Gossip Girl 1.1

[meganbmoore]

Yes, I, too, have fallen victim to seeing whether or not Chuck Bass's clothing is worse than anything kdramas can come up with.  So far, kdramas are still winning.

So, uhm, this is about as far from anything I normally watch as it gets.  But Certain People Who Shall Remain Nameless (calixa and oxymoronassoc) spent about 6 months talking to me about it nonstop.

But you know, I actually find spoiled and backstabbing rich kids more entertaining than the angsty "my parents are evil and expect so much" rich kids/a-bit-older-than-kids that are so popular in manga and doramas.

Main thoughts:

1.  Wait, Kelly Rutherford is old enough to be playing the mother of a teenager now?  Did she have Serena at 13?  (Yeah, I have no idea how old KR is, but I still think of her in her 90s roles.)

2.  Were Serena and Blair male, 15 shipper communities dedicated to their foeyay would have been created within two hours of the pilot airing.

3.  Blair is kinda scary.  Serena is kinda scary.  Should they join forces, I would recommend a mass evacuation.

4.  Jenny shall be eaten alive.

5.  Chuck and Nate are clearly far too rich to be riding the public school bus.  Surely there were cleverer ways to introduce Dan?

6.  Within 48 hours, Chuck attempted to rape both Dan's crush and his sister.  I'm amazed he didn't "fall off the roof."

7.  Dan and Serena are kinda cute.  This no doubts means that they are either Doomed, or things will happen to annoy me.

8.  Nate is pretty, but kinda bland.  Like, the actor is blandly cute and the character is really bland.  I fail to understand what either Blair or Serena sees in him.

9.  Blair should not be trying to have sex with Nate because she's worried he likes someone else.  Excuse me, please, while I go explain "self-respect" to her.

10.  Dan's dad used to date Serena's mom!  It really is a kdrama!  I hope the last time they had sex was no less than 2 years prior to any of the  kids being born.

11. I'm kinda sad that I currently hate Chuck's wannabe-rapist-self.  Curiosity about one of his storylines (or more accurately, who he's later paired with) was one of the main things that seduced me to the dark side.

12.  Why does the cover of the DVD set have Jenny hanging off the arm of the guy who tried to rape her?  I mean, I can see Serena being comfortable around Chuck again (she could probably hit almost as hard as Dan), but not Jenny. 

13.  Jenny will be like Dawn in Buffy, where I won't love her, but won't get why everyone else hates her, won't she?
 
Even though I kinda am spoiled, no spoilers!

P.S.:  Hey, I already had a Gossip Girl tag!  (I have no idea what for.  Maybe a picspam of Chuck's clothes?)

Comments

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

2. Were Serena and Blair male, 15 shipper communities dedicated to their foeyay would have been created within two hours of the pilot airing.

AHAHAHAHA! As it is, there are only 12. You underestimate the femslashers.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

But did they spring up as quickly as the m/m ones do?

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I don't actually know. But I do know that posting Gossip Girl on femslash_today updates fills me with some sort of unholy glee. I think maybe it's because the GG femslashers are so happy and glee-filled and bouncy

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, everyone is bi in the books. Maybe that's why.

[foenix.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I'm replying here...

This show has oddly grown on me. I have zero idea why I started watching, I think it was for Kristen Bell's voiceover (I know, I know, I need help...) but now I...kinda like it.

Like you, SO very far from what I normally watch. Even when it comes to normal people shows, I can't stand rich kids, doing rich kids stuff. Literally no association I can latch onto. One of the saving graces is how much Serena doesn't really want to be part of that world, but doesn't really have a choice in the matter.

The strength of the cast, and variety of characters, and just how rich (not monetarily, but character-wise) they are have definitely kept me around.

And yes, Jenny is going to be so very much the Dawn of this show for you, I think.

