'Gossip Girl' is so bad, so smarmy, so deliciously wicked that it's actually good
November 4, 2007
Doug Elfman
TV Critic
Nate observed the party. Debauchery was to begin shortly. But Nate unexpectedly questioned his idle life of wealth. His pinky young face flushed under an anime hairdo.
"The money, the drugs, the privileges," Nate told his best friend Chuck. "They're just keeping us numb, so we don't know it's better out there in the real world."
Chuck sneered, appearing fey/preppy/same thing with his upturned collars and old-money affectation. (He rides a limo to prep school).
"Everyone out there wants to be us," Chuck clucked back at Nate. "We are to be aspired to, and not run away from."
Unconvinced by Chuck's logic, Nate strayed, then returned like a good trust-fund baby after he tasted the real world for an hour or two. The real world is bitter and poor.
Nate (Chace Crawford) and Chuck (Ed Westwick) make up the male half of "Gossip Girl," the best-watched TV show among teens. It was last week's No. 1 and No. 10 downloads on iTunes. It's a big online video draw. Culturally, it could be the new "O.C.," maybe even the new "Melrose Place."
Funny. When it debuted a month ago, "Gossip Girl" seemed cardboard, smarmy, yet so bad it was almost good. Soon, it became not just popular but a rarer thing: actually entertaining while simultaneously ridiculous.
For one thing, "Gossip" teens talk much smarter than the girls of "The Hills" do. Dan, the requisitely ethical "poor" boy (the son of a former rock star), judged one mean girl as being a "95-pound, doe-eyed, bon-mot-tossing, label-whoring package of girly evil. ... I'd barely be exaggerating if I told you Medusa wants her withering glare back."
The pace, produced by "O.C." creator Josh Schwartz, doesn't rush or stall. Other soaps stretch dramas for a season. "Gossip Girl" cycles through spats in weeks.
It is a girly nighttime soap, so the main half of "Gossip Girl" visits the jagged friendship of Serena (Blake Lively) and Blair (Leighton Meester).
Blair understandably behaved maliciously with Serena for a while, after Serena bedded Blair's boyfriend Nate. But now the girls are BFF again, which prompted the voice-over narrator (Kristen Bell) to exclaim, "WTF?"
Before Serena and Blair made nice-nice, they cat-fought in short school uniform skirts during field hockey, and Serena unleashed some wicked nasty.
"I always knew you were a whore. I never took you for a liar, too," Blair simmered at Serena, who wishes to attend Brown University, though as Blair pointed out, "Brown doesn't offer degrees in slut."
It helps matters that the makers of "Gossip" realize this is a big crazy show, but the characters don't: The actors avoid going over the top; they play motivations straight. As opposed to, say, "Ugly Betty," in which actors seem delighted to portray wacky.
As things stand this week, everyone's getting along. Although, there are always complications.
Nate can't bring himself to break up with Blair (who's somehow a virgin). Nate thinks he loves Serena, but Serena is falling for Dan (Penn Badgley). Dan said Nate had an original thought last year, but it died of loneliness.
Viewer appeal for "Gossip Girl" seems simple to deduct. First, our heroes and villains are fresh-faced. They feel love and spite sooo much, but in a young way, not a jaded way, not like the old sores of "Sex and the City" or the cold bores of "Dirty Sexy Money."
"Gossip Girl" offers wish fulfillment via the Manhattan social scene. But it's also hate fulfillment. That is, everyone is fairly easy to despise or envy, because like in any soap, the "good" people do bad things, and the "bad" people do good things.
Yet, boys and girls have the wherewithal to know if devils or angels alight their shoulders.
"I am a bitch when I want to be," Chuck snarled while collecting dirt on Serena with cruel intentions.
Chuck and his future Ivy Leaguer pals profit on their Upper East Side crests (the van der Woodsens, the Waldorfs, the Archibalds) like so much affirmative action for bluebloods.
But which class is watching "Gossip Girl"? If commercials give any indication, it's not the van der Woodsens, Waldorfs and Archibalds. Ad breaks push $4 hair products, McDonald's, Payless, TJ Maxx and birth control pills. Jaguar isn't buying airtime.
As ad dollars roll in, "Gossip Girl" is getting flashier in budget, as seen in a delicate costume ball in the last episode. And a current promotional ad is one of TV's slickest of the year, flashing "LUST" and "REVENGE" in between throbbing images of bedroom romps and cherry-licking.
