The CW program “Gossip Girl” has often found itself in the glare of the political spotlight. It has often relished that position and used it to garner more attention from conservative critics and groups that are opposed to the salacious content of the program. With that in mind, the show, now in its third season, has once again grabbed the spotlight with a recent sexual threesome featuring three young adults on the program.
If you are not familiar with the show that was famously once called “every parent’s nightmare,” it revolves around a group of elitist and predominantly rich young people in New York City who often spend their time manipulating and betraying each other while being observed by an anonymous online author named “gossip girl.” The show is escapist fare for young people and adults who may envy the lives of the rich and outrageous. I have seen a couple of episodes of the program since its premiere several years ago. Although its ratings are not great, the program has shown a keen ability to grab a lot of attention and make headlines with some of its racier storylines. For instance, the media attention for the threesome episode came only a few short weeks after the show received a lot of attention for a kiss between two guys, one of whom is the show’s resident bad boy, Chuck Bass.
The particular episode about the threesome revolves around one of the lead characters, Dan Humphrey, trying to convince his girlfriend Olivia, played by Hillary Duff from the kid-friendly “Lizzie McGuire” series and “Cheaper by the Dozen” films, to stay in college instead of going to work on a new movie. In trying to convince her, he and a friend go through a list of fun things that students “must do” in college. At the end of the show, after the majority of the list has been accomplished, Olivia realizes that they have have not done the threesome yet so without much talk, discussion or debate, the three friends casually jump into bed together. This is an awkward and lazy plot development, to say the least, one that can be argued is solely for the sake of getting more publicity for the show.
The problem, though, for a program such as this, is that it cannot survive on media headlines and parental outrage all of the time. The show has previously used parental outrage to as a media tool to get buzz and young people to watch the show because it is “bad” for them, so the show’s interest in attracting attention and pushing the envelope is not surprising. However, such outrage will eventually run itself out and the show will have to survive on its own merits and content.
That content is often solely for adults, but the show does not only target adults, it has a lot of young fans who may imitate the behavior on the program. As an article from Entertainment Weekly stated a few years ago, “In Los Angeles, some students — apparently inspired by Gossip Girl — created an anonymous, trash-talking blog about the goings-on at several tony schools.” With stories like that, it is the targeting of young people that’s most offensive about this program. The criticism of the show would be much milder if it solely targeted more mature adults. However, “GG” does target teens and one article about the program even quoted a fourteen year old fan of the program who stated that the show is “like ‘Sex and the City’ with more drama and for younger kids.”
Admittedly,”GG” can be fun, brainless, escapist entertainment. It is easy to see how viewers could be enthralled by the lives and the scandals of the characters on the show, but that does not overshadow the negative effects of the program. In the same article quoting the fourteen year old, conservative Carol Platt Liebeau (who blogs with me at Townhall.com) was quoted as saying that the show “glamorizes and normalizes the kinds of behaviour that may seem charmingly risque and sophisticated when little girls see them on TV, but which, if emulated in real life, can result in emotional and psychological distress for them.”
It will likely only be a matter of time before “Gossip Girl” presents another controversial storyline and receives a lot of media attention and criticism because of it. With that in mind, parents should be increasingly vigilant about what their children are watching and what they are being exposed to in the media.
“Gossip Girl” may have a knack for getting attention, marketing to teenagers and getting the critics buzzing, but it is parents who should be the ones telling their children that shows like “Gossip Girl” are for adults only.
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