nobody has to guess, that baby can't be blessed, 'till she sees finally that she's like all the rest

I didn't want to talk about this for a few weeks because it seemed too soon after the tragic passing of Brittany Murphy to talk about her. Though I know that waiting two or three weeks isn't much better, but I didn't want to seem like I was jumping on the bandwagon of sensationalizing and deconstructing her demise like a lot of other people were. So I waited to say what I thought. And I'm sure they're people out there that will disagree with me, and I'm sure with good reason, but this is just what I see: in some ways, Brittany Murphy was our generation's Edie Sedgwick.

George Hickenlooper, director of the Edie biopic Factory Girl, almost cast Murphy in the lead role, before ultimately giving it to Sienna Miller. They're relationship soured after Brittany married Simon Monjack, who Hickenlooper called a "con man." I think it's interesting that a similarity enough for Murphy to play Sedgwick was seen several years ago. Though I don't really know anything about the "inner demons" that Brittany Murphy fought, despite what tabloids and entertainment television shows tell me, if she did suffer troubles, that would further her similarity to the late Sedgwick. While Edie Sedgwick spent parts of her life in a mental hospital, Murphy portrayed a young woman in the film Girl, Interrupted that was anorexic and the victim of sexual abuse from her father, both troubles that plagued Edie's real life.

But instead of comparing the devastating parts of the lives of these two women, I want to focus on the positive similarities. Both women were effervescent social butterflies that fluttered around, lighting up the lives of people they encountered. After her passing, former love Ashton Kutcher called Brittany "a little piece of sunshine," whereas Donald Lyons called Edie "a creature of the sunlight, with a darkness behind her that we knew no details about." These girls had vibrant, beautiful personalities and were bright lights in peoples' lives, despite whatever darkness they felt. In Uptown Girls (one of my personal favorite girlie rom-coms), Murphy portrays Molly Gunn, a "poor little rich girl" of sorts much in vain of Sedgwick's persona - she is a fantastic girl-child without worry and doesn't see money as an issue until she runs out of it. Her life is a fairy tale, full of gorgeous clothing and penthouse digs.

Although I never met them, I will miss these two fantastic women sincerely.