Good morning, Upper East Siders. It’s time for a new season of power wars and aristocrazyness on the steps of the Met. The only crown that matters is about to be disputed. The new Gossip Girl is finally here. Almost a decade after the original show ended, HBO Max has aired the first six episodes of the much-anticipated reboot. Fans should not expect to see a reunion of their favorite characters, though; the show features a brand-new cast of actors and a very fresh perspective. The new Gossip Girl is definitely progressive. Unfortunately, this progressiveness doesn’t pair well with most of the characters and prevents the story from reaching its climax. In trying to get the best of both worlds (vision and drama), the show ends up with none.
The story kicks off nine years after the original Gossip Girl blog went dark. There’s a new generation of “It” girls and golden boys ruling Constance and St Judd’s, but their kingdom is about to be shaken up by the arrival of a newcomer, Zoya Lott (Whitney Peak). This will sound all-too-familiar to fans of the original series – although, unlike Serena’s celebrity appearance in Grand Central, Zoya’s is more subdued, tiptoeing through the back door with a scholarship under one arm and a big secret under the other: She’s the long-lost half-sister of Constance’s current Queen Bee, JC (Jordan Alexander). The show’s main tension rapidly unfolds and this time it’s not about finding out who Gossip Girl is. The once anonymous narrator has been replaced by a group of teachers at Constance, led by English professor Kate Miller (Tavi Gavinson, a nod to those old enough to remember her own days as a fashion blogger). The main tension, then, falls back into the overplayed dynamic of “two women and one crown” (two women and one boyfriend, and one school, and one ball, and so on and so forth). Only this time, they are family and are trying to make their friendship work. But, just like the show, it doesn’t.
The writers seem to be trying to reconcile two impossibles in every single character, especially the females. They are mean and bitchy, but preach feminism and sorority. Some characters are extravagantly rich, but suddenly have inexplicable moral concerns about their class privilege. Contradictions make for complex characters, but it takes a deeper dive into their psychology to make them believable. Not all of them turn out to be two-face Harveys. In that aspect, the show fails dismally, which becomes most apparent when JC exposes her sister’s darkest secret to dethrone her, just to immediately regret it and make a tearful apology on stage. What was supposed to be a climactic Queen Bee revenge flattens into a mediocre sister reconciliation, and that’s the main beat of the show. Big promises that are never delivered, and decaf characters that are neither glamorously mean nor advocates of progress.
Joshua Safran, the creative mind behind the reboot and one of the executive producers for the original iteration, was very clear about the changes he wanted to introduce. “I wanted to be more inclusive; I wanted to showcase a more diverse universe; I wanted to tell more queer stories,” he told Variety.
In other words, the strikingly all-white, all-heterosexual cast of main characters from the original show was to be buried in 2007. In that sense, the reboot meets its purpose. The casting for the new GG feels refreshing, with half of the main characters, as well as a number of secondary ones, being played by non-white actors. In addition to that much-needed diversity, the show explores its queerness through the characters of Aki Menzies (Evan Mock) and Max Wolffe (Thomas Doherty). Aki starts to question his feelings for his friend Max, the pansexual hedonist of the school, who is, in turn, chasing his hot Latino professor, Rafa Caparros (Jason Gotay). For a brief moment, the excitement of a pending threesome keeps the audience engaged, but there’s little left of anything remotely personal in the story, despite some character growth during these moments. Other than that, the storyline soon begins to stagger.
The whole show screams 2021, and not just because of its references to the pandemic. Dialogues are filled with hints to a very progressive discourse. Unfortunately, this doesn’t come naturally out of the story but actually runs against the plot over and over again. As a consequence, the show sometimes comes off as an encoded manifesto. For example, Monet cries “fuck the patriarchy” twice in a sentence for no reason story-wise. For the most part, it is plain, fable-like or just flat-out boring.
Through the first six episodes, it becomes clear that there is a generational gap between the two Gossip Girls. The many activist and solidarity movements of the last decade — #MeToo, BLM, Fridays For Future, No Human is Illegal, and many more — have shaped a youth that is much more aware of social injustices than their predecessors. But they’re also more technologically savvy.
The original GG was launched by an aspiring writer on the blogosphere, where only the elite deserved a “spotted”. The new one has arrived during the age of Instagram, where most of the characters wear a writer’s hat at some point, and the majority of the show’s audience has probably experienced the social surveillance of IG in their own lives. Have Gen-Z audiences outgrown the once addictive “scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite”? Are they tired of self-centered, privileged villains? The immense popularity of rival teen shows certainly paints a different picture. “Sex Education” or “13 Reasons Why,” both among the 10 most-watched Netflix shows of 2019, indicate a change of taste. One in the direction of relatable characters, played by younger, more credible actors, where taboo topics like mental health or sex issues are openly addressed. This is also exemplified by teen preferences on social media, where a bet on unfiltered-ness (Emma Chamberlain), body positivity (Demi Lovato) or just being fun and quirky (Alexis G Zall) seems to be really paying off.
Would the original GG have become the immense cultural phenomenon it was had it been released today? It is hard to tell. The real question, however, is not so much whether the genre is dead —they never really are — but whether the formula can be reinvented more successfully than this reboot has. Can we demand to see unapologetically evil aristocrats again that also take the pulse of our times? To answer that question, shows like “Elite” seem a good place to start. Combining the features of teen drama with the flashforward murder mystery, very much in the style of “How To Get Away With Murder,”, the Spanish show follows the students of Las Encinas, an elite school in Madrid, but it’s not short of personal challenges. It touches upon everything from AIDS and sexual exploration to class and religious difference, in what reads as a more honest, yet undeniably salacious, coming-of-age.
Given the chance to reimagine the Constance villain of 2021, Gossip Girl falls short of drama and eventually drowns in its self-imposed morality. Nevertheless, the second part of this first season (episodes 7-12) is expected to be released in November 2021. In addition, HBO has announced that the show will be renewed for a second season in 2022. That means there’s still an opportunity for the characters to find their voice and finally own it, and for us to enjoy once again the thrills of power and romance if they do. If they don’t, the only thing nostalgic fans will be left with from the original GG will be the unmistakable voice of Kristen Bell.
Gossip Girl (2021) is available to stream on HBO Max.