Gossip Girl: A waste of New York

When in conversation about Gossip Girl, the words you typically hear thrown around include chaotic, fast-paced, and messy. You may also hear a lot about the humble, remote village of New York City.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that the show wouldn’t have been all that if it weren’t for the backdrop of New York City, and I have about two things to say to that. First of all, let’s be real, the show wasn’t much. Second of all, there isn’t anything inherently ‘New York’ about the show. No specific quirks of the city were utilised for Gossip Girl (even though they should have been, but that’s an entirely different can of worms), and nothing was memorable enough to warrant utilising the Upper East Side as ‘the’ location for the show.

Sure, location in a show is certainly not everything. But in a show like Gossip Girl, where the characters fall almost as flat as the shoes they claim to hate, and the plot is almost as repetitive as the streets they roam, the least they could do is have a location that they’re known for.

The class divide could’ve been portrayed just as well in another place

Take a look at Sex and the City, for example. Not only is its setting the city of New York, but the show exudes it. The nature of the city in the late ‘90s is perfectly captured throughout the episodes, the creative scene specifically reflected in the lifestyles of every character (whether it be one of the main four girls or someone secondary). Even if it was a momentary feature from Donald Trump or some other suit that worked in finance, the show was New York.

Gossip Girl tries really hard to use the city to portray the perils of coming from a lower socioeconomic background, like in the case of Manhattan versus Brooklyn, but this issue is very much not a new one or one specific to New York City. The class divide could’ve been portrayed just as well, if not more believably, in another place plagued by income inequality,

Be it in India, be it in South Africa, be it in the UAE.

It can definitely be argued that Gossip Girl was a product of its time

It can definitely be argued that Gossip Girl was a product of its time – that a place so rich with opportunities for ‘Ivy-Hungry’ kids born into filthy levels of generational wealth could only be this one. But again, it wouldn’t explain why there were so many successful “Gossip Girl in [insert location]” shows in the same era. Wouldn’t Queen Bee Blair Waldorf herself denounce them, deeming them to be like the cheap knockoffs she so vociferously condemns?

More importantly, why is it so easy to recreate the same premise, regardless of its longevity?

The answer is simple: the show is basic and its location is irrelevant to it. I’ll be honest, the first season wasn’t all that bad, but only because it presented to us a decent assortment of relatively complex characters, living their lives in their little bubble. But the fact remains that the bubble could’ve hovered over any city and their lives could’ve gone on, with only a few specific terms changed. Maybe the Empire would’ve been called something else, or their designated universities different from NYU and Columbia – but the characters would’ve remained underdeveloped, the plots recycled, and Chuck Bass’s rape attempts would’ve remained overlooked.