The GOSSIP GIRL Characters: Why I Love (or Don't Love) Them
I figure that's a pretty direct title. You can't be mistaken with a title like that. Despite planning to put this up yesterday, Tuesday, I found myself insanely busy with the world and this is... it's very long. Heads up, once more. I'm going to go in billing order, aka the order in which the actors are creditied on screen.
Serena van der Woodsen
Oh, Serena. I'll never stop thinking you're sexy and wonderful, because I've got a total crush on Blake Lively. But, let's face it, you think more with your heart (or your lady parts) than your head.
Here's the thing about Serena, and this is tru factz: everything she gets, she doesn't have to work for it. She just glides through life without suffering the consequences of her bad decisions. And if there is a consequence, it usually shows up in the form of "Someone's being mean to Serena, light the torches! Grab the pitchforks! Let's mob this motherfucker!" Which isn't necessarily her fault, in all honesty. Serena just doesn't get it. I guess that could make me angry, but it's really hard to get me pissed off at fictional characters. That's not to say it doesn't happen (see below), but Serena is just oblivious and impulsive.
The last two episodes have gotten me frustrated with her, I'll totally admit to that. Once or twice on Monday night I muttered "bitch" to the TV as if she could hear me and mend her stupid ways. But you have to accept Serena ultimately has a good heart though she's lacking a good head on her shoulders. When it comes to her relationship with Blair, it's always better when Serena is lifting her friend's trodden soul up instead of trying to tear it down and that's part of the last couple of episodes.
Another character I really hate to see her trod on is Dan. I'll expound on my (somewhat unusual) love for Dan soon, but in relation to Serena he always drops his life and does things for her and she takes him for granted. Now, in seasons 1 and 2 I was all about the Derena pairing because two extremely pretty people + chemistry + awesome dialogue + my fatty crushes on them both = instant love, but Serena has in the last two seasons been very... hmm. Serena flings her heart at charming but usually poorly chosen guys, and it cheapens her relationship with Dan because he's supposed to be her One True Love and whatever, but ...more on that in a couple of days. Point is, these two have lost their appeal to me.
Don't get me wrong, I really do like Serena. I like that she's impulsive and makes mistakes and does some of the stupidest things I've ever seen for "love" because it makes her human. I like that she loves her brother and has daddy issues with William Baldwin, and that she and her mother are constantly at odds yet still pull through for each other when it matters. I like her sass and her need to show cleavage at every opportunity. Yes... cleavage... sorry, I'm back again. I like Serena's constant desire for self discovery.
I just don't have a passionate love for her like I do for some of the other characters on this show. She pulls some wankery that I cannot ignore and if she was an actual person in my life, she'd be the type of friend I'd keep around when I wanted some mindless fun but not on a daily basis.
Blair Waldorf
Blair, sweet, neurotic, bitchy Blair. You are just too lovely to hate, though morally I shouldn't adore you and look up to you the way I do. It's fair to say that my wish for your happiness is one of the driving forces of me watching Gossip Girl.
Leighton Meester deserves some major appreciation. In the hands of a lesser actress, Blair's constant bitchy and vindictive ways would come across as evil, shallow, and irredeemable. But Meester seriously shines because even as Blair is being full on nasty there's this softness about her that says "I'm vulnerable and insecure" to the audience. Obviously she doesn't let this show to the many characters she's intimidating and putting down. In the pilot I was so annoyed with her fakeness - it took until the third episode when Blair reads that letter she wrote to Serena for me to get it: Blair is so uncomfortable in her own skin (bulimia as evidence) that she lashes out at the world, making sure everyone notices and respects/fears/admires her to seek validation.
Without that vulnerability that Meester shows off just when the audience is getting annoyed with Blair's shennanigans, the character wouldn't be nearly as popular as she is. And I think the writers know it. Blair is one of two characters who has progressed forward the most on the show. She's really come into her own, especially in season 4 which I think is by and large due to her friendship with Dan. There's less neurosis and evil scheming. Now when Blair schemes, because we love a good Waldorf scheme, it's with good intentions.
I think the Chair relationship deserves a mention here. From the beginning of their love story in season 1 to about the time when Chuck traded Blair for a hotel and slept with Little J, I've been a major fan of Chair. They really do get each other, and the actors have this electric chemistry. It's undeniable, even for people who dislike their relationship. For most of the show, Chuck and Blair's saga has been a driving force for the fans to get behind, because we see Blair fall deeply in love and connect with one person, the same person she always comes back to at the end of the day. However, lately it's been more of an abusive dynamic and I'll go into that a bit more with Chuck, and that plus the extreme hilarity and cuteness of Dan and Blair together has converted me to Dair.
