| Bronze | Дата: Пятница, 17.02.2012, 04:15 | Сообщение # 4550 |
 High Society
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| http://nowhitenoise.com/2012/02/why-i-quit-gossip-girl/
Why I quit Gossip Girl
NOTE: this is filed under opinion for a reason. Even though I make some statements in a factual connotation, it’s because it’d be redundant if I kept saying I think.
Holy crap I just read this and it was way longer than I intended. So I included a shortcut way to read this monstrosity by listing out my grievances and then going after and explaining them in depth. So feel free to avoid my word vomit and just get to the point quickly.
The producers of the Gossip Girl tried to sell the 100th episode as an homage to the 99 that came before it. A turning point in the narrative that would put things back on track to the show I used to love. The milestone episode had the opposite effect, for it made me quit the show I lived my high school years with; the show I spent time on for 5 years. It was a hard decision and really made those 5 years feel like a waste..well at least the last 3. If you will indulge me in this cathartic experience, I would like to go through why I loved this show, where it went wrong, and why I was forced to give it up.
Initially, watching Gossip Girl was the last thing I wanted to do. I firmly hold on to the belief that if this show had been named something more…ambiguous sounding it would have garnered much more ratings in its glory days than it did. Even for me a freshman in high school, the show just sounded stupid. Think about it. I watch Gossip Girl. If you ever are trying to convince someone to watch, the name gives you an uphill battle. But, my friends convinced me to watch since it was free on iTunes. Mind you I did not go into this expecting to like it, and yet I still came out of it really loving it. (And seriously I have gotten so many people to watch it. After they got over the name and actually sat down they would look at me and say “wow I actually enjoyed that.”)
Immediately, I identified with Blair, and she became my favorite character. In addition to the fact that I am always drawn to HBIC (Head Bitch in Charge) characters, she had so many more layers. She had a knack for doing the most heinous things, but always for valid reasons, in my opinion. Rather than be horrified by her scheming tactics, I found myself rooting for her. And I mean if you watched season 1, you know that Blair was the baddest bitch that ever lived. The dialogue was quick and witty between almost every character. Furthermore, it really just felt new and sparkly, literally. I was in awe with the wealth of the teens (my reactions were pretty similar to Dan’s but without some of the judgement). While Blair was my favorite, I liked every character (except Vanessa, and later on Jenny and much later on Dan). The show had its flaws sure, but I would venture to say, the first and second seasons were anything but a guilty pleasure; it was just good television.
Then, amidst all the excitement post Season 2, something happened. Perhaps it was the inability for the writers to make the concept of this show work with the absence of a high school setting (I mean it is a bit ridiculous for them all to still care about Gossip Girl). Everything just became so convoluted and boring. Characterizations that were spot on in the first two seasons began to erode to make way for new story lines. I stuck with it, until I saw the character that was once my favorite in all of television act in ways I could have never imagined. The Blair that I admired, the one who was strong, calculated with every decision, ambitious, driven, yet the character who loved the hardest and did anything for those she loved, now stood at the altar to marry a guy she did not love for no reason. I mean based on some monologues she gave to Dan it was because she didn’t want to be alone. That in itself is a slap in the face. Why can’t she be alone? Why is she so needy/damsel in distress like? Why doesn’t she scheme or seem to have any inclination to make something of herself other than a wife?
The Blair who made her living manipulating others and seeing right through people (think “The Wild Brunch” scene where she just gives Jenny one look, and knows she has complete power over her, or “Roman Holiday” where she gives one look to Vanessa and knows all her motivations) was now suddenly being manipulated and easily lied to by people? Who asks permission to scheme? Making pacts with God? This same Blair who told Vanessa in “Enough About Eve” that she would never leave her fate in anyone else’s hands which is why she always wins. This Blair made some pact (which was just a complete copy of The End of the Affair) and spent the episode saying that she’ll suffer any indignity as long as she stays away from Chuck and he stays alive.
Truthfully, I would’ve stopped after that shit episode but for some reason I believed the 100th episode would actually be good. This same pact went out the window the minute she found out Louis didn’t love her…I mean wasn’t that the point of the pact? Suffer through your loveless marriage. Oh, I’m sorry it was only worth it when Louis loved you. Now that he doesn’t, she can now leave him without a thought to that pact. It was this figurative death of the character I held so dear that made me quit.
