Secret Life and Gossip Girl Character Comparison
This is a picspam for picspammy. The theme is "Compare & Contrast". I decided to compare/contrast two of my favorite shows - The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Gossip Girl. Though the shows are different, I think I sort of think of them together because they're both on around the same time. The compare/contrast is mostly on the characters. Enjoy! :) Let me know if you notice any more comparisons/contrasts.
Intro:
The Secret Life of the American Teenager focuses on Amy, who gets pregnant when she's 15, and how it affects her and the people around her. Gossip Girl revolves around the lives of privileged teenagers and their relationships. The plots are completely different, but they both are about teenagers and how they deal with life. Secret Life tries to be more realistic and is about teens that are pretty average. Gossip Girl revolves around characters that are privileged and elite. They are alike in that they aren't afraid to show things that might shock people or get them thinking. Secret Life tries to deal realistically with teen pregnancy, while Gossip Girl has lots of issues involving sex, drugs and controversial subject matter.
Amy and Serena remind me of each other because both are nice girls that made mistakes in past. Amy made a mistake at band camp when she slept with a boy she just met, Ricky. Serena was an “it” girl who partied a lot and made a lot of mistakes, such as sleeping with Nate, her best friend's boyfriend at the time. Amy ends up pregnant while Serena ends up running away for a while. They both work on learning from their mistakes. Amy and Serena differ as Serena is more glamorous, a party girl and always getting a lot of attention. Amy hangs out mostly her group of close friends and focuses on playing the french horn in band. I think their attitude and personality can be a lot alike though.
Dan and Ben are the awkward, kind of nerdy guys in the shows. Dan doesn't fit in at as high school and feels different from most of his classmates because he isn't as wealthy. They both don't live with their mothers. Both start dating a girl that is out of reach from them at first - Ben dates Amy and Dan dates Serena. Throughout the show, both characters become less openly nice and more self centered. Ben becomes interested in sex and ends up breaking up with Amy because she won't have sex with him. Dan becomes more popular once he goes to college and becomes wealthier, which makes him a little more self centered. They both are good people at heart though and try to do the right thing.
Adrian and Blair are the queen bees of the show. They are confident, self centered and will do anything to get what they want. Adrian has a reputation for her promiscuous behavior. Though she is popular with guys, she doesn't have a lot of girlfriends (even though she ends up being good friends with Grace later in the show). Blair is the queen bee of the popular clique her high school, but has more trouble fitting in in college. She is wealthier than Adrian and known for that more than her sexual relationships. They both work hard to get what they want, get good grades and are overachievers. They often play games with people. Both don't live with their fathers at first. Deep down, they have their insecurities and this is shown more in their romantic relationships - Adrian with Ricky and Blair with Chuck.
Ricky and Chuck are the bad boys of the show. They come across as self confident and are womanizers who sleep with many women. Deep down, they are bruised and more sensitive than they come across. Ricky was abused as a child and has problems in his past that he frequently deals with. You see Ricky's sensitivity with his and Amy's son, John, and some of the time when he is with Adrian, his on and off again girlfriend. Chuck lives life on the edge and also has family problems, including a father that dies during the show and a mother that is thought to have died during childbirth. We see Chuck's nicer side when he falls in love with Blair. Both fall in love with a girl, but have trouble being a good boyfriend.
Grace and Jenny start off as nice girls. Grace is really religious and is against pre-marital sex at first. She ends up changing throughout the show and realizes she enjoys having sexual relationships. She becomes sort of a rebel at points. Jenny wants a place in the popular crowd at her school. She ends up becoming the queen bee position eventually. She also gets a more wild lifestyle, such as fighting with her dad frequently and helping her boyfriend deal drugs. Both characters try to change their image as a good girl and end up doing things that are very different from how they started.
Jack and Nate are supportive friends on the show and are usually there for other characters, while dealing with their own problems. They are sort of the "jocks" of the show (but Nate doesn't play a sport). They have both made mistakes and both have cheated on their girlfriend. Overall though, they are nice guys. They are sort of an in between of the "nice guys" and "bad boys".
Ashley and Vanessa are independent thinkers and both have strong beliefs, are smart and helpful to other characters. Ashley is Amy's sister and even though they fight, she is there for her. Vanessa is Dan's friend (and currently, girlfriend). Ashley isn't originally in high school with most of the other characters in Secret Life because she is younger. Vanessa is the only main girl character on Gossip Girl who hasn't been a queen bee. Both characters aren't afraid to be different and don't try too hard to fit in.
The relationship between Amy and Ben and Serena and Dan reminded me of each other. The guys in both try to get a girl they wouldn't normally go after. Ben is trying to break out of his shell and meet girls and goes after Amy, a girl he never met. Dan is from a lower class than Serena and they don't stereotypically go together, but they fell in love. Both relationships seemed secure for a while and were the main relationships on the shows, before eventually breaking it off.
Adrian and Blair are queen bees dating the bad boys of the show. With both relationships, we see the more sensitive sides of all the characters. Both relationships are passionate, but have troubles. Ricky and Adrian use each other for sex at first, but it is revealed they have feelings for each other and they try to be faithful to try to make their relationship work. Chuck and Blair balance each other out and fall deeply in love. They play games with each other as ways to keep their relationship exciting, but this sometimes causes troubles. Right now in the show, both couples are broken up.
There's a lot of minor characters that reminded me of each other. Griffin and Eric (top row) both are supportive friends - Eric to Jenny and Griffin to Ashley. They are both gay and one of the younger characters on the shows.
George and Anne are Amy's parents (second row, left). Rufus is Dan and Jenny's dad and Lily is Serena and Eric's mom (second row, right). These couples reminded me of each other. George and Anne were married at the start of the show, but split up and now it seems they are always on and off. Rufus and Lily were old sweethearts and split up (before the show started). During the course of the show, they remarried, but their relationship also seems to go through a lot of problems.
Betty is Ben's stepmom. Dorota is Blair's maid and sometimes acts as a mother figure in Blair's life. Both Betty and Dorota started off with low class jobs - Betty was a prostitute and Dorota is a maid. Both got married recently. They add some humor to the show, but also are smart and usually have bits of wisdom for the other characters.
The last row has some of the sidekick characters of friends. Madison and Lauren are Amy's friends. Isabel and Penelope are part of the high school "in group" in Gossip Girl and are sidekicks to the Queen Bee (which has been mostly Blair and Jenny during the show). Madison and Lauren definitely aren't supposed to be mean girls like Isabel and Penelope, but both pairs gossip a lot and help spread rumors on the shows.