Blair is a character who suffers a lot more than she should. She makes things more complicated than necessary because that's her way of seeing the world, and while it's usually awesome or funny I really just want to see this girl happy. She's so clearly unhappy a lot of the time, and it's misery when those sweet chocolate brown eyes look up with unending sadness and lost little girl feelings. She's the only actress who can make me sob on Gossip Girl.
So yeah, obviously I love Blair. I passionately adore her. For every wrongdoing, she has a reason and she often is remorseful, the dear. I also love what comes with her - Eleanor Waldorf, one of the most developed parents on the show who isn't a regular; Harold Waldorf, her gay daddy who left Eleanor for a male model but still loves and adores his daughter; Roman, the male model who sets Eleanor up and wants Blair to be as happy as he is; and Cyrus Rose, Eleanor's new husband that loves Blair like his own and offers fatherly advice but usually provides unending comedy because, after all, he's Vicini and it's inconceivable for him not to be hilarious.
Dan Humphrey
Whenever a character needs a morality check, Dan, you're there to the rescue. Oh, I don't care if half the time you're being uppity and hypocritical. You have the best heart ever, and you look ah-maz-ing.
I don't know if it's the writer in me that reaches out and high-fives Dan whenever he's doing his semi-autobiographic writing thing, but I connected with this character from the minute he was introduced in the pilot. My crush on him aside, Penn Badgley is a phenomenal actor. Every line he delivers, no matter how strange some of them are, always gets special treatment and consideration. Once I rewatched an episode because I couldn't help but admire the way he uses the smallest facial expressions to show the inner workings of the Humphrey brain. I totally get the awkward, witty-yet-unnecessary rambles he goes on because I go on them too, and seriously, if I was a character on Gossip Girl I'd totally be Dan.
Dan is sort of the audience surrogate, or at least he was for season 1. He's very middle-class, living comfortably but not lavishly like his schoolmates, and has an inferiority complex with money. I think his relationship to money is very interesting, because for two seasons he's really the guy with low funds and has to get by on that, and you can see how he portrays himself as morally superior to the trust fund babies but actually feels like he can't ever compete in that world. The ironic thing is, he's very at home in the Upper East Side.
More interesting still is when his dad and Lily get together and he's suddenly privileged. It doesn't fundamentally alter his personality, but in season three I began to see a more confident, outgoing Dan. Whatever people say about him, I think he was born for living wealthy but never really acknowledges it to himself. Whatever it is, having Dan become more self-assured and ambitious is rewarding for me as a viewer. He's the other character that really moves forward, alongside Blair.
The thing that keeps holding him back, though, is Serena. Again, I like Serena, and I don't like the way she treats Dan a lot of the time. It's also kind of Dan's fault, a bit of a mutual failure, because Serena takes Dan for granted and he doesn't say anything to the contrary. For him, Serena is this perfect being that he's never really gotten over, and the whole nature of their dynamic feels a bit Dawson and Joey: always trying to go back to how things were, instead of looking forward to how things could be.
And that's fun to see when Dan goes through his other relationships. Most of them don't last that long, with the exception of Vanessa (see below), and it's a study in how Dan is looking for something as tangible and powerful as his feelings for this first love of his life. Which, again, is why I'm so big on Dair. I feel bad for him because he so obviously wants a connection.
Bottom line - I love Dan Humphrey. I think he's flawed and wonderful and so me. I love watching his antics and I love his family. Let's face it, I love when this guy does anything good or bad because he always does it with the best expressions ever.
Nate Archibald
You're probably played by the weakest actor, Nate, but even though you get some of the lamest storylines you're perhaps one of the best characters on the show. Don't believe me? Let me count the ways...
So, like any person who is not a fan of infidelity, I initially didn't like Nate. He was so irritating in season 1, all wishy-washy about Blair and Serena and Vanessa, totally not making up his mind about girls and being kind of lame. And Chace Crawford? I've nothing bad to say about him because he's obviously good-looking and enthusiastic, but he definitely doesn't carry the show. That's not to say he's bad actor, exactly, he's just not the strongest on the cast.
