Or: Twenty-Two Short Thoughts about Gossip Girl

With the recent release of the second season of Gossip Girl on DVD and its impending third season premiere on September 14, I believe it’s time to continue this little project that I’ve started. But rather than unleash a deluge of posts that risk making The Hypermodern look like a Gossip Girl fansite, here is the entire second season summed up in one list:

1. When everyone is wearing white, Chekhov’s gun states that someone is going to get messy.
2. For the longest time, we just had Mrs. Robinson. Then American Pie popularized the “MILF”.  The first time I heard the term “cougar” was in 2006, though I’m sure I was behind the curve. What led to our culture developing such a rich and sophisticated vocabulary for discussing sexually attractive and aggressive older women?
3. When you have to trump the elite of the American capitalist class, of course the answer is British royalty — a rung higher on the ladder. The conflict ends the same way it did in the 19th century: with the industrialists triumphant and the incestuous nobles retreating to their manors.
4. To my knowledge, Lady Gaga’s music is needle-dropped more times this season than any other artist, so a little tangent: I subscribe to the “Lady Gaga is a genderqueer subversive” school of thought. In the best Gossip Girl tradition, here is the idea summed up by some random person on the internet:
   

   lady gaga is totally awesome

   like a ton of pop stars wear lingerie just to expose themselfs and be thought of as sex goddesses but really internally they’re oppressed to shit and it don’t work

   gaga like knows what she on about, she’s straight copying glam rock david bowie/freddy mercury shit, its all very retro-queer chic, buts its on a fricking GIRL

   like you can see it everywhere on the net. when pappirazi pix get posted theres always an argument and some dudes are like “lady gaga is hot” and others are like “EW she is a MAN she is hiding a penis in there! she is a gross transvestite and not hot at all, you are so gay, no real straight guy would ever think she is hot because she is a man”

   now obv. she is not a man, just evoking something dangerously close to leather daddy fagmos for average white males. which is totally sweet, because its turning the male gaze against the male, which usually ends up with broken noses and bleeding gashes, but since she is just this little 100 pound blonde chick it totally leaves homophobic men with no outlet but to call her names and start flamewars on the internet to attack other males who do think she is hot

   its rly amusing

   Of course, this does not explain the Kermit suit.

5. My working theory of  ”Gossip Girl as European Union allegory” falls apart this season, although — just as in real life — the CIA screws the Marshall Plan. However, the early attacks against the Humphreys this season remind me of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or The Troubles: close proximity resulting in tensions… “things just happening” that lead to misunderstandings that fuel the fire… long-term low-intensity conflict initiated with the hope of causing systemic collapse…
6. On the one hand, anyone who criticizes the random-pinball nature of hookups on this show probably hasn’t seen this chart.
   
7. On the other hand, when the writing gets bad it gets really bad. The two major pitfalls that the show faces are sudden character about-faces without sufficient justification and plot arcs that get bolted on then suddenly dropped. The strategy that the writers seem to be going for is to pave over all the problems by keeping to a breakneck pace and glazing everything with style and wit. The second is what really makes the show stand out from your standard soap, because most of the time their strategy works. A few zingers really do help the exposition go down.
8. Getting all of Gossip Girl‘s dialogue requires a surprisingly high level of cultural sophistication. “Humbert Humbert just walked out the door” and “She calls it an Edith Head festival, I call it Hitchcock” aren’t exactly grade-shool.
9. Many shows — from The Simpsons to The West Wing — poke a little fun at their fanbase, painting them as perhaps a little unhinged and obsessive. Gossip Girl goes to the next level and represents them as literal little children; whenever the Peanut Gallery shows up it tends to be the highlight of the episode.
10. The count for this season was about 11 Punches, 2 slaps, 1 catfight. I must admit that although the Power of the Punch remains unabated I was hoping the show would break the glass ceiling and feature a girlPunch — the closest we get is assault with a handbag. Maybe in Season 3?
11. Keep this in your writer’s toolbox: when you have to make your sleaziest character somewhat redeemable, make his rival an attempted rapist.
12. Man, writing this article is making me really thirsty. I’m glad I have this conveniently-placed pyramid of Vitamin Water nearby…
13. Gossip Girl is nothing without Chuck Bass. Part Iago, part Richard III, a dash of Lex Luthor — he’s possessed with a nuanced darkness. Luckily Ed Westwick is more than capable of shouldering the load, coaxing a surprisingly wide range from the character’s constant smug sneer.
14. What is up with that “secret society/mysterious call girl” story arc? Massive conspiracy isn’t exactly in this show’s wheelhouse; their skewering of the Skull and Bones as a bunch of glorified frat boys is more entertaining and on point.
15. Jenny Humphrey represents the American proletariat. Initially intoxicated with the trappings of the ruling class, she tries to imitate them but only finds herself in massive debt and oppressed by the police. She settles for a life of labor (in garments, the prototypical industrial occupation) where her creativity is stifled and her surplus-value is siphoned off by her employer. She tries to end-run the system through guerrilla action, but she finds herself pulled back into conformity by social pressure and the demands of family. When she is on the verge of upending the social order, she is pacified by the ruling class and anointed as labor aristocracy. I’d love to see a third season with Jenny managing the school as a Mondragon-style co-op…
16. Marathoning an entire season of this show makes it plainly obvious how many times the writers rely on someone walking in on/overhearing/spying on someone. If you cut all those scenes out the season would be 44 seconds long.
17. Monopoly is an awful game to play with only two players. Unless, of course, you’re commenting on the nature of property ownership and renters, in which case it’s perfect.
18. Apparently Jenny is a fan of Twilight, which repudiates every single redeeming thing about her character.
19. Let us collectively forget the 1980s ever existed. Hyperconsumerism, Reaganomics, the fashion… almost every time the 80s is represented on television it’s just embarassing.That 80s Show, Ashes to Ashes, so on and so forth. It’s obvious that Valley Girls is a backdoor pilot attempting to pave the way for a spinoff, and it left me skeptical.
20. I was waiting for someone to call out Dan’s insider status. In particular, if you’re published in the New Yorker and have an in at the Paris Review, forget Yale — you should have a lit agent lining up a book deal for you.
21. The concept that the Gossip Girl website serves as the ties that bind all the high school kids in New York recalls the computational theory of mind. One of the major themes of the second season (and of the show) is how secrets and hidden information keep people apart and isolate them. If our characters are all individual cells, the Gossip Girl blasts are what energize and connect people.  The massive blast at the end of the season levels the playing field and puts everyone on the same page in terms of information. In this way the Gossip Girl site is a central hub that turns all the kids connected to it into a giant hive mind.
22. Wallace Shawn is a genius. No, really. I wonder how much of the target demographic for Gossip Girl knows that Blair’s stepfather is an accomplished playwright and wrote the following:
    

    My erect penis is monstrous, actually—it looks violent, extreme, almost out of control. And yet, particularly when it’s in repose and completely relaxed, I do think my friend has a wonderful face. It’s so simple—no eyes, no nose, just a simple mouth—a face that looks out at the world with just a sad, hopeful smile.

    Schwartz and Savage, let Wallace Shawn write a Gossip Girl script. I guarantee you’ll not only win an Emmy but a Pulitzer to boot. Yes, I know it’s the wrong medium. It won’t matter.

Gossip Girl’s third season premieres Monday, Sept. 14 at 9:00 PM on The CW and will be regularly recapped on The Hypermodern.