Okay so I may not be the real “Gossip Girl,” but I have a lot of thoughts that need to be shared about a possible reboot. Most people by now have watched the teen drama about privileged children in Manhattan, but if you haven’t, stop reading this article, go to Netflix and binge the entire 6 season series. For those of you who have watched Gossip Girl, you know that it wasn’t always the best. It sometimes promoted controversial ideas and portrayed a very inaccurate representation of what it’s like to be a teenager. However, despite these issues, everyone watching wanted to be a member of the group in the show.
Growing up, Gossip Girl was my show and I watched it all the time. Before school, after school and sometimes in school. I wanted to be just like Blair Waldorf and made it my goal to only dress fashionably in high school without ever repeating an outfit. I don’t know how I managed to do that in high school given the fact that now I usually wear sweats to class, but I did it anyway. Needless to say, Serena and Blair were my icons. So when I heard there were rumors about a possible reboot, I was more hesitant than thrilled. Because of what Gossip Girl represented to me and so many other girls around the world, I wasn’t excited about the reboot. Reboots more often than not flop because they try to recreate what the originals did, but fall short. Especially when you are attached to the characters in the original series and don’t see them come back. This was reason #1 as to why I did not – and still don’t – want a reboot. I fear that this reboot will not bring justice to what the real show was, but that it might actually tarnish the image I have of the original.
There are other rumors that the original cast will be coming back, but actors like Leighton Meester, who plays the fashion princess Blair Waldorf, and Penn Badgley, who plays the pitiful Dan Humphrey, already have shows they are currently working on. Blake Lively, the iconic Serena van der Woodsen, has condemned the show several times, so the idea of her coming back to reprise her role when she has condemned the show and has so many other things going on seems unlikely. In an interview with Glamour UK she said, “People loved it, but it always felt a little personally compromising—you want to be putting a better message out there. When parents would say, ‘My teenager is watching your show,’ I wanted to say, ‘Hold on, why? Are you having a talk with them after?’ From the drug use to the point where we’re killing people, it’s sexual and salacious.” Although I haven’t heard much about what Chace Crawford, who plays Nate Vanderbilt, and Ed Westwick, who plays Chuck Bass, are up to these days, without three of the main characters coming back, the reboot already sounds disappointing.
My last reason as to why I don’t want this reboot to happen is because I am tired of Hollywood rebooting everything that did well in the past. I want to see unique ideas instead of trying to revive something that ended years ago. If there is a way to have a Gossip Girl reboot that doesn’t disappoint fans, then I’m all for it. But at the end of the day, I would rather watch a new show with it’s own plot than something that is trying to be as great as the original, but falls short.