But you've got to look at Nate as less of a dramatic figure and more as comic relief/friendly guy. Seriously, Nate is friends with everyone on this show, something no one else accomplished ever. It takes him a while, but there's this thing about Nate where, although he's sort of in his own head, he's very easy-going and sweet. I especially love his bromance with Dan because it produces great, surprisingly clever lines.
Nate's the voice of reason on the show after a couple of seasons, which is funny because that's what Dan was supposed to be initially. Seriously. He's got so little going on upstairs but is somehow very wise. I mean, this guy says it how it is and usually takes the mature road. And I guess, though he's about as fickle as Serena when it comes to falling in love, he's ultimately got a good heart.
I'd have to say my favorite part of Nate is watching him deal with his father in a really powerful and mature way. Again, he has all this maturity and wisdom about him - Nate's a very intuitive spirit. Every season that deals with his father in some way, including that one episode of season 2, Crawford just does really well. As a romantic lead, he doesn't always sell it, but as a family member I always appreciate him. Also, being a Vanderbilt makes me so fucking happy because the Vanderbilts are like, American royalty and I love reading about the Victorian Era / Edwardian Era Vanderbilts, and now here they are on a teen drama. Love this show so fucking much.
Yeah, I love Nate. Not in the way I love Blair or Dan with that raw enthusiasm, but Nate is sort of awesome.
Jenny Humphrey
Little J, you are one hell of a complicated character. You're all over the place, just like Taylor Momsen, yet somehow I always want to scoop you up and make your sadness go away. Why is that?
It's actually a bit difficult for me to exposit my feelings concerning Jenny. She hasn't really been around that much, and when I watched her for the first three seasons it was her adorably wonderful friendship with Eric, Serena's little brother, that made me enjoy her the most. I didn't much care for her social climber storylines, or her fashion designer on/off drama. I liked seeing her with Nate for like a split second in season 2, but in season 3 I wanted to strangle her for being all manipulative.
Points must go to Little J, though, for being an excellent dramatic foil in the most non-annoying way.
So, yeah, I'm not totally in love with her. I love to hate her, and occasionally Taylor Momsen will remind me that she is, in fact, a talented young girl when she pulls out a heart-wrenching performance of the tormented girl from Brooklyn, but mostly I'm ambivialent when it comes to the younger Humphrey. Stay in Hudson, my dear.
Chuck Bass
Oh, Bass, you ass. How do you teeter from bad boy to villian to romantic hero so easily? Is it the talent of Ed Westwick, or merely your writers' indecision? Whatever it is, you provide me with unending confusion.
Okay, let's pretend I'm writing this without having seen the controversial scene in "The Princess and the Frog" on Monday, and I still have a heart full of Bass love. The thing is, Chuck Bass is what originally turned me off the show when I first viewed the pilot. I have been sexually assaulted in my past and viewing a character who attempts rape twice in one episode with little to no remorse disgusted and repelled me. However, as I re-immersed myself into Gossip Girl I found a redeemable character, one whom I could get behind.
I have always appreciated watching Chuck vacillate between womanizer and romantic because it's done so subtly. He experiences affection for Blair, love even, and it changes his view on women. Obviously, not a complete 180 or anything, but enough to matter so that the viewers stop seeing him as the villian and more as an anti-hero. Watching him fall in love with Blair over the course of season 1 was the biggest reward, romantically. Seriously - I became a shipper for Chair. A hardcore, devotee shipper. And since we're pretending it's May 1st and "The Princess and the Frog" hasn't aired, I'm still of the belief that Chuck and Blair is the best endgame. However, 100% honesty dictates me to say that I can't see these two together anymore without a dark stain of abuse.
After Chuck essentially traded Blair for his hotel towards the end of season 3, I lost a lot of interest in this relationship. It was a degrading, monumentally disgusting thing to do and I applauded Blair for stepping up and finally saying "No fucking way" after Chuck tried to lay the blame on her. Here's what I don't like about this character: for all that he has matured business-wise once his father died, and how responsible he really can be, Chuck has not matured as a person. He's still very much the character we saw in the first season, and I think that's why so many fans have switched to Dair because it's time to grow up for Chuck.
That being said, I do like watching the Bass Industries storylines most people hate because it's fun to see Chuck without Blair now and again. I love watching his relationship with Lily, it's so nice to see him be loved by a parent figure. For a good while he was the older brother figure to Eric, too, and that was wonderful to see. I just wish the show would focus more on Chuck's familial relations and not just his daddy issues and love affairs. There's a lot of untapped potential in seeing Chuck appreciate things for once.
