I don’t watch Gossip Girl for a peek of the ‘hood in which I spent my adolescence, not for the wholesome beauty that is Leighton Meester, not for the mousy one that is Blake “Blair sounds too much like Blake” Lively, and not for the attractive Abercombie & Fitch models-cum-Upper East Siders (or, in the case of one Dan Humphrey, DUMBOer). No, I watch it for its lavish disregard for all the fundamental laws of reality, and for the bash at NY Mag the morning after.
Seriously, there is nothing I look forward to more during the work week – other than the countdown to 5:30pm on Friday afternoon – than sitting down at my desk on Thursday morning and loading the front page of NYMag.com.
Except the Writer’s Strike has gotten into the way and no longer will I be able to sit down on Thursday mornings, pregnant with anticipation on what the anonymous (or partially-so … I have gathered that at least one is female, and one has a gay friend named Chris) bloggers thought of the previous night’s episode. I have, also, time and again thought to pen my own commentary, but nothing could ever be so sweet as the NY Mag bloggers’ words. That much I know.
But we have come to the end of some sort of era and I think the NY Mag bloggers have overlooked a few egregiously obvious “facts”:
- Poor little Jenny Humphrey’s face has grown more and more distorted over the course of the series. Her visage in the season finale is one step away from Munch’s “The Scream.” Is it the mere act of puberty, or is it a foretelling tip of the hat to “The Picture of Dorian Gray”?
- They think there’s something going on between Chuck and Nate – that I will not deny. But as several IMDB posters and slash writers (yes, very well-informed sources, I know) have hinted, there may be some homosexual underpinnings between Blair and Serena. Last night, Serena’s heroic rescue of Blair at the heliport made it hazily clear to me that if the producers of the show wanted to ever swing that way, they’ve paved the path.
- Um, Eric van der Woodsen? Ew. Finally, Serena acknowledged his unruly and unattractive hair in last night’s episode. Blond or brown, it’s not working. Neither is his Dracula-esque complexion. He’s not “sick” anymore! Get him into a Mystique booth stat or get him off the show! It wouldn’t too far-fetched to have him die of a drug overdose.
- The complete disregard for how girls on the Upper East Side actually dress. I know it’s a television show and even though it’s set in New York City, it’s still Hollywood, etc etc. But still – where are the North Face jackets, rainbows of Ralph Lauren polo shirts and moccasins? The Upper East Side is not so different from Fairfield County in Connecticut. All the WASPs of New England flock to the UES while still being able to tell everyone that they’re getting the “real New York experience”.
- Lastly, all of this would not be possible without Cecily zon Wierasdlfsafzsegger’s original series “Gossip Girl”. I have not (thank god) read a single one of these books, but I will assume that Josh Schwartz and his minions wouldn’t really stray that far off the course. Right? If we really wanted to know what happens next, we’d take a peek into one of the very many candy-colored paperbacks, right? Guess we don’t really care all that much afterall.
XOXO