Unfortunately, Blair was no longer the “crazy bitch around here” as she proudly proclaimed in the season 1 finale, now she is just plain crazy. When you are at the point when the only thing resembling your favorite character is their name and the actress playing her (she hasn’t been herself for a while but I kept lying to myself) it’s time to move on. Let me make it clear that my quitting has NOTHING to do with shipping preferences.
Full disclosure, I ship Chuck/Blair, but their not being together is not why I think the show became terrible. I loved everything about the show’s first and second season. Besides that awful Hangover-like storyline with Chuck in season 2, the senseless season 2 Blair/Jack hookup that to this day makes no sense and the character Aaron, everything else I loved. This includes anytime Chuck and Blair were apart or together. And newsflash Chuck and Blair were not a substantiated story until season 2. Sure I preferred them together, but that was a novelty, a luxury almost. I was just invested in the characters and their interactions with each other. I loved the NJBC (why they never were allowed to be the core focus of the show I will never understand), Chuck/Blair as friends/lovers, Nate/Chuck friendship, Chuck/Dan interactions, Dan/Blair interactions, Blair/Jenny interactions, Serena/Chuck as siblings, Dan/Serena as lovers, Nate/Serena as friends and lovers, Eric/anybody and most importantly Blair/Serena. Additionally, I loved the focus on their relationship with their families; it is one of the things that endeared these rich spoiled kids to me. The show was light, funny and diabolical most of the time, but when it chose to go dark (Bart’s death), it handled the aftermath with proper care and time. Jump forward to the show’s present state, and it is now as stupid as its title suggests.
The most fundamental problem I have with this show is the writing. Yes, I know this statement is neither new nor specific, but it’s the truth. And there are many levels to what it means:
1. The broader, longterm storylines became ridiculous.
2. The characterizations were completely off and sacrificed for dumb plots.
3. The subtlety was gone, and they began telling the viewer instead of showing.
4. The dialogue has suffered in terms of character interactions and continuity.
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1. The broader, longterm storylines became ridiculous.
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On one level the broader stories became less organic feeling and more soap opera like as the seasons wore on. The first time I noticed it become a detriment was the Rufus/Lily baby storyline. They spent all this time looking for this long lost child that Lily never told him about, only to find him, and never hear from him again. Then you have the Chuck’s mom is still alive (even though that makes no narrative sense, and voids every scene Chuck shared with Bart in season 2), the Chuck/Blair indecent proposal and the subsequent Last Tango, Then Paris finale storylines (which I saw coming a mile away and felt like I was watching a look back to the days when I watched soaps with my mom at age 10). I don’t have time to go over the others because the ridiculous storylines have only increased exponentially post season 3.
Furthermore, while the Gossip Girl of Season 1, 2, and even Season 3 burned through storylines, the later seasons dragged on and on. Exhibit A: The atrocity that is season 5. It is abundantly clear that the writers thought it would be so cool for the 100th episode to be a big event. And what is the biggest event one could have? Why a Royal Wedding! No seriously, the development between episode 1 and 13 is zero. Chuck is pining after Blair still, check. Blair and Louis are still engaged and going to be married, check. Dan is still pining after Blair and hasn’t revealed his feelings, check. Serena and Nate are irrelevant, check. So as you can see literally nothing has changed within those 13 episodes. The only change is that Blair lost her baby… *crickets* oh right that baby never existed the way these people tell it.
By contrast, if you take the first 13 episode of season 1, Blair is no longer the Queen B in charge, but unlike the pilot has Serena to lean on. Chuck is not the unrepentant bad boy you thought he was and shows his care for Nate when he turns Blair away because he is devastated that Nate disowned him as a friend. Serena has now settled into a relationship with Dan and exchanged those three words that she never has before. Jenny is no longer the outsider and has been inscribed in the main clique. So as you can see massive changes in character development and story. It’s not just season 1. In season 2, for example, the displacement is great between the 13 episodes. Blair admits to Chuck that she loves him. Bart is dead. Chuck spirals out of control. Nate’s monetary situation gets figured out. Eleanor gets married. Serena fights her feelings for Dan out of deference to her parents. And lastly, Rufus and Lily are finally going to be together until the bomb of their secret lovechild drops. The same is true for the other two seasons, the exception being the horrendous Season 5, where no movement has been made and everyone is in some state of limbo. There are no couples except Rufus and Lily and honestly they don’t really count.
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2. The characterizations were completely off and sacrificed for dumb plots.