So no, I don't love Chuck. I'm fascinated by him, and Ed Westwick has some serious talent, but for being repeatedly abusive (physically, sexually, and verbally) I cannot condone nor appreciate him.
Vanessa Abrams
Vanessa, how the hell did you manage to make the whole fandom hate you within two weeks of screentime? More importantly, how did you remain on screen when the fandom railed for your death by fiery vengeance?
Okay, in season 2 I'll admit to tolerating Vanessa for about twelve episodes because she made Nate happy. He spent the first and most of the second season really unhappy about being so privileged, thinking he didn't deserve that life, and here was Vanessa to immerse him in the world of the middle-class activist. It was exactly what Nate needed to become mature and I was glad to see him so happy in his skin.
But my beef with Vanessa is that she came in trying too hard. I don't think the writers ever really grasped that this is the kind of character who walks into a room saying "I'm so cool, I do all this cool stuff and I have all these important, cool ideas about life and I'm above the rich, snobby people because I'm so cool!" but she then proceeds to act the way everyone else does only worse, because she's being hypocritical on top of that. Let's be honest - it's not Jessica Szohr's fault. If the writers had penned Vanessa as a character who lived by example and not through preachy superiority, then I would have been instantly drawn to her.
Instead, what Vanessa does (and it's so annoying) is that she makes some sort of statement, like "Be completely honest in a relationship and tell someone how you feel" and then does the exact opposite when put in a situation where she can follow her own advice. Season 4 in particular is so irritating because she spends three seasons telling Dan not to get sucked into the manipulative, scheming world of the Upper East Side, and then as soon as she's put through an ordeal that's about half as punishing as it would be to any of the other characters she becomes this manipulative, back-stabbing, scheming bitch who sneaks around and says nasty things like she's Blair Waldorf's heartless wannabe. How am I, how is anyone, suppose to get behind a character like that?
I don't have enough negative energy to muster up hatred for anyone, really, but I strongly dislike Vanessa and find her extremely irritating. Please let her go abroad, Gossip Girl writers. Please don't keep her around anymore.
Yes, I know that Lily and Rufus are not on this list, but they're really auxiliary characters on the show and while I am big fans of them both, I'm not driven to wax poetic about their Joy Summers' levels of good TV parents. They are wonderful. That is all.
Next essay will be about Dan and Blair's slowly budding romance, and how they compare to Pacey and Joey.
Serena van der Woodsen
Oh, Serena. I'll never stop thinking you're sexy and wonderful, because I've got a total crush on Blake Lively. But, let's face it, you think more with your heart (or your lady parts) than your head.
Here's the thing about Serena, and this is tru factz: everything she gets, she doesn't have to work for it. She just glides through life without suffering the consequences of her bad decisions. And if there is a consequence, it usually shows up in the form of "Someone's being mean to Serena, light the torches! Grab the pitchforks! Let's mob this motherfucker!" Which isn't necessarily her fault, in all honesty. Serena just doesn't get it. I guess that could make me angry, but it's really hard to get me pissed off at fictional characters. That's not to say it doesn't happen (see below), but Serena is just oblivious and impulsive.
The last two episodes have gotten me frustrated with her, I'll totally admit to that. Once or twice on Monday night I muttered "bitch" to the TV as if she could hear me and mend her stupid ways. But you have to accept Serena ultimately has a good heart though she's lacking a good head on her shoulders. When it comes to her relationship with Blair, it's always better when Serena is lifting her friend's trodden soul up instead of trying to tear it down and that's part of the last couple of episodes.
Another character I really hate to see her trod on is Dan. I'll expound on my (somewhat unusual) love for Dan soon, but in relation to Serena he always drops his life and does things for her and she takes him for granted. Now, in seasons 1 and 2 I was all about the Derena pairing because two extremely pretty people + chemistry + awesome dialogue + my fatty crushes on them both = instant love, but Serena has in the last two seasons been very... hmm. Serena flings her heart at charming but usually poorly chosen guys, and it cheapens her relationship with Dan because he's supposed to be her One True Love and whatever, but ...more on that in a couple of days. Point is, these two have lost their appeal to me.