I hate that I'll probably comment more on these than I do for the scifi shows you've posted about. ;)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, most of my English-language viewing is genre or period stuff, and the straight modern asian dramas I watch, I go in knowing there's an actual end. With modern English-language stuff, it's either sff or the occasional procedural.

I think part of the appeal is that they aren't trying to dress up the spoiled rich kids as anything but whatthey are.

As far as Dawn goes, it's not that she's anything close to a favorite, it just seems that she gets hated on for acting her age, and I get a similar vibe from Jenny.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

OMG Kristin Bell is doing the voice over of gossip girl?!?>!?!?!?!?!?!

That is so damn awesome.

[morwen_peredhil]

1. Yes, she's old enough — born in 1968.

2. Of all the fandoms I've been in, GG has the most femslash. There seems to be at least as much of it as of the boyslash, which is a nice change even though I'm not interested in either.

5. Yep. You won't see them on the bus again. The reset button was hit on that one.

6. They wrote Chuck all rapey when he was supposed to be just a recurring character, not a regular. It isn't forgotten/erased immediately, like the bus riding, but it's forgotten soon enough.

7. Why choose just one of those options? It's...complicated. Very complicated. And annoying.

8. Nate never gets any better.

10. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You have no idea.

11. Forget the rapiness and just go with it — all the characters seem to. I'm able to get past it because the writers have admitted they wouldn't have had Chuck do that in the pilot if they'd realized at the time that he was going to be a regular.

13. I think you'll get why everyone else hates Jenny if you keep watching.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

1. Looks younger!

2. Yeah, it seems you're a lot less likely to run into the more annoying things with f/f than you are with m/m. I'm not really interested in either, but am more inclined to like f/f (I blame Claymore) or at least find it interesting. Mind you, I mostly just want to clear innocent bystanders out of the way in this case.

6. Not really the kind of thing that should be forgotten about, IMO...

7. Yeah, see, I just know this will send me to my ranty place.

8. I understand they get terribly desperate while trying to make him more interesting.

11. I dunno. I can see them getting past it regarding Serena, but Jenny was much more predatory and she was much more defenseless.

13. Right now, she just strikes me as a normal teen trying to fit in.

[carrielh.livejournal.com]

7. I love Dan and Serena a lot. I won't say anything spoilery beyond that, but I think they're cute.

11. I never really got over the Chuck hate, so I could never fully appreciate his romantic plotlines, but he's entertaining enough, I guess.

13. I think that is a fair assessment, yes.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Dan and Serena are very "aww, cute," which makes me fearful.

I'm not good at getting past attempted rape myself.

[lostopenwindows.livejournal.com]

I think Dan and Serena were at their cutest in the pilot, which is still my favorite GG episode.

And yes, Blair is very scary. That's what makes her so wonderful.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

What makes Blair scary is that it'd be oh-so-easy to just dismiss her out of hand.

[mtranc3.livejournal.com]

I'll admit to watching it ^^;; It started purely for the fashion (which is over the top and unrealistic, but fabulous nontheless) and then I kind of liked the tragical hilariousness of the characters -especially Blair's- Dan and Serena are charming in the first episode, but they get really boring as the show moves on in my opinion.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I've seen some of Chuck's fashion from later in the series. While I'd say Serena and Blair's fashion is excellent, his might cancel that out.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

GG has the most amazing femslash community ever. It definitely has the largest of any fandom I've dipped my toes in.

And to be fair, Chuck's character did attempt to rape Jenny in the books as well. At this point in the series, they were still following the books more closely. It's later when the show starts diverging that he becomes much more tolerable.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Even bigger than Clatmore's femslash community?

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Considering the fact that GG actually gets fic written for it on a daily basis, I'd say yes.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I love Gossip Girl! I got into it in a sideways way about half-way through the first series, so the Chuck love was instant, though I thought 'cool character' and only later 'easy on the eyes!'

