The Missus has started us on Netflixing Gossip Girl. It’s pretty entertaining so far, one disc in. My observations:
1) We were hoping for a Cruel Intentions level of sleaziness and that’s what we’re getting.
2) Blake Lively, who is nonetheless pretty and despite being a real teenager in these early episodes, looks like she’s had a few trips around the track. The Missus scoffed at what she thought must be her real age before I remembered she’d just had her 21st birthday like a week ago.
3) As Matthew Perpetua pointed out to me, all the actors have better rich-people/soap opera names in real life than they do on the show. Blake Lively (a girl!), Leighton Meester (another girl!), Penn Badgely (that one’s a guy).
4) Also, because my only knowledge of Gossip Girl prior to watching it was the fact that the actors are now famous and lead glamorous tabloidy lives IRL, I actually think of them as characters rather than thinking of the characters themselves. When Matthew mentioned the character “Serena” to me, I actually said “Who’s that? The only one I know is Blake Lively.”
5) As I’ve noted elsewhere, however, I’m a little uncomfortable with the rapey character becoming a fan-favorite anti-hero, like Wolverine or Sawyer or something. We’re a little late in the day to still be doing Luke & Laura-style “oh yeah, the rape thing–uh, we’ll just not bring that up again, okay?” stuff in our soap operas.
This led to a lot of discussion between me and various friends. First up was some comment/email-thread chat between some members of the Wizard diaspora.
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Me:
I’m enjoying it so far! I’m not really sure how I feel about the rapey guy, though.
“I’m a little uncomfortable with the rapey character becoming a fan-favorite anti-hero, like Wolverine or Sawyer or something.”
You missed out the best example – Owen Harper from Torchwood. Or Cockney Rape Monkey to his friends. Then again, maybe you missed it because you never watched Torchwood, in which case, I salute you.
Despite my commentary in the exchange–which I stand by–it’s worth noting that my favorite character is actually Dan. And yes, I do believe this is because I’m more judgmental and on a moral high horse than I’d sometimes like to admit.
“–it’s worth noting that my favorite character is actually Dan.”
Why thank you, Mr. Morse!
Oh wait, you’re talking about Penn Badgeley.
This whole Chuck Bass thing reminds me in a roundabout way of the old Todd Manning character on One Life to Live. This rapist became so weirdly popular with fans that he wound up saving his victim from a car wreck, becoming a parent, falling in love, and the actor was so disgusted by this he left the show… only to come back when his career began to flag.
The way I see Chuck Bass is the way Jim Starlin saw Thanos post-Infinity Abyss, where he’d finally given up on the love of Mistress Death: “He has emotions now, but he doesn’t understand these emotions.
You’re ok too, Dan Coyle.
Honestly, anybody who can pull off a reasonable Chuck Bass-Thanos comparison is aces in my book.
I actually thought to myself when I read that comparison, “Man, is this Morse-bait or what?”
i was just telling my students this week “i’m so glad i have a husband who likes to watch girly tv.”
From the kicking a dead horse dept.: My “But Spike was a rapist on Buffy” point was never addressed by the “Rape is the line you can’t cross” sect, at least one of whom I know to be a Buffy and Spike fan.
We’re into the second disc now, and I think there WAS a “resolution” to the rape storyline: The girl tricked Chuck into stripping and locked him up on the roof of a building in his underwear. In the world of Gossip Girl, that is sufficient comeuppance for sexual assault in the eyes of the assault victim. And with that, we move on and never speak of it again!
Of course, “Spike is a rapist” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when logically Buffy should have kicked him across the room, but since Marti Noxon is weird, that didn’t happen.
And I’m not kidding with the Chuck-Thanos comparison, given his behavior towards Blair so far this season.
Gossip Girl is the show that made me give up on Terminator. Do you know how hard it is for me to resist Summer Glau in tight clothes breaking necks? VERY.
(of course, the show’s also gotten thoroughly stupid. Shirley Manson DO NOT WANT)
The Missus–Well, it’s just GG, ANTM, and ProjRun. Of course, using those abbreviations just made it an order of magnitude more girly.