Don't get me wrong, I really do like Serena. I like that she's impulsive and makes mistakes and does some of the stupidest things I've ever seen for "love" because it makes her human. I like that she loves her brother and has daddy issues with William Baldwin, and that she and her mother are constantly at odds yet still pull through for each other when it matters. I like her sass and her need to show cleavage at every opportunity. Yes... cleavage... sorry, I'm back again. I like Serena's constant desire for self discovery.
I just don't have a passionate love for her like I do for some of the other characters on this show. She pulls some wankery that I cannot ignore and if she was an actual person in my life, she'd be the type of friend I'd keep around when I wanted some mindless fun but not on a daily basis.
Blair Waldorf
Blair, sweet, neurotic, bitchy Blair. You are just too lovely to hate, though morally I shouldn't adore you and look up to you the way I do. It's fair to say that my wish for your happiness is one of the driving forces of me watching Gossip Girl.
Leighton Meester deserves some major appreciation. In the hands of a lesser actress, Blair's constant bitchy and vindictive ways would come across as evil, shallow, and irredeemable. But Meester seriously shines because even as Blair is being full on nasty there's this softness about her that says "I'm vulnerable and insecure" to the audience. Obviously she doesn't let this show to the many characters she's intimidating and putting down. In the pilot I was so annoyed with her fakeness - it took until the third episode when Blair reads that letter she wrote to Serena for me to get it: Blair is so uncomfortable in her own skin (bulimia as evidence) that she lashes out at the world, making sure everyone notices and respects/fears/admires her to seek validation.
Without that vulnerability that Meester shows off just when the audience is getting annoyed with Blair's shennanigans, the character wouldn't be nearly as popular as she is. And I think the writers know it. Blair is one of two characters who has progressed forward the most on the show. She's really come into her own, especially in season 4 which I think is by and large due to her friendship with Dan. There's less neurosis and evil scheming. Now when Blair schemes, because we love a good Waldorf scheme, it's with good intentions.
I think the Chair relationship deserves a mention here. From the beginning of their love story in season 1 to about the time when Chuck traded Blair for a hotel and slept with Little J, I've been a major fan of Chair. They really do get each other, and the actors have this electric chemistry. It's undeniable, even for people who dislike their relationship. For most of the show, Chuck and Blair's saga has been a driving force for the fans to get behind, because we see Blair fall deeply in love and connect with one person, the same person she always comes back to at the end of the day. However, lately it's been more of an abusive dynamic and I'll go into that a bit more with Chuck, and that plus the extreme hilarity and cuteness of Dan and Blair together has converted me to Dair.
Blair is a character who suffers a lot more than she should. She makes things more complicated than necessary because that's her way of seeing the world, and while it's usually awesome or funny I really just want to see this girl happy. She's so clearly unhappy a lot of the time, and it's misery when those sweet chocolate brown eyes look up with unending sadness and lost little girl feelings. She's the only actress who can make me sob on Gossip Girl.
So yeah, obviously I love Blair. I passionately adore her. For every wrongdoing, she has a reason and she often is remorseful, the dear. I also love what comes with her - Eleanor Waldorf, one of the most developed parents on the show who isn't a regular; Harold Waldorf, her gay daddy who left Eleanor for a male model but still loves and adores his daughter; Roman, the male model who sets Eleanor up and wants Blair to be as happy as he is; and Cyrus Rose, Eleanor's new husband that loves Blair like his own and offers fatherly advice but usually provides unending comedy because, after all, he's Vicini and it's inconceivable for him not to be hilarious.
Dan Humphrey
Whenever a character needs a morality check, Dan, you're there to the rescue. Oh, I don't care if half the time you're being uppity and hypocritical. You have the best heart ever, and you look ah-maz-ing.
I don't know if it's the writer in me that reaches out and high-fives Dan whenever he's doing his semi-autobiographic writing thing, but I connected with this character from the minute he was introduced in the pilot. My crush on him aside, Penn Badgley is a phenomenal actor. Every line he delivers, no matter how strange some of them are, always gets special treatment and consideration. Once I rewatched an episode because I couldn't help but admire the way he uses the smallest facial expressions to show the inner workings of the Humphrey brain. I totally get the awkward, witty-yet-unnecessary rambles he goes on because I go on them too, and seriously, if I was a character on Gossip Girl I'd totally be Dan.
Dan is sort of the audience surrogate, or at least he was for season 1. He's very middle-class, living comfortably but not lavishly like his schoolmates, and has an inferiority complex with money. I think his relationship to money is very interesting, because for two seasons he's really the guy with low funds and has to get by on that, and you can see how he portrays himself as morally superior to the trust fund babies but actually feels like he can't ever compete in that world. The ironic thing is, he's very at home in the Upper East Side.
