The Immoral Romanticization of Gossip Girl
By Alaina Hickson
*Before we begin, I must warn you that there will be a discussion involving sexual assault/ abuse as well as spoilers for Gossip Girl.*
I started watching the amazing life of Manhattan’s elite when I was a freshman in high school. The moment that my eyes adjusted to the first scene and I heard “Gossip Girl here” I was hooked. It was like my life was leading up to this point: Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chase Crawford, Ed Westwick, and of course Taylor Momsen telling a compelling story of wealth and fortune… yes, please! As a young woman living in the world of suburbia and 7-Eleven Slurpees, Gossip Girl was everything I wanted; in a show, and in real life.
In Gossip Girl, the parents aren’t too strict, and the schools seem ideal. As a girl living in the world of gossip (see what I did there?) you could wear what you want, you could date whoever you wanted, and you could be a bitch and it would be okay! But after I watched a YouTube video that discussed the toxicity of Gossip Girl, I realized I had romanced a story that was hell, not heaven.
Part I: Gossip Girl Here
Alright, so let’s jump right into the pool of wealth and the 2000s. Based on the book series of the same name by Cecily von Ziegesar, Gossip Girl was broadcasted on The CW network for six seasons from 2007 to 2012. This series is narrated by whom the audience knows as “Gossip Girl,” a.k.a an unknown, omniscient blogger, and revolves around the lives of privileged upper-class adolescents living in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Main character Serena van der Woodsen (played by Blake Lively) has just returned from a mysterious absence in the pilot, and although her family owns the top floor in a 14-room penthouse, her life is… hard? Or at least that is what we are supposed to believe, although she could pull another College Admissions Scandal and probably get better off than Olivia Jade.
But, that’s not the point: let’s get back to it.
You see, Serena exiled herself from Manhattan after believing she was responsible for the drug overdose and death of a (random kid named..) Pete, with whom she and her old friend, Georgina Sparks (portrayed by Michelle Trachtenberg) were having a threesome with. Also, she slept with her best friend Blair’s (Leighton Meester) boyfriend Nate (Chance Crawford), so of course, after finding this all out like… thirteen episodes into the series, Blair then sleeps with Nate's best friend, Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick), to get back at Nate.
Okay… so maybe Serena does have a hard life...but we might have a harder one trying to keep up with all of these people, names, and issues that seem to stay irrelevant.
Part II: Chuck Bass
For me, the issues with Gossip Girl, - other than the normalization of drugging people, eating disorders, using money to “get rid of problems,” and even more, - arise when we take a deep look into Chuck Bass. As said prior, Chuck is season 1 Serena’s best friend’s, boyfriend’s best friend, and although he is attractive, he sucks. In the novels by von Ziegesar, he is quote, “a secondary antagonist ” however, the TV series elevates him to an antiheroic main character, and the male lead of the show, where he is noted for his financial ambition, hedonism, and personal style.
Yet, he sucks. No matter what he wears or how he styles his hair, we are supposed to believe that as viewers he is simply just “misunderstood” and “troubled.”
News flash, though: he isn’t.
In the first episode, we watch Chuck confront Serena about her affair with Nate. Via Life and Style Magazine, “he told her that he knew she and Nate slept together even though he was dating her best friend/frenemy Blair at the time. But, Chuck had a motive for telling Serena this — he wanted sex in exchange for his silence. With a hand on a visibly uncomfortable Serena’s leg, he gradually moved closer to her and began kissing her as she fought to push him off.” As viewers watch this all go down, we can hear Serena say “stop it… no… stop it,” before she ultimately knees him in the groin in order to escape the situation.
And that is not the end of it.
A mere ten minutes later into the episode, Chuck targets freshman Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen) at a party. Of course, we have all been in situations where we want to appear cooler to the “older kids” in our school, and Jenny is no different when Chuck says to her “let’s go and talk somewhere quiet.”
As I’m sure you guessed, she says yes, but within seconds of moving to the roof of the building they are on, he begins kissing her. Although she appears very uncomfortable, Chuck still attempts to have sex with her whilst pushing her against a wall. But, his persistence is luckily interrupted when she calls her brother.
Now, to be fair, I’m sure this just sounds like a plot point: the bad guy does a bad thing, so the bad guy has bad things happen to him. However, that is not the case. This assault as well as others that occur later on are virtually never spoken about again, and actually, when Chuck begins a relationship with Serena’s best friend Blair, we are supposed to root for their relationship even though he is a horrible person. As well, Chuck never learns anything from these assaults, and it can have huge effects on young viewers of the show..
Part III: Oh, Chuck
Sidetrack for second with me:
If you’re a film nerd like me, you know alllll about Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. They created the most iconic shows in the 2000s and redefined a generation. They are most known for their collaborations and creation of The O.C., Gossip Girl, The Carrie Diaries, and most recently the adaptation of my favorite novel (eeeee!!) Looking for Alaska. Just by looking at these titles, you can just see the impact they had on television, but issues also come with that.
For those of you who are not familiar, The O.C. was HUGE. I’m talking about modern-day Outer Banks, so, when The O.C. was done its run in 2007 and Schwartz and Savage created Gossip Girl, many young adolescents were ecstatic to watch a show done by their favorite creators. However, when so many young women (and some young men, too) are watching someone do some pretty messed up stuff and get away with it, it lets them know that they can do the same things and it will be okay.
2007 was the year the iPhone came out, and social media literally did not exist, so until now-and-days where anyone can be called out and told right from wrong at a very young age, this generation did not have that. (Obviously, they knew what rape was, but it wasn’t as discussed as the present.)
I hope you see where I’m going here, but I strongly believe that showing a young man doing bad things and getting away with it so we can “root for him” is damaging. Don’t get me wrong: I love Schwartz and Savage, but it’s not okay in any fashion. In the words of YouTuber Broey Deschanel (you can find the video that inspired this article here), “what exactly is this ‘fantasy’ we’re trying to escape into?”
As I said in the very beginning, I wanted to live in the world of Gossip Girl, and honestly, I wanted to be Serena van der Woodsen. Although television should be used for escapism and entertainment, why would we want to escape into the world of Gossip Girl when it carries so much baggage? Have we, as Millennials and Gen-Z, outgrown Gossip Girl? Is there no longer a mystique about it? Are we realizing just how immoral our romanticization of a fictitious life is?
I’m not quite sure the answer for you all, but I know for me, my answer is yes.
