Fans and Celebrities Help Raise $2 million for James Van Der Beek's Family Following His Death

The news of the passing of James Van Der Beek hit many of us like a ton of bricks. The Dawson’s Creek star was battling cancer and leaves behind a wife and six kids. In his last years, Van Der Beek auctioned off many items and pieces of memorabilia to raise funds for his battle. Now, in death, his loved ones had to set up a GoFundMe to cover medical funds. If ever there was a damning indictment of America’s broken healthcare system, it’s this.

That GoFundMe campaign, however, has been a big success. It’s currently sitting at over $2.13 million, easily surpassing its initial goal of $1.5 million. A number of industry figures, like director Jon M. Chu and Zoe Saldaña made donations. Director Steven Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, also donated $25,000 to the cause. This is an especially touching moment since Dawson was famously a huge Spielberg fan and frequently cited him in the show as his hero. Spielberg surprised fans at last year’s Dawson’s Creek cast reunion event by sending a video message to his famous fictional fan.

Stories like this are always bleak as hell, even when you’re heartened by the generosity of community. James Van Der Beek was a consistently hard-working actor with SAG-AFTRA health insurance, and even that wasn’t enough to cover the obscene costs of fighting cancer. Medical campaigns are the largest category on GoFundMe, according to writer Mark J. Crawford. It is, for many Americans, their version of health insurance. It is a true dystopian situation to be in, to worry if you’re popular or viral enough to gain sufficient sympathy to have strangers save your life. Van Der Beek was fortunate to be beloved and respected in his field, and friends with deep pockets. I don’t say that to dismiss his struggles or demean what his family is going through right now. It’s just another symptom of the rot at the heart of the issue: charity is not a substitute for a real healthcare-for-all system.