More interesting still is when his dad and Lily get together and he's suddenly privileged. It doesn't fundamentally alter his personality, but in season three I began to see a more confident, outgoing Dan. Whatever people say about him, I think he was born for living wealthy but never really acknowledges it to himself. Whatever it is, having Dan become more self-assured and ambitious is rewarding for me as a viewer. He's the other character that really moves forward, alongside Blair.
The thing that keeps holding him back, though, is Serena. Again, I like Serena, and I don't like the way she treats Dan a lot of the time. It's also kind of Dan's fault, a bit of a mutual failure, because Serena takes Dan for granted and he doesn't say anything to the contrary. For him, Serena is this perfect being that he's never really gotten over, and the whole nature of their dynamic feels a bit Dawson and Joey: always trying to go back to how things were, instead of looking forward to how things could be.
And that's fun to see when Dan goes through his other relationships. Most of them don't last that long, with the exception of Vanessa (see below), and it's a study in how Dan is looking for something as tangible and powerful as his feelings for this first love of his life. Which, again, is why I'm so big on Dair. I feel bad for him because he so obviously wants a connection.
Bottom line - I love Dan Humphrey. I think he's flawed and wonderful and so me. I love watching his antics and I love his family. Let's face it, I love when this guy does anything good or bad because he always does it with the best expressions ever.
Nate Archibald
You're probably played by the weakest actor, Nate, but even though you get some of the lamest storylines you're perhaps one of the best characters on the show. Don't believe me? Let me count the ways...
So, like any person who is not a fan of infidelity, I initially didn't like Nate. He was so irritating in season 1, all wishy-washy about Blair and Serena and Vanessa, totally not making up his mind about girls and being kind of lame. And Chace Crawford? I've nothing bad to say about him because he's obviously good-looking and enthusiastic, but he definitely doesn't carry the show. That's not to say he's bad actor, exactly, he's just not the strongest on the cast.
But you've got to look at Nate as less of a dramatic figure and more as comic relief/friendly guy. Seriously, Nate is friends with everyone on this show, something no one else accomplished ever. It takes him a while, but there's this thing about Nate where, although he's sort of in his own head, he's very easy-going and sweet. I especially love his bromance with Dan because it produces great, surprisingly clever lines.
Nate's the voice of reason on the show after a couple of seasons, which is funny because that's what Dan was supposed to be initially. Seriously. He's got so little going on upstairs but is somehow very wise. I mean, this guy says it how it is and usually takes the mature road. And I guess, though he's about as fickle as Serena when it comes to falling in love, he's ultimately got a good heart.
I'd have to say my favorite part of Nate is watching him deal with his father in a really powerful and mature way. Again, he has all this maturity and wisdom about him - Nate's a very intuitive spirit. Every season that deals with his father in some way, including that one episode of season 2, Crawford just does really well. As a romantic lead, he doesn't always sell it, but as a family member I always appreciate him. Also, being a Vanderbilt makes me so fucking happy because the Vanderbilts are like, American royalty and I love reading about the Victorian Era / Edwardian Era Vanderbilts, and now here they are on a teen drama. Love this show so fucking much.
Yeah, I love Nate. Not in the way I love Blair or Dan with that raw enthusiasm, but Nate is sort of awesome.
Jenny Humphrey
Little J, you are one hell of a complicated character. You're all over the place, just like Taylor Momsen, yet somehow I always want to scoop you up and make your sadness go away. Why is that?
It's actually a bit difficult for me to exposit my feelings concerning Jenny. She hasn't really been around that much, and when I watched her for the first three seasons it was her adorably wonderful friendship with Eric, Serena's little brother, that made me enjoy her the most. I didn't much care for her social climber storylines, or her fashion designer on/off drama. I liked seeing her with Nate for like a split second in season 2, but in season 3 I wanted to strangle her for being all manipulative.
Points must go to Little J, though, for being an excellent dramatic foil in the most non-annoying way.
So, yeah, I'm not totally in love with her. I love to hate her, and occasionally Taylor Momsen will remind me that she is, in fact, a talented young girl when she pulls out a heart-wrenching performance of the tormented girl from Brooklyn, but mostly I'm ambivialent when it comes to the younger Humphrey. Stay in Hudson, my dear.