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But its more than just these stagnant and ridiculous storylines. You can write any external obstacles you want but make it work by keeping people in character. It was clear that rather than stick to the characterizations pioneered in the first 2 seasons, the writers opted for a more plot driven show. The first to go was Jenny, who the writers allowed to dress and look exactly like Taylor Momsen instead of keeping her in character. She just became this terrible person who did horrible things for no apparent reason. One minute you sympathized with her because you thought she was an insecure girl who felt judged for being from Brooklyn and just wanted to be liked, to being recognized as queen, to her making a full transformation into a mean girl, to purposefully trying to break up Serena/Nate, to wanting to go back to Brooklyn, to sleeping with Chuck. This is nothing like the Jenny of the first two season in my opinion, and while I always talk about Jenny with disdain, upon reflection that really was not how I felt throughout the majority of her stay. When I re-watched the show I found myself remembering how much I used to like her.
Next was Chuck, and contrary to popular belief, I thought his character was assassinated way before the IP. From the beginning of season 3, he just wasn’t Chuck Bass to me anymore. It was an abrupt character change from a snarky playboy with a heart (not just for Blair but for Nate, Serena, Eric, and so on), to a middle aged business man without a college degree. Then it went from him regarding Blair as a partner in crime, to him selling her out. A plot point that still makes little sense to me because even before they were together Chuck and Blair schemed together. And yes I know that Blair made him kiss that guy for a speech but for one, that is an offense at such a lesser degree, and I too thought that made no sense. Why not just tell Chuck he needed to kiss the guy? When Blair wanted to scheme to get Serena to see Gabriel was a loser, she called Chuck. When she wanted to socially destroy Serena at the Ivy mixer in season 1, she called Chuck. When she wanted to take down Georgina in Season 1, she put aside her differences and went to Chuck for help.
But back to the IP, the most annoying part (notice I did not say disturbing, the act itself was disturbing and to this day I don’t know what the writers were thinking) was when Blair asked Chuck why he simply did not just come to her he replied “If I asked it wouldn’t have worked. You would have been too willing when Jack asked and he would have known we were working together.” I’m sorry… what? This is the same Chuck who regarded Blair’s ability to scheme as one that rivaled his own, the Blair he saw as an equal. The same Blair who 3 episodes later he went to for scheming help for her “mind game mastery”. So now they are telling me Chuck believes in her scheming ability (well actually 2 years of show told me that)? Then he just got drowned in Ed Westwick’s whisper voice in Season 4 as well as some family drama that doesn’t even make sense. Sigh.
Then, Nate stopped being a character. It’s so weird how you can spend part of the season with Serena and really not have a story, but that was Nate. A trend that has only worsened. Serena’s character was sacrificed so that the writers had an excuse for her to stay in New York and not go to Brown, when they could have just had her want to go to Columbia. Instead they made her look stupid with her “I don’t know who I am” speeches, getting a faux job as an assistant before deciding she was better than that…and then doing nothing else with her time. And then when you get into Season 4, they rose her flakiness to crazy levels with that ridiculous Nate and Dan triangle, where two attractive men waited around for one girl to choose either of them (I realize the irony of me thinking this was dumb, and couldn’t get worse when the same thing would happen with Blair only *gasp* this time it was 3 men waiting for her to choose. How interesting.). Even though Serena was never close to my favorite, I never perceived her flightiness and going from guy to guy as her taking any of them for granted. It was more that she makes it so easy for you to get to know her, she’s so personable and charismatic, that people gravitate towards her. And while she had many partners, it was never at the insensitive expense of anyone else. She just got swept up in her romances and was blinded to reason.
Enter Blair. Although I felt Blair become a little less of the bad ass Blair I knew and loved, she still had her great one liners and I suppose it would be redundant to have Season 1 Blair kick everyone’s ass at all times for the rest of the show (not to me, but I guess Blair’s not everyone’s favorite), so I forgave that. Then as I stated above she just went crazy. Dan honestly just seems like the same guy to me, expect one major difference. In season 1 I liked him a bit, I found him funny, even though he was so freaking judgmental. BUT that was the point. He would judge, be proven wrong and ALWAYS apologize. That somehow morphed into him judging without remorse, while he went and did the same thing without being called out on it. The last time he was called on it was by Blair in the Season 2 finale. And now Dan just goes on being the same person but without the humility he had in the first 2 seasons. Yes it was acknowledged through the character in his book, but notice how he no longer acknowledges it like he used to. I don’t think he even realizes anymore. Or the writers don’t care to give him POV on that. I was re-watching part of season 1 and literally within the first 4 episodes there were about 3 different times where Dan would say “I’m sorry I judged you. I know nothing about your world.” And it was things like that at least made him tolerable, even if you were annoyed with how judgy he was.
