Gossip Girl Is Very Bad For You

Every Monday at 8:00 pm, I set my DVR to record the CW. Why?

Gossip Girl.

And no, I am not ashamed.

Gossip Girl is based on Cecily von Ziegesar’s young adult series about over privileged socialite teens at a Manhattan private school. I tried to read it once like four years ago and my eyeballs almost forced their way back inside my skull. Seriously.

So it’s important that I preface this by clarifying that the TV show is nothing like the book series (from what I remember). Everything is bright, glimmering, and melodramatic, but it also has a sense of humor, whereas its literary counterpart spends every page listing all the couture designers worn by the characters. Creator Josh Schwartz (formerly of The O.C.) is smart and keeps everything satirical and completely over the top. It’s pretty much fantastic.

The premise of the show is simple. Mystery Manhattanite blogger Gossip Girl (voiced by the hilarious Kristen Bell) follows the daily travails of the poor-little-rich-girls-and-boys of the Upper East Side.

Much of the show is anchored by the simultaneous friendship and rivalry of Reformed Bad Girl Serena van der Woodsen (they all have names like this, by the way. Except the Humphreys because they’re poor) and her bitchy and controlling best friend Blair Waldorf. The other anchoring theme is the reoccurring disparity between rich and poor, the beautiful fantasy world that they live in and the real world that is… Brooklyn. Well, Brooklyn as represented by the Humphreys.

The Humphreys are poor. We know they’re poor because they live in Brooklyn and ride the subway to school, both of which are clearly things that indicate near-destitution. It’s kind of laughable that the producers expect us to believe the Humphreys are poor even as the camera pans over the expensive-looking accoutrements in their trendy, well-kept Brooklyn loft, but whatever. There are better reasons to hate on the Humphreys.

A reason in itself is faux-intellectual Dan “My Morals Are Higher Than Your Morals” Humphrey. His best friend Vanessa Abrams is an insufferably condescending hipster. And his sister Jenny is so stupid as to almost be mentally deficient. Poor Brooklyn is represented by the three biggest idiots in New York: viewers can’t really be blamed for turning to the person that is their total opposite.

That person is Chuck Bass. Chuck is sleazy, has no moral compunctions, and looks like Jimmy Fallon with a chromosomal disorder. It’s delightful. He has daddy issues and paid someone to take the SATs for him. He owns a burlesque club by the age of 17. Nothing about him is remotely realistic, and everything about him is amazing.

But that’s ok, because one of the best things about this show is the way it’s completely out of touch with reality. I love this one scene where all the sixteen and seventeen-year-olds are partying at Chuck’s burlesque club when a 30something guy walks in. They all stare at him and ask, deadpan, if he’s a little old to be there. Gossip Girl remains likeable because it knows not to take itself seriously. There’s a sense of self-awareness that undercuts the superficial values it promotes: you can see it in everything, even the clothes. The entire aesthetic is prep school on LSD, all neon plaid and bows and clashing colors and as over-the-top as the rest of the show: it’s just escapism. Yes, it’s ridiculous, but it’s also ridiculously fun.

-Riding