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.

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Ben Morse:

I was talking to a co-worker about Chuck (aka rapey guy) the other day and while they could have done an interesting "redemption" arc with him, I guess, there's really no coming back from attempted rape. Without spoiling anything, they essentially do the equivalent of retconning said attempted rape (in that it's never really mentioned again once it becomes clear the actor is really good and they need to give him screen time and development beyond just that of bad guy) and, truth be told, this is one of those situations where it's probably for the best.

I think it was totally a case of the writers figuring he'd be a stock villain then realizing a bit into the season, "Oh shit, this kid's a good actor and people are gonna like him...too bad we had him try to rape a girl..." and thus in the process of giving him layers just chose to sorta ignore the whole rape thing. It's not the best solution, but with the alternative being some sort of hamfisted "redemption" arc, I'm ok with just pretending it never happened. The show's pace is so oriented towards ADD teens and thus the dynamics shift so frequently, drastically and quickly that if you get caught up you kinda forget about what happened five episodes earlier anyhow.

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Rickey Purdin:

Yeah, I'm never watching this show. Hahaha...rapist heroes?

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Me:

No, he's definitely the bad guy, but he's one of those bad guys who outshines the good guys and thus becomes the star. Kind of like The Rock. Or, perhaps more to the point, Ben Linus.

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Rickey:

Did Ben ever try raping somebody? I'm genuinely asking.

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Me:

No, though he has been shown to be lethally possessive regarding people he's interested in sexually. He did however kill dozens of people which is worse than attempting to rape someone.

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Ben:

Spike did though, and it didn't stop me from watching Buffy. Let's be honest: between Lost and most of the FX or HBO or Showtime shows most of us enjoy, we watch some shit starring a lot of murderers, conmen, thieves, etc. in quasi-heroic roles. If you're not watching Gossip Girl because it looks vapid and uninteresting, kudos to you, but if you're claiming to not watch it because of some moral high ground...eh.

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Rickey:

Agree to disagree, shooter.

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TJ Dietsch:

To me, rape is one of those things that I just can't get past if I'm supposed to actually like someone. And he would have done it if he wasn't interrupted or she ran out or whatever happened (it's been a year since I've seen the first episode so it's fuzzy). I get that he's supposed to be this reprehensible, but still lovable guy because he can get away with shit you never could, but that's the line that, at least to me, that you can't cross as a writer if you want me to like your character.

You also can't kill/kick/hurt animals.

But kill as many mutherfuckers as you want and I'm still good.

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Me:

I understand why a person might make this distinction, and I think it boils down to the fact that everybody, and I mean everybody, knows that it's wrong to murder people--the social prohibitions in place for murder are really insurmountable--so there's usually very little worry that the filmmakers and/or audience aren't taking the immorality of murder seriously. (There are exceptions to that, of course, but it's generally true.) However, sexual assault is such a sensitive issue precisely because it's not really treated with the severity it deserves, so watching a character do it and "get away with it" in the sense that he's still constructed to be an enjoyable character has an extra ick factor that, say, watching and enjoying The Sopranos or Lost or whatever else lacks. (Animal cruelty is in the same category.)

This is not to say that you still can't "enjoy" watching the antics of horrible rapists or people who are sexually violent. American Psycho and A Clockwork Orange come to mind. But (and here others disagree with me, but I'm speaking for me here) the tone of moral condemnation is pretty unmistakable in those works. That ain't necessarily so with Gossip Girl, where so far the sexual assault seems to be being treated on the same moral continuum with just the plain-old general backstabbing and debauchery that all the asshole characters indulge in.

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Kiel Phegley:

To me, when it comes to TV shows you have to take the pilot as a kind
of first draft. I don't often count then as cannon since so much
changes even by episode two if not by the end of the first season
(Example: remember how much of a creepy fuck the doc is in the first
episode of "Deadwood"? I totally thought he was going to be a slimey
weirdo all the time). If Gossip Girl were a novel rather than a serial
TV show, I'm sure that the writer would have gone back and revised the
first chapter to take that bit out once they realized they like the
character.

Also, and maybe this is just me, but I never really grew to like the
character in the way you guys are objecting to. I never root for him,
and I don't identify with him at all. He's just an asshole, and his
general "fuck you" attitude is funny to me from a certain distance, so
even if I was thinking about the rape thing all season, I still
wouldn't be super bothered by it because I don't feel I'm letting the
character off the hook. Gossip Girl isn't a show you watch because you
identify with anyone, actually. It's like watching a slutty cartoon.

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Ben:

Yeah, pretty well put, particularly the second part. I'm never rooting for Chuck to "win" per se, anymore than I rooted for, say, Patrick Bateman in the aforementioned American Psycho, but both are charismatic and entertain me. My point was more along the lines of if you don't wanna watch the show or don't like it, that's fine, but don't feel like you need to use the moral highground as an excuse when we all watch shows and movies with morally deplorable fan favorite characters.

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Then I had a separate discussion about it via comments and gmail chat with Matthew Perpetua.

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Matthew: the ethical playing field of Gossip Girl is warped enough so that "attempted rape" is bad, but not enough so that you are dramatically more evil than anyone else on the show. Almost everyone on that show does something horrible now and again. It's crazy that way.

me: normally he'd be the character I'd love
obviously.
but
the rape thing.

Matthew: he actually does some as-creepy things

me: I've been told.
by The Missus's voice students, who are all excited that we're watching Gossip Girl now.
I like how he's an after-school special version of what peer pressure is like.
"You'd better start doing drugs and having sex and spending money or you're not cool anymore!"

Matthew: I enjoy Gossip Girl in more or less exactly the same way I enjoy a really good unapologetically nuts superhero comic

me: right.

Matthew: yeah, Gossip Girl is basically an evil show.
it delights in its evil.

me: my brother watches a soap opera on TiVo and it's clear he's getting out of it what I get out of a superhero comic.
I can appreciate that.
to a certain extent.

Matthew: This Is An Evil Generation

me: yeah.
because sometimes I'm like "fuck 'em and their law"
go drugs, go teen sex, go all that stuff
and then other times, like when I turn on MTV and see what passes for popular culture, I'm like "hm, maybe we should be thinking a little harder about our rebellion"

Matthew: the severe drinking, plus name-checking specific high-end drinks at every opportunity

me: yes, that's fantastic.
I appreciate that.

Matthew: they totally relish in having Blake Lively order expensive drinks on camera

me: how does it get on television?

Matthew: NO IDEA
the CW just wants that youth market
me: Amy and I keep wondering whether teenagers on the Upper East Side really can/do roll into a bar and order a martini
I need to ask one of my old-money friends what his life was like

Matthew: I like how there are subplots in the show where Blair sets out to fuck some innocent person over, and so she does, and that's it. we're supposed to root for Blair being evil and not pity the victim!

me: it's like The Sopranos that way.

Matthew: yeah
but without the moral indigation of the Sopranos

me: rooting for the Scautino bust-out or something.
yeah.
I'm going to be curious as to how I react to that absence.

Matthew: Gossip Girl is just giddy evil
Gossip Girl really asks you to relate the most to Blair and Chuck
because the implication is, if you could, you'd totally do what they do. you can't be Serena or Nate or Dan, but you can be Blair, and you can be Chuck.
it's this crazy fallen world stuff

me: right. I can already see that somewhat. You can't be perfect, because, well, look at you, but you can work hard enough to rival the perfect people through concentrated douchebaggery

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By the time I get home from work today we'll have two discs full of Gossip Girl waiting for us, so perhaps I'll have more to say, or more to copy and paste at least, by the end of the weekend.

Posted by Sean T. Collins at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)