As you may have noticed by my lapse in blogging time these days, work and life has started to really kick my butt. Not in a wholly freak out kind of way, but more or less in an I-have-less-time-to-sleep-save-breath-catch-my-breath kind of way that is tolerable in small bursts throughout life. It’s as energizingly challenging as it is frustrating, and in some ways the stress is bringing out really fun parts of my personality. Point in case – I sing and dance in the car down the interstate, I write poems based not on tortured emotions, but on whims and day dreams, and I project a lot more of my angst into that staple junk food of multimedia, the TV sitcom.
I decided to write this blog today during my lunch break not only because I feel guilty for not writing more and earlier in the month, and not only because if I try to do anything work-related this time would make my head explode, but also because a Gossip Girl blog post is due.
(Note to the reader: At this point – 2 minutes into blogging - work indeed demanded my attention - until 8pm. And yes, to be sure, my head did explode. I continued this post the next day...)
Gossip Girl is a fluff TV show about a group of
vain, rich teenagers. I have been watching it off and on for the past 2 years, during times when the need to escape is imminent. For example, I think I started watching as I plugged away on my grad school midterms, became an avid viewer as I finished up my thesis, and have now become reinvolved during this massive stress flood at work. It’s hard though, even as I become a loyal fan, to defend my interest in a teeny-bopper show. Not that it matters, we all have guilty pleasures. But I’d like to give the show it’s due with a top ten list, because those are fun anyway. So here’s to Gossip Girl, why I (somewhat bashfully) love it, and why I can’t wait for the show to go on:
10. The hair.Serena’s wild locks. Blair’s kept curls.
Chuck’s pomade do. Nate’s man-bangs. Jenny’s transformation from long and straight haired, to Shirley Templed, to a razor-cut mess and back again. And there’s always the jeweled headbands…
9. The skylines.The shows appeal to the photographer in me with their panoramic shots of the New York skyline.
Day to night, Central Park to Rockefeller Center, the show makes me want to head back for a weekend to NYC with S so badly. I remember the fun times we’ve had there, how much there is to do in the city that never sleeps, and how beautiful it is.
8. The music.
Gossip Girl uses primarily
popular music for scoring the show, not unlike The Hills, but in a far more integrated and I think successful way. This season, the show is moving toward indie-rock songs more and more, which I love. Similar to the scoring of Grey’s Anatomy, the way the music is placed in the show is spot on with the emotions of the scenes. It is also the kind of sound track that you want to have playing while working out, before a big interview or date – take over the world kind of music. It’s fun, frivolous, beautiful and empowering at the same time.
7. The parents.Plenty of teen dramas have parent dramas in the background. I think this actually started with the affair Dawson’s mom has in Dawson’s Creek, another show that any one who knows me will tell you I deeply and sincerely love.
Gossip Girl boasts parents Lily Bass, a gazelle like woman who, following 6., has impeccable taste in clothes and eye-glasses, and Rufus Humphrey, the most chill of all TV parents who I cannot watch without thinking of his absolutely incredible, and incredibly
hilarious performance in the HBO mini-series
Band of Brothers. My third favorite parent is the now deceased Bart Bass. Why do I like him? Well, as the character Serena notes, “He raised Chuck.”
6. The clothes. 
The kids dress exquisitely, inline with the character development of their roles. The style on the show is like art, and I admire it. If I don’t go vegan, I think I’d like to wear as much silk as Blair does, and as much leather as Serena. Not to mention S already looks like Chuck when he’s in the mood to dress up!
5. Lonely boy.Dan Humphrey, Rufus’ kid, is an overly cerebral, overly talkative, overly self-conscious brooder/writer/friend-of-a-friend type of guy.
He’s probably the person, if I am being honest, that reminds me of me most on the show. He can get himself into trouble for being nice to people who don’t deserve it, and he can be naïve in thinking that other people are just as transparent about things as he is. Dan is always good for subtle humor, which after the sheer ridiculousness of the show, is its second strongest suit.
4. The shameful, yet necessary, hypocrisy element.This sounds a bit sad perhaps, but as I live, barring human imperfection and the desire to speed on highways, a pretty sq
ueaky clean life in which my darker side needs a benign, or at least innocuous, outlet. I eat well, work out, treat others with respect, work at a substance abuse prevention non-profit, and try to grow spiritually everyday. I suck sometimes, especially in my own head, but in general I think I’m a nice lady. This is why, if I am being completely honest, it is refreshing and to live out anger, aggression, even vengeance, and any other naturally id-like feelings of mine, vicariously through a group of spoiled brats who drink scotch in the morning and get arrested in the afternoon. Call it maladaptive sublimination, but it is so fun, and nobody (except for the fake people in my TV set) gets hurt.
3. The scheming.Right in line with 4., the scheming on this show is incredible. The plot is never entirely unexpected, but the twists and turns and perverted ways you get from a known A to an anticipated B is astounding.
One example would be the way in which typically tense and estranged, though happily reunited lovers Blair and Chuck, find, lose, and re-find each other through a series of their own dark plans and those of their supposedly closest friends. But more on them later. It’s just fun to think two steps ahead of what the characters will do as you watch, and then to see which plots succeed, and which go up in flames.
2. Chuck and Blair apart.Since I didn’t watch the first season until re-runs and I didn’t watch the second season sequentially, I have just recently come to understand the full magnitude of the Blair and Chuck saga. For those of you not unhealthily obsessed like me, this couple only got together in any sort of legitimate way at the end of the second season, but the seeds of their love were evident from the very beginning, and their inability to get together is hands-down, without a question, the most gut-wrenching plotline on a prime-time drama that I’ve ever seen.
Remembering Dawson’s Creek, in the days when I was actually watching teen shows as a teen, this storyline is even better than Pacey and Joey’s winding road. Inside of these character’s quests for each other, a microscope is brought to the delicate nature of human insecurity and passion. My heart literally aches for them every time they can’t get it right.
1. Chuck and Blair together.Chuck was a boozing, womanizing near-monster until he found Blair. Blair was a dogmatic, cliquey tyrant until she found Chuck. Okay, they are still pretty much both of those things, but that's exactly why they are meant for each other! The happy ending is of course that Blair and are together now, which is great for three reasons.
One – they are absolutely perfect for each other and my TV-world feels right with them paired, Two – their scheming is better as a couple than it ever is individually, and Three – it is absolutely horrifying and at the same time exhilarating suspenseful that they are currently harmonious. This is a teen soap opera, and at some point, potentially soon, the convention is that something will have to go wrong with them. And then the lose, re-find cycle will repeat in the maze of a fantastical world that gets me through the insanity of my real life.
Have a happy weekend, and I promise I will blog more soon!
xoxo. Hee hee, just kidding.
So maybe I am ridiculous, and given my post just a few days ago, over-booked (pun intended!), but I wanted to do something somewhat untraditional given great inspiration from blogger Los Whittaker and use the holidays as a time to become stronger physically, spiritually, and relationally. The holidays tend to stress us out, making us focus on what we "should" do and thus over-stuffing us with food, money-spending and stress. Well, enough of that. Suffice it to say the baby Jesus would not want that for humankind, and I really don't want that either.
