The Gossip Girl wave of feminism

Due to my aforementioned toe trauma, I've had a lot of time to lie around in bed and watch tv shows on the internet recently (convergence, says Henry Jenkins), which has allowed me to catch up with this season of Gossip Girl. (And the entire fourth season of the Wire, which we'll discuss in another post.)

Phoebe is concerned that GG is morally reactionary because its characters aren't promoting promiscuity or entertaining the possibility of aborting unwanted pregnancies. As you might guess, such positions don't particularly trouble me. Assuming one is not of the opinion that abortions should be the default response to unexpected pregnancy, nothing about the Gossip Girl world warrants them. The characters' babies would be born with trust funds in the bank and au pairs at their sides, and Serena or Blair could continue living their charmed lives without as much as changing a diaper. Or, in keeping with the bourgie values of the show, they could give the babies up for adoption to a middle-class home in which the parents will actually notice their children.

I think the accusation of adult promiscuity in the show is a little exaggerated since none of them actually sleep with anyone during the entire season, and all are looking to pick up the pieces of some recent marital collapse. Serena's mother is a gold-digging extreme serial monogamist--so extreme that she marries every man she wants to sleep with. Blair's mother has just ended an at least 17 year marriage because her husband ran off with a male model and only cautiously encourages the interests of Ice Rink Guy. And Williamsburg hispter dad is the baddest of them all--he kisses Serena's mother while he is separated from his cheating wife but technically still married to her, and then dumps her when he has the chance to get his wife back. Even Nate's mother, whose husband turns out to be some sort of money-laundering coke addict, stands by him in her insane, reality-denying way.

However, the fact remains that all these adults' lives are pretty disastrous, and the younger characters are explicitly trying to navigate away from the lives their parents have led. In that regard, Phoebe is right that there is something surprisingly New Victorian about their social world. But I don't think the show recreates the 1950s so much as it tries to move past the culture wars of the 1990s. On one hand, there is something distinctly modern about its morality--the sensitive, uber-responsible and mature characters of Dan and Nate are clearly not middle-manager, suburban bread-winner material at least to the extent that Blair and Serena are not future happy homemakers. They receive approximately zero adult supervision, and are probably wiser than most of the adults available to supervise them anyway. The social world is saturated with drugs and at least images of sex, and, in a notable shift from traditional prudery, it is assumed that sex will be had.

On the other hand, it's no revaluation of values utopia. The most sexually liberated character is Chuck, who is probably not accidentally also a rapist. The problem is that, given the show's context, there is in fact nothing to liberate these kids from. By virtue of their extreme wealth and their families' extreme emotional unavailability, they were never responsible for anything or obligated to anyone. Everyone's life is meaningless frivolity until, like Serena's return to take care of her brother or the magical flowering of Blair and Nate's relationship when they both actually need help, they voluntarily accept responsibility for each other. By the end of the season, all the once-absent parents are engaged, all the mean girls are nice, and everyone is in love with everyone else (except Blair and Nate, but that will pass, I'm sure). Only Chuck and to some extent, Jenny, are on the fringes of all the melodrama, having chosen meaningless frivolity over bourgie responsibility.

In terms of its morality, Gossip Girl strikes me as basically bobo. The under-30 set wants stability, responsibility, and community, but they don't want to foreclose other people's opportunities to rebel against them, which is always so refreshing or entertaining, depending on the politics to which you subscribe. As far as Facebook has informed me, the dozen or so recently engaged or betrothed alumni of my school have been, in addition to under 25, also secular liberals. Unreliable and evil polls show that the majority of the young think abortion is a basically Bad Thing, though most also oppose making it illegal. People seem to want marriage, babies, and nicely appointed homes furnished by Crate and Barrel with refrigerators stocked full of Whole Foods cheese. (Am I giving myself away here?) But they don't want to stop anyone from living in a yurt and subsisting off of acorns.

So GG--probably not a radically conservative force for reactionary social principles. But worse--mindless soap opera reinforcement of a protected life of fun and social drama for the sake of entertainment. Not only does no one ever go to class or do homework, but there isn't any intellectual engagement outside of school either. Do Dan and Serena ever have a substantial conversation? They talk briefly about the scandals of the day, repeatedly reference the class conflict inherent in their relationship, and promise to talk at greater length sometime in the never realized future. They seem to be in love after only two or three successful dates; by far the majority of their meetings were interrupted by some dramatic explosion to which they had to attend. Even as the young characters are more mature and responsible than their parents, they don't actually think about anything that happens to them. Like a good health class pupil, Serena automatically buys Blair a pregnancy test and "is worried" about her, but we don't see her considering the future seriously. Maybe abortion is not an option, but what would these people do? But 15 minutes later, pregnancy is forgotten and there is new drama at hand! Or Blair's random bout of bulimia? Whatever happened to that? How did both Blair's and Serena's Ice Queen mothers thaw out in one episode? And what is with all these happy endings? What is the point of these people's lives?

Perhaps these are all secrets we'll never be told. XOXO.