In that ad, a "Gossip" girl asks, "You can keep a secret, right?" If she expects discretion, lasting sympathy or easy living on "Gossip Girl," she is wildly mistaken. But these kids are always mistaken about something. Wrong is what they do best.
delfman@suntimes.com
Doug Elfman
TV Critic
Nate observed the party. Debauchery was to begin shortly. But Nate unexpectedly questioned his idle life of wealth. His pinky young face flushed under an anime hairdo.
"The money, the drugs, the privileges," Nate told his best friend Chuck. "They're just keeping us numb, so we don't know it's better out there in the real world."
Chuck sneered, appearing fey/preppy/same thing with his upturned collars and old-money affectation. (He rides a limo to prep school).
"Everyone out there wants to be us," Chuck clucked back at Nate. "We are to be aspired to, and not run away from."
Unconvinced by Chuck's logic, Nate strayed, then returned like a good trust-fund baby after he tasted the real world for an hour or two. The real world is bitter and poor.
Nate (Chace Crawford) and Chuck (Ed Westwick) make up the male half of "Gossip Girl," the best-watched TV show among teens. It was last week's No. 1 and No. 10 downloads on iTunes. It's a big online video draw. Culturally, it could be the new "O.C.," maybe even the new "Melrose Place."
Funny. When it debuted a month ago, "Gossip Girl" seemed cardboard, smarmy, yet so bad it was almost good. Soon, it became not just popular but a rarer thing: actually entertaining while simultaneously ridiculous.
For one thing, "Gossip" teens talk much smarter than the girls of "The Hills" do. Dan, the requisitely ethical "poor" boy (the son of a former rock star), judged one mean girl as being a "95-pound, doe-eyed, bon-mot-tossing, label-whoring package of girly evil. ... I'd barely be exaggerating if I told you Medusa wants her withering glare back."
The pace, produced by "O.C." creator Josh Schwartz, doesn't rush or stall. Other soaps stretch dramas for a season. "Gossip Girl" cycles through spats in weeks.
It is a girly nighttime soap, so the main half of "Gossip Girl" visits the jagged friendship of Serena (Blake Lively) and Blair (Leighton Meester).
Blair understandably behaved maliciously with Serena for a while, after Serena bedded Blair's boyfriend Nate. But now the girls are BFF again, which prompted the voice-over narrator (Kristen Bell) to exclaim, "WTF?"
Before Serena and Blair made nice-nice, they cat-fought in short school uniform skirts during field hockey, and Serena unleashed some wicked nasty.
"I always knew you were a whore. I never took you for a liar, too," Blair simmered at Serena, who wishes to attend Brown University, though as Blair pointed out, "Brown doesn't offer degrees in slut."
It helps matters that the makers of "Gossip" realize this is a big crazy show, but the characters don't: The actors avoid going over the top; they play motivations straight. As opposed to, say, "Ugly Betty," in which actors seem delighted to portray wacky.
As things stand this week, everyone's getting along. Although, there are always complications.
Nate can't bring himself to break up with Blair (who's somehow a virgin). Nate thinks he loves Serena, but Serena is falling for Dan (Penn Badgley). Dan said Nate had an original thought last year, but it died of loneliness.
Viewer appeal for "Gossip Girl" seems simple to deduct. First, our heroes and villains are fresh-faced. They feel love and spite sooo much, but in a young way, not a jaded way, not like the old sores of "Sex and the City" or the cold bores of "Dirty Sexy Money."
"Gossip Girl" offers wish fulfillment via the Manhattan social scene. But it's also hate fulfillment. That is, everyone is fairly easy to despise or envy, because like in any soap, the "good" people do bad things, and the "bad" people do good things.
Yet, boys and girls have the wherewithal to know if devils or angels alight their shoulders.
"I am a bitch when I want to be," Chuck snarled while collecting dirt on Serena with cruel intentions.
Chuck and his future Ivy Leaguer pals profit on their Upper East Side crests (the van der Woodsens, the Waldorfs, the Archibalds) like so much affirmative action for bluebloods.
But which class is watching "Gossip Girl"? If commercials give any indication, it's not the van der Woodsens, Waldorfs and Archibalds. Ad breaks push $4 hair products, McDonald's, Payless, TJ Maxx and birth control pills. Jaguar isn't buying airtime.
As ad dollars roll in, "Gossip Girl" is getting flashier in budget, as seen in a delicate costume ball in the last episode. And a current promotional ad is one of TV's slickest of the year, flashing "LUST" and "REVENGE" in between throbbing images of bedroom romps and cherry-licking.
In that ad, a "Gossip" girl asks, "You can keep a secret, right?" If she expects discretion, lasting sympathy or easy living on "Gossip Girl," she is wildly mistaken. But these kids are always mistaken about something. Wrong is what they do best.
delfman@suntimes.com
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