DEFENDING DAWN:

CONFESSIONS OF A MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG FAN

"I'm happy to read that you're now in love with Ellen Muth instead of Michelle Trachtenberg," Angela said.

"Yeah," I replied, "Perhaps it's just the pouty little blonde girl in a power suit thing but the truth is that she is just so talented and such a great actress."

"She's great," Angela agreed, "And she's so brilliant on Dead Like Me.  So much better then Michelle Trachtenberg on Six Feet Under."

"Yeah, heh heh," I muttered. Honestly, I had missed the first few episodes of Six Feet Under this year and I had yet to see Michelle in the role of pop singer Celeste who Keith has been hired as a body guard for. However, an odd thing occurred at that moment. I suddenly felt sad and a bit guilty. As irrational as it may seem it was as if I had scorned Micelle Trachtenberg. Oh, my dear Michelle, how could I have forsaken you so?

Nobody in my world seems to understand my interest in Michelle Trachtenberg.  She isn't the type of celebrity I usually follow.  Her career is so current that she isn't that dipped into the history of pop culture yet, nor does she have the cult appeal of many of my favorite celebrities.   And I must admit that at my age it seems indecent to follow the career of an actress ten years younger than me so intensely, and especially when I show little to no interest in nearly every celebrity that is currently alive or actively working in show business today. Making it more strange is the fact that Michelle Trachtenberg is not one of the current icons of the entertainment world. She's not the most glamorous, she's not the most interesting, she's not the most famous nor is she doing the most brilliant projects. She's not gaining the most headlines nor is she being followed intensely by the tabloids.  She probably will never be the next "it" girl.  However, despite what she's not, Michelle Trachtenberg is my favorite celebrity currently working in show business.  So if this is the reality of Michelle, then why do I adore her so much?

Well perhaps Michelle may not be the biggest celebrity name in the media today, she does have the ability to maintain her career, and has been doing so since the age of eight when she got her first full time series as Lily Benton in the classic daytime drama All My Children in 1993.  However, Michelle first hit the pop culture radar a year later when she played Harriet in the Nickelodeon film Harriet the Spy and later received attention playing Penny in the live action version of Inspector Gadget starring Matthew Broderick. However, where I first saw Michelle was when she was cast in probably her most famous role to date in Buffy the Vampire Slayer playing Buffy's little sister Dawn. When it was first announced that Buffy would be acquiring a kid sister in the fifth season of the cult series I was, as were most fans, skeptical. All I could think was that Dawn was going to be nothing more than a Chachi character - the cute kid added to the series in a lame attempt to pump up ratings. That summer I was at a panel at a fandom convention featuring Buffy star Anthony "Giles" Stewart-Head and he was bombarded with questions about Dawn. The fans were worried, and Tony knew it. However, all he kept repeating was, "Trust Joss", referring to Buffy creator, producer, writer and director Joss Whedon. That's what I decided to do and when Dawn finally appeared I was glad that I did.

My first thought of Michelle, who was barely sixteen at the time, was that she was going to be a knock out when she grew up. She was just such a pretty and charismatic kid. However, as the season progressed a strange thing happened. Perhaps it was the brilliant plot and writing of the fifth season of Buffy, or perhaps it was Michelle's flawless portrayal of Dawn, but after a while I began to become so gripped by the character that I realized that although I had been watching "Buffy" for years, now Dawn, this new "Chachi" character, was becoming the new reason I was tuning in each week. I just adored the character and the actress that played her. I honestly think what hooked me was the chemistry that she had with actor James Marsters who played my other favourite Buffy character, Spike the vampire, who found himself hopelessly in love with Buffy and trying to make good. His performance was emotionally packed that year and his role as protective "older brother" to Dawn, the only character that seemed to believe in him, drew me in time and time again. I loved when the two of them were on the screen together and I began to care about them over all the other characters.

For the type of role that Michelle was doing she was perfect. She made Dawn be bright, likeable, annoying, articulate and clever all at the same time. As the Scooby Gang tried to protect her from the evil goddess Glory, many viewers felt the need to protect her too. However, there was another and often more vocal side to the fandom - those who hated Dawn. The following summer I made a number of enemies at a dreadful science fiction convention that had a special panel dedicated to hating Dawn. My geekiness came out as I argued with the panel leader for nearly an hour as fifty or more people watched, arguing that Dawn added a new life and breath of freshness into the series that had lost ratings the year before in the season where Buffy teamed up with the military. In retrospect I think most Buffy fans agreed. The season introducing Dawn saw the ratings soar again to brand new heights and the series ran two more years and wisely bowed out while on top.

However, as the series was coming into its final weeks, I remember feeling strange when I realized the thing I was going to miss the most was seeing Michelle on TV every week. I really was rooting for Michelle, now seventeen years old, to have a great career. It was also clear that I was right. That kid did grow up to be a serious knock out! As the series came to a close I vowed that I would support every project that Michelle took part in. I'd see every film, every television project, buy the mug and get the T-shirt if it did my part in supporting my favorite young actress.

That is where the disappointment and confusion began. Michelle's first major post-Buffy project was the comedic travesty called Eurotrip. Disgustingly unfunny and viciously tasteless it was painful to see Michelle in probably one of the worst films I had seen in a long time. Mind you, Michelle was great. She was just as cute as ever and did that daring, now famous, white bikini scene. However, considering it was flashed on every commercial for the film Michelle fans could have saved a lot by just staying at home. Some fans screamed that the bikini scene was disgusting and had turned Michelle into a cheap sex object or a slut. Michelle was quoted as saying that it was her way of trying to show the world that she had grown up (she was, by this point, almost nineteen). I just saw it as more exposure for the dear girl. Good or bad she wasn't fading into the background like most child stars had. However, I was saddened by her lack of selectivity when it came to choosing projects. Perhaps it's a passage of right for a former child actress to appear in sophomoric garbage like Eurotrip.  However other child actresses such as Kirsten Dunst, Christina Ricci and Natalie Portman carefully chose their roles to grow up on screen, Michelle was taking the worst way out by making cheap films aimed towards the film audience with the lowest intellect.

A quick look at Michelle's upcoming projects on the Internet Movie Database is a mixed bag. Mysterious Skin, which is due to premier at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004, is most likely the highlight. Dealing with the heavy subject of childhood sexual abuse. Michelle plays the best friend of a gay man who attempts to deal with his abuse as a child. If done well it may pay off. We shall see. Her following two projects, Odd Girl Out about a girls' school rivalry between two rich snobs and Ice Princess, a live action Disney movie about a figure skater, look like the type of thing I wouldn't personally be interested in, but they could have a strong audience appeal. Vinyl which is due out in 2005 which Michelle co-stars in, has barely anything revealed about it so it's just a matter of time to see how that takes off. However, the eternal fan boy in me is always going to fondly remember Michelle as Dawn Summers, so you can bet I'm gonna stick with the kid through these films. I doubt they can get worse than Eurotrip anyhow - hopefully that will be the lowest point of her career. Is Michelle a shining star? Perhaps my friends that love to hate her so much are right. Perhaps she is not. However it doesn't really matter. Michelle, I love ya kid. I'm gonna stick with you through thick and thin. You make the movies and I'm gonna see them. Just... how about making some grade A movies - huh? For this fan at least.

But wait - there is that pretty sweet exposure on Six Feet Under which I consider to be the best television show made in the last thirty years or so...well friends, tonight I finally saw an episode of Six Feet Under featuring Michelle. Angela was right. She's no Ellen Muth.   However, Ellen Muth doesn't hold my heart strings quite like Michelle Trachtenberg does.  *sigh*

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