Gossip Girl Goes Over to the Dark Side (Again)

Gossip Girl and ethnics don't mix. It's been well-documented by DISGRASIAN since the first episode -- when the Black Chick and the Asian Chick (aka The Haragossip Girls) were mutely paraded around in matching outfits -- that non-white characters tend to be used on the show like accessories. After the writers' strike, when the actress who played the Asian Chick decided to go back to Brown to study neuroscience instead of returning to the hit show where she had more headbands than lines (I know..how Asian), the Mutasian was replaced by another Asian Chick, whose character turned out to be a royally drippy -- and tragically uninteresting -- Nerd.

It's only when the show stopped all of its tokenizing whatthefuckery that it actually got good. Season 2 opened with a "White Party" in the Hamptons (Diddy was nowhere to be seen), a fitting metaphor for what Gossip Girl is really about: pretty, rich white people trapped in a particular ring of hell where life is one neverending party that you can never leave. The Black Chick and the New Asian Chick have cropped up here and there, and they do speak now and again, but you'd be hard-pressed to name them, because they're on the show so infrequently. The only ethnics left who still have significant roles are Dorota, the Waldorfs' Polish maid (ethnic in the old school sense and a more politically-correct, non-WASP buffoon), and Vanessa, who I still contend is coded brown, mostly because of the gigantic earrings she always wears, but their place in the GG hierarchy has more to do with money and education (and their lack thereof) than with ethnicity, perceived or otherwise.

Which is fine by me, because ethnicity is clearly beyond the show's reach. People of color on the show have been portrayed about as accurately as Yale was in Episode 6 of this year, when the Dean was depicted as a George Plimpton-esque bon vivant who had nothing better to do than play parlor games with prospectives and the co-ed, secret senior society Skull and Bones was THE Skull and Bones, all-male, and had a boner for Chuck Bass, who is still in high school.

Speaking of Gossip Girl's resident bad boy, Chuck seems to be the only character still dabbling with the dark side (i.e. the non-white). Whether it's his rendezvous with that Japanese flight attendant earlier in the season, or his coy reference to his "daily shiatsu" a few episodes back, or the intriguing preview we got at the end of Monday night's episode (see below), Chuck's escape from the restricting corset of Upper East gentility usually involves a skeevy dive into the Otherworld:

Is that an Oriental massage parlor I see? An opium den? An Oriental massage parlor/opium den? What's with that Asian drumming music? Don't get me wrong, I'm down with Chuck's downward spiral into abject hedonism--the most interesting if overacted plot development of the show thus far--but please, for the love of sweet white Jesus, leave us out of this.

Comments

[sjones66]

I went to a private prep school, a boarding school to be exact -- and my experience was the complete opposite. Everyone was WEALTHY, but they came from all over the world. My group of friends was made up of a friend from Afghanistan, a friend from Korea, and a friend from Germany. The rest of us were Americans who happened to be white, but in a group of 6 girls, that's a pretty diverse crowd. I learned a lot from having friends who were from all over the world, who grew up in different cultures.

This show could be handled differently and still be accurate. And it would be a lot more interesting.

[BlackJAC]

It's a teen soap opera. If they were to be accurate, those kids would be doing mounds of homework like I did at my own private high school instead of sipping martinis in bars that for some reason don't check ID and fornicating at all hours.

[cm32887]

Yeah you right, when I first saw the girl who plays Vanessa I knew that she was at least partially black and I was right according to her bio. I know that her parents on the show are never going to show up because that would expose her.

[BlackJAC]

NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE already addressed this cliche.

[caroaber]

I don't watch the show, though I have heard good things about it and know it has generated a lot of buzz.

Like "Seinfeld," "Friends," "Dawson's Creek" and any number of popular shows, this one chooses to ignore non-white actors. I choose to vote with my clicker, and I tune out those shows that tune out people who resemble me.

"Law & Order," "24," "The View," "C.S.I." and even certain reality shows have managed to hire diverse casts and make a compelling show. I'm convinced that many shows that don't hire ethnic actors, or, like GG, only make a tepid attempt to be inclusive, do so out of laziness. I refuse to reward the producers for their lackluster efforts.

[BlackJAC]

While I am no fan of teen soap operas (I consider them the ultimate cause of Columbine and Virigina Tech), I am an alumnus of a private high school and can say with regret that the complete lack of ethnic diversity in the average teen soap opera's fictional private school is, unfortunately, accurate of real life. There could be any number of factors to explain it, but the minority representation in my academic life dropped to the token level between eighth grade and college for me and my siblings.

[Eric G]

Seinfeld directly addressed ethnicity numerous times. Don't toss the greatest sitcom ever in with that other lot.