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3. The subtlety was gone, and they began telling the viewer instead of showing.
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Now while, I disagreed with the writers’ portrayal of these characters, I hadn’t lost faith yet. Until the back half the season 4, I held out hope of a recovery.That is not a passive aggressive jab at Dan/Blair (They weren’t really the true problem. It’s more how it was done. More on that later), there was a much deeper problem that still plagues the show today. In fact I will go as far as to say this is the number 1 reason under the moniker “bad writing” that the show is unrecognizable. Subtlety. It’s gone. Disappeared. Does not exist. I took some creative writing classes in my day, and the FIRST thing they tell you is to SHOW not TELL. That means do not simply write: She was happy. He was sad. They were angry. They loved each other. You must SHOW it. This show used to possess subtlety. IT did not explain explicitly with words in dialogue every character’s actions. Rather they showed you POV through ACTIONS not WORDS, and let you deduce motivations for yourself. There are so many old examples of this on the show.
In season 2 literally the whole season was Blair and Chuck showing themselves and the audience that they loved each other without saying the words. If this was written by the current regime there’d probably be less direct scenes of Blair with Chuck and more Blair telling Serena how much she loves him and Chuck spilling his feelings to someone else, all the while the viewer is sitting there with no visual evidence of these words. I first noticed this worrying trend in season 3 when everyone and their mother (literally) told Dan he was in love with Vanessa, when there was no visual evidence to back that up. You could tell they just decided to go in that direction on a whim, so they did not plant any seeds. In fact, there was a funny scene where a horrified Vanessa said to Dan “I’m not in love with you, you moron” earlier that season. That’s only a trend that worsened
The most egregious of those being the season 4 finale when Blair randomly told us she loved Louis and Chuck with no prior evidence to back that up. It actually got worse in season 5 when she made all these melodramatic and over the top declarations of love to Chuck from 5×10-5×13. And while I am a Chair fan, even this rubbed me the wrong way. The whole first half of the season was spent on Chuck being awesome, and Blair about to get married, living completely separate lives from each other and with no evidence to back this up they have her say this and we are supposed to believe it. I know they did this to throw Chair fans a bone, but to me it really cheapened the words that they had previously built up to mean so much in season 2. “I love you more and more everyday if that’s even possible.” But there is literally no recent history to back that up.
The same goes for what used to be my favorite part of the show: the schemes. When Blair schemed to ruin Serena’s life in “Poison Ivy” she did not tell Chuck or the audience what she planned on doing. She left it as an ambiguous “total social destruction” statement. Then as the show unraveled, you pieced together what Blair was doing until she actually just did it. Same thing in “Hi, Society” where Chuck schemed to get Blair at the end of Cotillion. He thought up and executed his scheme without audience explanation they just showed it to us. And later had Blair confirm what we saw him plan. Once again it was confirmation, as in a reinforcement of something already shown to us. Again, just to reiterate the point, in “Roman Holiday” when Blair schemes to get Freddy at the party they actually never tell you her plan in dialogue. They just give you pieces of information and you can deduce what she is going to do/did. Fast forward to the scheme the gang uncovered at the end of Season 3 with William Van der Woodsen, and all you got was a bunch of information that literally made no sense together, and Blair in a limo explaining the past year of the Van der Woodsen’s lives instead of showing it to us. “The Big Sleep No More”, which is actually one of my least favorite episodes ever, has the once scheming mastermind, going around in the least conspicuous manner possible yelling out her entire plan to Dorota, executing it poorly, and having Chuck verbally have to explain to the audience at the end what went down.
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4. The dialogue has suffered in terms of character interactions and continuity.
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The final nail in the writing coffin is the dialogue. There was once a time when the staples of the show were Chuck/Blair sexual tension, Serena/Blair friendship, Dan/Serena relationship, Jenny vs UES, and just all the funny things that would happen when the mains interacted with each other (the running jokes of Blair’s headbands, Chuck’s scarves, Lily’s German Klaus and Danish Claus, Blair’s Brooklyn hate, Dan’s UES hate, limo sex, “I’m Chuck Bass,” etc). One of the best parts to me about the on and off relationship between Dan and Serena was waiting to see Blair’s reactions. Or whenever Serena and Chuck shared a scene you prepared to share a laugh. Even further, Chuck and Dan scenes were always sure to be hysterical. And honestly, I love Nate’s interaction with Chuck, Serena, and especially Blair (not in a romantic sense). I just think they are so funny together. It was the great dialogue between characters that made them all coming together (end of season 1,2 and 3).
