The HBO Max reboot of the classic CW series Gossip Girl series will wrestle with the privilege of its characters as the show tries to change its point of view on the ultra-wealthy. The original series, which ran for six seasons from 2007 through 2012 based on the novel series of the same name told the story of privileged teenagers on the Upper East Side of Manhattan where Gossip Girl, a ruthless and mysterious blogger, revealed their dirty laundry.
The reboot will see the return of Kristen Bell as the blogger and narrator with her iconic "You know you love me, xoxo," line. The series will star Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak, and Savannah Lee Smith and hit screens July 8. The 10-episode run will tackle contemporary issues, including social media and online privacy, that has changed some of the dynamics in today’s high schools.
Showrunner Josh Safan shared in an interview with Variety that this new group of prep school elite will be vastly different than the original cast, who were predominantly white, were shuttled around in limousines, and wore their bad behavior like a badge.
“These kids wrestle with their privilege in a way that I think the original didn’t. In light of [Black Lives Matter], in light of a lot of things, even going back to Occupy Wall Street, things have shifted. I think the first [‘Gossip Girl’] showed a little bit of wealth porn or privilege porn, like, ‘Look at these cars, or here’s a montage of the best-plated food you’ve ever seen."
The reimagined version will again be based on the book by Cecily von Ziegesar, as was its original incarnation. The original Gossip Girl approached the problematic social issues of bullying, toxic relationships, parental death, sexual assault, drugs, and teen pregnancy. The series reboot will tackle its own share of issues that are relevant to today's teens such as social, sexual, and economic inequality. It will also address just how many ways life, and the landscape of New York itself has changed in the nine years since the original series went off the air.
This reimagining of Gossip Girl will hopefully take their platform seriously, as a way to show how inequality affects both the rich and the poor while still keeping the overall sassy and salacious tone of the original episodes. It will be interesting to see how the show handles social changes, as well as the way lives, can be upended just by hitting the record button on one's phone and posting to social media what was taped, a clear difference from a back-in-the-day blog when words were the only hurtful thing that could be launched against another. With the reboot quickly approaching on July 9, one can only hope that Gossip Girl gets a modern update that tackles these issues appropriately.
Source: Variety