I first watched Gossip Girl when I was 12. An age where I had no clue about consent, intimacy and relationships. I binge-watched the entire show with my older sister, all six seasons on our Netflix subscription. At the time, I truly believed that Chuck Bass was the epitome of a bad boy. He had all the typical traits: the broodiness, the playboy habits and the “good girl” who he changed for.
Now that I’m older I see Chuck Bass for who he is: the actual villain of Gossip Girl. His list of crimes is astounding. He ends up sexually assaulting Jenny and Serena in the first season, sells Blair to his slimy uncle for a hotel, breaks up with Blair after claiming she isn’t “pure” anymore, gets physically violent with Blair, and so on. He constantly treats the women around him as objects to use and discard and it blows my mind how I was rooting for a character like him throughout the show.
Chuck Bass is not a bad boy, he’s a danger to society. Bad boy characters like him receive so much love from the audience. Characters like Damon Salvatore, Tate Langdon, Klaus Mikealson and Spike receive an abundance of love from young girls who comprise 90% of the audience watching these shows. I was one of them, I won’t lie. But now that I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that I’m tired of TV shows and movies presenting these “bad boys” who are actually the most toxic men to grace my screen.
The negative consequence of presenting these male love interests is that it normalizes their manipulative and toxic actions to young girls who watch these teen shows and start applying these standards to their own lives. Ever heard of the popular statement “he’s only mean to you because he likes you”? The pity and applause these male characters get is something that I’m tired of seeing.
Now that I’m older, I’ve found that we need more male love interests that are actually kind. Peeta Mellark from the hit series The Hunger Games felt like a breath of fresh air. He was kind, caring, and empathetic towards Katniss, and not once did the series ever portray this as his weakness. His kindness was a strength, something that Katniss needed after surviving the trauma of the Hunger Games. And what about Cam Cameron? In an alternate universe, he would’ve been the winning team on The Summer I Turned Pretty.
I can already see the shift of these male love interests in popular media over the past years. We’ve gotten new teenage shows that showcase their male love interests as actual human beings. Heartbreak High, Sex Education, Harlan Coben’s Shelter, and so many other shows have broken the overused trend of the “bad boy.” Because in reality, dating someone who only turns into a respectable human being just for you is actually insane. I feel that war is over knowing that a new generation of young teenage girls are growing up watching healthy, realistic teen relationships on the big screen.