Characters in new the ‘Gossip Girl’ reboot will be “nice” – to service workers only… (It’s a post-PC Covid thing)
Oscar Wilde would have delighted in meeting the enigmatic Gossip Girl. When the famed writer declared that “the only thing worse in life than being talked about is not being talked about”, he predicted not only the ingredients for a hit TV series but an attitude symptomatic of a whole generation. Even in a digital world of Facebooking and Instagramming, gossip still reigns supreme as the great social equaliser.
But back to the show at hand. Producers of the Gossip Girl reboot say the central characters are going to be much nicer and less harsh in their general attitude and assertiveness… Only thing is, this niceness will be reserved for service workers only.
The spinoff series is set a decade after the original show’s finale and will follow the shenanigans of a new generation of preppy kids introduced to a new ‘Gossip Girl’ site complete with Big Brother-style surveillance.
But while these rich and spoilt kids will be acting like they own the town, a Covid and post-PC climate has made way for a little empathy to enter their character profiles.
In an interview with Variety, screenwriter Joshua Safran said the new characters will “wrestle with their privilege in a way 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.”
Original cast member Kristen Bell will return to narrate the series, but what about the rest of the cast? There’s no word yet on whether any of the original actors will be returning for the show but we’re betting Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford, Ed Westwick and/or Taylor Momsen will be making some kind of cameo appearance.
“It’s just a new look at this particular society in New York, the idea being that society changes constantly,” Safran told media recently. “So how has this world changed; how has social media and its effect changed? All of those things allow us to look at the world 12 years on as opposed to just redoing the story.”
While we’ve been told the characters are going to be softer – at least to service workers (think baristas, shop assistants), we’re sure the rest of society is going to get a verbal beating. Without a certain level of cuntishness, there’s no real Gossip Girl, really.
XOXO
Antonino Tati
Main image: The original ‘Gossip Girl’ cast as featured on the cover of Cream magazine in 2010.
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