Thinking About Michelle Trachtenberg, 'Harriet the Spy', and Little Millennial Writer Girls

We're still way too young to lose Millennial icons...

When I saw the headline last week that Michelle Trachtenberg died at the age of 39, I was shocked. 39 years old is young. I know this; I’m only about a month and a half away from turning 39! If I died right now (poo poo poo), people would say that I still had so much of my life left to live! Michelle Trachtenberg had so much life left to live. But unlike many of us Millennials, she’s already lived so much life.

She got her start in commercials, like so many of her contemporaries did back then. She then did a three-year stint on All My Children, which was required viewing in my house. My mom would tape AMC everyday until I was in high school. Her and my grandmother never missed their “stories” if they could help it. (I’m sure I’ll write about this at length one day in the future.) Trachtenberg’s time on the soap ran concurrent with her time on The Adventures of Pete & Pete, a show I knew of and saw occasionally. It was a little too weird for me personally at that age! I have always been basic as hell.

As a teen, she did shows that I didn’t watch, including Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Gossip Girl. I did however, go see the live-action movie adaptation of Inspector Gadget where she played his niece Penny. My best friend and I went because we were obsessed with the song “I’ll Be Your Everything” by the boy band Youngstown, which was the main single from the film and featured over the end credits. I’m sorry, we were very cringe back then. I also remember enjoying the movie Ice Princess. Really, I think I was more into the soundtrack? There were some bangers on there, like “Get Your Shine On” by Jesse McCartney, and “Reach” by Caleigh Peters. But I digress.

The role I’ll always remember Michelle Trachtenberg for is Harriet M. Welsch in the 1996 Nickelodeon film Harriet the Spy.

I loved that movie so much for a variety of reasons. As a girl who had a penchant for writing stories, I loved seeing a girl who liked to observe and write down her thoughts. Harriet was a lot more observant about the people in her life than I ever was. And even if I had given much thought to those around me in that way, I don’t know if I would have written them down. That was something I did when I was much older and should have known better. (Yes, I did almost lose an internship after I started a blog where I trashed my fellow interns and supervisors.)

I think it was less that I saw myself in Harriet, and actually aspired to be as brave and unapologetic as she was. She wasn’t afraid to put her brutally honest observations about her friends in a notebook without a lock. And when they found out, she didn’t try to backtrack from what she said. Harriet very much owned who she was and what she believed, which is a big deal for a ten-year-old girl, especially back in the 90s, or even in the 60s, when the original book was written. Harriet never let anyone stand in her way when it came to being her truest self, and shit, that’s still an admirable lesson.

When Harriet’s “spy” notebook gets stolen by her sworn enemy and read to everyone, they realize that no one is spared, not even her best friends. Of course, everyone shuns her, and they very well should. Making fun of your best friend’s family for being poor is a shitty thing to do, even if you’re only ten. But her parents probably made comments about Sport’s dad, so it makes sense that Harriet would parrot the things she heard adults say. I’ll never forget Harriet, covered in blue paint and slapping Marion across the face. I had a bully back then, and while she was never so bold as to do something like that, I still wished I could have been strong enough to stand up to her.

Harriet Welsch was a very unlikeable little girl. However, she wasn’t a bully. That was something rare, and something that has stayed with me in the almost 30 years since the movie was released. She’s not presented as cruel, just painfully honest. That does have its own downsides, especially for women, and even more so for young women. She’s merely capturing the world as she sees it, and if other people can’t understand that, it’s not her problem.

But even an intentionally unlikeable girl needs some sort of moral compass, and Harriet has that in the form of her nanny, Ole Golly, played brilliantly by

ROSIE ODONNELL

. I can’t say for sure, but I bet Rosie played a big part in why I loved the movie so much; she was in several of my favorite movies, including Now & Then, which I was obsessed with at the age of ten. (I know, being such a big Rosie fan is one of those latent lesbian things. I couldn’t even begin to get into it when I met her because I had to play it professional.)

Golly understands Harriet, and so she’s the only person who can put Harriet on the right path. Yes, Harriet can still be observant and want to write, but she also has to learn the importance of having people in your corner. “Good friends are one of life's blessings,” she says. “Don't give them up without a fight.”

As someone who has written some things that make me unlikeable in people’s minds, having people in my corner to support me through that has been incredibly important. They remind me that though you may be too much for some, there are people out there who get you. And they’ll have your back no matter what. You never want to lose those people, and I hope Harriet understood that after the story ended.

So many Millennial writer girls saw pieces of themselves in Harriet M. Welsch. We were all the weird girl with the notebook, scribbling our thoughts. We were all told at some point that we were too much, that we should tone it down, that our thoughts might make other people uncomfortable. And some of us conformed, maybe longer than we intended to. But now, we’re the ones writing our little newsletters, crafting thinkpieces, and filling every corner of the internet with the words no one wanted to hear from us when we were ten. Harriet allowed us to know that we weren’t alone. And when Michelle Trachtenberg died, we all came out of the woodwork, finding solace in each other as we processed our shock.

After the announcement of Trachtenberg’s death, I saw headlines or social copy that made it sound like she was someone Millennials grew up with in the same way we grew up with celebrities who were older. That felt wrong. We didn’t grow up with Michelle Trachtenberg like we grew up with Sarah Michelle Gellar. We quite literally grew up alongside her. Like I said, she wasn’t even a full year older than me. Nona Mecklenburg was a little kid just like we were little kids. Harriet M. Welsch was ten at the same time I was ten.

People were surprised and disappointed that Trachtenberg wasn’t included in the “In Memoriam” segment at the Oscars this year. I wasn’t either of those things — The Academy has always made it abundantly clear who and what they believe is worthy of attention. But also, Michelle Trachtenberg lived a much quieter life than many of her peers. She wasn’t on the cover of Vanity Fair, she wasn’t splashed across the pages of the gossip rags or Perez Hilton.

There was no explosive memoir where she detailed mistreatment at the hands of an unjust industry or a cruel mother. It was almost easy to forget she had ever existed. But to those of us who found something relatable about her, whether it was Nona or Harriet or Dawn or Georgina or Casey, or any combination of them, we will never forget her.

Millennials may be closer to 40 than we are to 30, but we’re way too young to be losing our icons.