I only saw the pilot quite recently, and was appalled to find myself making up all kinds of excuses for Chuck. Pilot doesn't really work for me in terms of hanging together by itself, let alone with the rest of the show - but go on with it. It is great fun, and I am so fond of the central focus on Blair and Serena's relationship.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

The thing with Serena mostly pings and bastardy behavior. It's Jenny that pings as a predator, at least partly because she looked about 13 in that getup.

And what's that you say? An American show with a central focus on a relationship between two women who are not related by blood?

[mycenae.livejournal.com]

I forgot there was ever any bus riding in this show period. Wow. WTF was with that?

The show takes awhile to sort of suss out the characters and the relationships and see what works and is interesting to the audience. It's a bit tricky because the show later realized that Chuck worked out really well as a tortured anti-hero... but they'd already made him all creepy raper in the pilot. So basically the show goes "FORGET ABOUT RAPEY CHUCK!" and moves on. Some people are personally affronted by this and have vowed to hate Chuck forever on general principle, but I've just sort of accepted it. Obviously in real life people wouldn't just move on and forget about attempted rape, but it's a teen drama, they hadn't figured out the character yet, ok, fine.

I have no problem with Jenny, and I don't really get why everyone hates her. I think part of it is hate for the actress that spills over to the character. (I'm not sure why they hate her, either. She does a lot of drugs? Maybe? She's way pretentious? Not sure.)

Nate is very boring. The most exciting Nate scenes are the ones where he raises his eyebrows in badly acted surprise. Mostly he stands there and looks pretty.

I love Rufus and Lily. That's all I'll say on that.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I'll get past the double rape attempt, but I doubt I'll vow to hate him forever for it, either.

Jenny just strikes me as a normal teen.

[(Anonymous)]

I've read the first couple GG books, and I actually find it weirder how no one in the books cares about Chuck's attempted raping. He's mostly a background asshole character whom all the main characters loathe in general, but the later books don't really mention the attempted rape.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

6. Within 48 hours, Chuck attempted to rape both Dan's crush and his sister. I'm amazed he didn't "fall off the roof."

I know! I thought he was supposed to be the jerkass with the heart of gold! Now I just want him to die.

8. Nate is pretty, but kinda bland. Like, the actor is blandly cute and the character is really bland. I fail to understand what either Blair or Serena sees in him.


Word.

Actually, what surprised me was how much I felt sorry for Blair. I though she was going to be the sterotypical dark haired Queen C who you like despite herself, but no, at this point I mainly feel bad for her.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Chuck basically has a whole new personality by around ep 3 or 4. The "new" Chuck is a better character and definitely the stronger choice for the show, but I'm not really fond of being told to ignore the pilot. It would be like if Veronica Mars had told us to completely forget that Logan kicked off the series by threatening Veronica with a baseball bat and busting in her headlights.

Blair is actually the main reason I started watching the show. My friends who spent months talking to me about it nonstop told me about her (though not everything, of course) and I was pretty sure I'd like her. Then again, the main thing that got me into the Buffyverse is loving Cordy in some AtS reruns that I caught.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Well, I look forward to seeing the new Chuck, even if they really fumbled the introduction. And one of the things I really like was what a clear sighed view of Logan the writers had.

I'm looking forward to seeing more with Blair.

And Cordelia was a character I started liking more on Angel, when she was really snarking people who deserved it. And then there was her epic smack down of Buffy... that was positively brilliant.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

There are little nods to the early Chuck (when one plotline is revealed, he's immediately asked if he "did to her what you did to all the others," which isn't exactly saying rape, but at least acknowledges that he isn't honorable there) but it is mostly glossed over. A very large part of why Logan is acceptable to me and Duncan isn't is that the writers never forgot how Logan acted, while they treated Duncan like a saint.

Starting with Angel eps likely influenced my impression of Cordy, but i liked her even in early Buffy.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I can't wait to start to see how that plays out.

And I liked Cordy more in season 2, when Willow was more confident and Cordy wasn't picking on her.