ouch. Aft? Don't get me started. Fashion? Ha.

This is not an easy world to live in. The default is selfish asshole syndrome. People put their self-interest above all else.

My niece has the right idea - she goes camping every weekend in Montana.

[cjlasky7]

I saw that documentary on the Nickelodeon system. There were a lot of damaged kids coming out of that system, the kind of damage that stays with you for years afterward.

I was thinking about deleting this post. I thought I was bringing up too many old wounds, focusing too much on Michelle as a victim and not paying tribute to her as an actress and a person. The fact is, I did enjoy her on Buffy--even if I didn't care for her plotlines most of the time. I thought she had a natural talent for comedy that complemented the rest of the cast beautifully. ("Pls stp tlkng abt vmt!") I didn't watch Gossip Girl regularly, but she dove into the role of evil bitch with joyful enthusiasm.

And whatever problems she might have had on Buffy, she made lasting friendships there, friendships that held strong 20 years later. Today, Alyson Hannigan and Emma Caulfield posted personal goodbyes. SMG--her big sister--actually quoted the tower speech from The Gift.

I think I'll go watch Blood Ties. Or Forever. Or Him.

[shadowkat]

I just posted a link to E Online's collection of posts regarding Dawn: Marsters, Gellar, Caulfield, Hannigan, Lively, Crawford, Cattrall, O'Donnell... there's more out there. She had a lengthy career prior to Buffy. And Buffy was only 3 years of her life, actually less than that - they film about half a year. So about six months a year? She starred with Kim Cattrall in Ice Princess, and O'Donnell in Harriet the Spy. This was long before she got the role of Dawn on Buffy.

She lived a good life. And wisely stayed off a lot of the internet (Buffy fandom was obnoxious about Dawn. When they fans hate a character - they kind of become toxic about it on the internet.)

[shadowkat]

I've been watching random Buffy episodes from S1. Well it started being random, now it's just starting at S1 in chronological order skipping over the ones I don't want to see again. And not every day, just random days when I feel like it. It's comforting to me. And some episodes really hold up well. Oddly in S1 the episodes that hold up the best are the ones that aren't about the vampires and the campy Master plotline. The Witch and The Pack are rather brilliant.