The only season in which they did not unite all together to uncover a scheme at the end was season 4. That’s not a coincidence. That was also the season where Serena was off with a retconned story about her boarding school days with a bunch of guest stars. Chuck was off with a bunch of guest stars (one of the worst in history in my opinion). Nate is always off with guest stars so no change there. All this left Blair and Dan to hang with each other. I actually found their scenes to be funny, as I stated I always laughed at their dynamic (mostly because of their mutual hate). I even accepted the reluctant friends bit. But what I did not understand was why they had to isolate everyone else in boring stories to do it.
People blame Dan/Blair for the second half sucking because it came at the expense of the show but I contend that it is more the writers’ fault. When Dan and Blair were hanging out they happened to go to the same movie that could have happened regardless of if their friends were occupied or not. Furthermore, it would have been even more interesting to me if they became friends despite all the external blockades. Instead, the writers chose the easy way out and had Blair always running to Brooklyn because everyone else was too busy. Enter season 5, where suddenly Dan became her best friend and Serena downgraded to…just a roommate I guess. I laughed every time Blair would say “Serena is my best friend” in season 5 because as stated in my third grievance, there was no evidence to back that up. Just empty words. Furthermore, the one liners are tired and no longer funny. I suppose they got a new writing team and maybe they just don’t get the characters like the old ones used to.
So these are my major grievances with the show. The show is now an unrecognizable shell of itself, and I know the writers cannot fix it. Mostly because they don’t even acknowledge that anything is wrong, and even if they did I wouldn’t trust them to fix it. I often wonder why I even held on as long as I did, and I think it was because I was in denial. Though I still ship the old Chuck/Blair to this day (I just re-watch season 1 and 2), the Chuck/Blair presented to me in the back half of Season 3 through 5 are not the Chuck and Blair I loved. In fact, if that Chuck and Blair relationship was presented to me in season 1 I would definitely not have shipped it. It would have just been another melodramatic, generic couple. But Ed and Leighton have such wonderful chemistry and are great actors that I lied to myself and continued on. Even in 4×07-4×09, the last time I caught a glimpse of the old Chuck and Blair, I was thrilled because I’m cheap and no matter what if my ship is having sex I’m gonna support it. However, storyline wise they had not earned the right to be in that place again. Regardless from then on, all of their conversations were devoid of the banter and sexual tension, and replaced with these ridiculous melodramatic lines. Every. Single. Scene. Worse than that, their whole relationship was retconned. With their “I was the dark, you were the light” conversations I want to pull my hair out. How about no. They were partners in crime. She was the baddest bitch on television and he was the bad boy and the tension there just worked. But then it got changed to this whole Blair needs her fairytale storyline, which was already dealt with at the end of season 2 and handled very maturely by a high school Blair “Fairytales end when they do for a reason”, only to be brought back when she was a 20 year old where she has apparently regressed and hasn’t learned her lesson.
This goes back to my theory that if this staff of writers and regime in charge tried to recreate the awesomeness that is season 1 and 2 it would be a BIG FAIL. I swear if I hear the word fairytale one more time…I digress. I still shipped Chuck/Blair out of stubbornness more than anything else (well Ed and Leighton’s chemistry), but they were not the same. I unconsciously kept thinking, “They’ll go back to being the partner in crime pair I shipped in Season 2.” The Chuck and Blair I shipped so hard was not the one I was seeing on screen, but rather (to quote every sappy movie) the idea of what it could be, what it used to be. I went on watching knowing something was off (for both the show and the couple), but held on to the memories and was unable to see that the reality of the show and my ideal version did not overlap. It was pretty much like a relationship you don’t realize has gone bad because you are too busy thinking back to the glory days. That’s true for how I feel about Blair, Chuck/Blair, and the show itself. Good Riddance Gossip Girl, it was fun while it lasted. Now the show is delegated down to what I call my “Eternal Sunshine re-watch” list. Essentially that means I will re-watch Gossip Girl until season 2 and pretend it ended there.
Сообщение отредактировал Bronze - Пятница, 17.02.2012, 04:16 |
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когда поплывет по реке труп врага 
да вообще ужас, зачем хорошего перса убирать 