Gossip Girl was one of the first shows I ever watched – back in 2013. 12 year old me was so interested in the “scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite” that I quickly watched it all. Now, on my 230th day of quarantine, I decided to rewatch the show. And honestly, I was surprised. For one, I remembered almost nothing and two, I saw so many issues that I hadn’t realized before.
The show’s first episode came out in September 2007 – 13 years ago! Watching it now we can see how much times have changed – and how much they haven’t. Let’s start with the phones, or should I say flip phones! It’s so weird to see these gorgeous fancy people using these tiny little phones. Also, Dan talks about MySpace! Oh, how technology has changed! Could you imagine Gossip Girl’s pilot with iPhones and Instagram?
The episode starts with it-girl Serena arriving at Grand Central Station – iconic! Soon, everyone knows she’s back and Blair rushes to protect her relationship with Nate – which I did not remember. Nate, as soon as he hears she’s back, goes running to Serena, which makes Blair angry and then both of them just fake smile at each other. I wasn’t expecting that, so weird for such a remarkable friendship! I thought they were such an iconic pairing, but from their first scenes, we can see kind of how toxic they are (Serena literally slept with her BFF’s boyfriend). Why were we so obsessed with them?
Of course, Gossip Girl already starts with a party. But what caught my attention was the underage drinking, which comes up many times along the episode. These kids are 16/17 and they’re just drinking everywhere: around their parents or alone at bars and restaurants, is this how rich people behave? To me, it just looks like they were promoting drinking as a cool thing – to teenagers, which is not only not cool, but can be dangerous.
Next issue: Chuck. He’s not only creepy but downright a criminal. Just in this episode he sexually assaults both Jenny and Serena. They keep saying “No” and “Stop” and he keeps forcingly kissing them and even tells Jenny to “Shut up”. Despite getting a good punch from Dan he is not punished for it, and he keeps his “cool” status. Does money really let him get away with everything? I don’t think that would fly today and it definitely made me worry about how much we all used to love him. I certainly did, but now I’m more aware of what he is. I know he grows and learns from his mistakes, but for me, that’s a really tough thing to look away from.
The parents are a whole other thing. Blair’s mom keeps undermining Blair and just focusing on her appearance, Serena’s mom hides her son’s mental health issue and has a really bad relationship with her daughter, Nate’s dad tries to control his son’s life and literally asks Nate to keep dating Blair so he can go through with a business deal. And there’s Rufus (Dan’s dad)… he just doesn’t get what’s going on. Honestly, I kind of get why these kids got into so much trouble, the parents were not paying attention to them at all.
Another red flag was how mean everyone is, they just keep lying and stabbing each other in the back. Gossip Girl, the blog itself, is insane, it is actually cyberbullying and it’s so dangerous. I know the show kind of opened people’s eyes to bullying, but, again, it makes it look cool to tell everyone your friend’s secrets and ruin their lives. That’s something I think hasn’t changed so much in the past decade, cyberbullying is a bigger problem than ever and it’s so worrying.
I know the show is iconic, but honestly, watching Gossip Girl’s pilot today just made me feel very uncomfortable, for real. I really think – or at least hope – that if the show were made today they would go over all of these with more sensitivity. In fact, there is a reboot coming on HBO Max, so let’s wait and see what they’re going to do with it.
And to top it all off the show literally ends with *spoiler alert* Dan on a computer with a Gossip Girl voice over. Is that a hint? Do we think they already knew it was going to be Dan and that was our first clue? That’s a secret we’ll never know…
XOXO,
Gossip Girl.