Chuck Bass
Oh, Bass, you ass. How do you teeter from bad boy to villian to romantic hero so easily? Is it the talent of Ed Westwick, or merely your writers' indecision? Whatever it is, you provide me with unending confusion.
Okay, let's pretend I'm writing this without having seen the controversial scene in "The Princess and the Frog" on Monday, and I still have a heart full of Bass love. The thing is, Chuck Bass is what originally turned me off the show when I first viewed the pilot. I have been sexually assaulted in my past and viewing a character who attempts rape twice in one episode with little to no remorse disgusted and repelled me. However, as I re-immersed myself into Gossip Girl I found a redeemable character, one whom I could get behind.
I have always appreciated watching Chuck vacillate between womanizer and romantic because it's done so subtly. He experiences affection for Blair, love even, and it changes his view on women. Obviously, not a complete 180 or anything, but enough to matter so that the viewers stop seeing him as the villian and more as an anti-hero. Watching him fall in love with Blair over the course of season 1 was the biggest reward, romantically. Seriously - I became a shipper for Chair. A hardcore, devotee shipper. And since we're pretending it's May 1st and "The Princess and the Frog" hasn't aired, I'm still of the belief that Chuck and Blair is the best endgame. However, 100% honesty dictates me to say that I can't see these two together anymore without a dark stain of abuse.
After Chuck essentially traded Blair for his hotel towards the end of season 3, I lost a lot of interest in this relationship. It was a degrading, monumentally disgusting thing to do and I applauded Blair for stepping up and finally saying "No fucking way" after Chuck tried to lay the blame on her. Here's what I don't like about this character: for all that he has matured business-wise once his father died, and how responsible he really can be, Chuck has not matured as a person. He's still very much the character we saw in the first season, and I think that's why so many fans have switched to Dair because it's time to grow up for Chuck.
That being said, I do like watching the Bass Industries storylines most people hate because it's fun to see Chuck without Blair now and again. I love watching his relationship with Lily, it's so nice to see him be loved by a parent figure. For a good while he was the older brother figure to Eric, too, and that was wonderful to see. I just wish the show would focus more on Chuck's familial relations and not just his daddy issues and love affairs. There's a lot of untapped potential in seeing Chuck appreciate things for once.
So no, I don't love Chuck. I'm fascinated by him, and Ed Westwick has some serious talent, but for being repeatedly abusive (physically, sexually, and verbally) I cannot condone nor appreciate him.
Vanessa Abrams
Vanessa, how the hell did you manage to make the whole fandom hate you within two weeks of screentime? More importantly, how did you remain on screen when the fandom railed for your death by fiery vengeance?
Okay, in season 2 I'll admit to tolerating Vanessa for about twelve episodes because she made Nate happy. He spent the first and most of the second season really unhappy about being so privileged, thinking he didn't deserve that life, and here was Vanessa to immerse him in the world of the middle-class activist. It was exactly what Nate needed to become mature and I was glad to see him so happy in his skin.
But my beef with Vanessa is that she came in trying too hard. I don't think the writers ever really grasped that this is the kind of character who walks into a room saying "I'm so cool, I do all this cool stuff and I have all these important, cool ideas about life and I'm above the rich, snobby people because I'm so cool!" but she then proceeds to act the way everyone else does only worse, because she's being hypocritical on top of that. Let's be honest - it's not Jessica Szohr's fault. If the writers had penned Vanessa as a character who lived by example and not through preachy superiority, then I would have been instantly drawn to her.
Instead, what Vanessa does (and it's so annoying) is that she makes some sort of statement, like "Be completely honest in a relationship and tell someone how you feel" and then does the exact opposite when put in a situation where she can follow her own advice. Season 4 in particular is so irritating because she spends three seasons telling Dan not to get sucked into the manipulative, scheming world of the Upper East Side, and then as soon as she's put through an ordeal that's about half as punishing as it would be to any of the other characters she becomes this manipulative, back-stabbing, scheming bitch who sneaks around and says nasty things like she's Blair Waldorf's heartless wannabe. How am I, how is anyone, suppose to get behind a character like that?
I don't have enough negative energy to muster up hatred for anyone, really, but I strongly dislike Vanessa and find her extremely irritating. Please let her go abroad, Gossip Girl writers. Please don't keep her around anymore.
Yes, I know that Lily and Rufus are not on this list, but they're really auxiliary characters on the show and while I am big fans of them both, I'm not driven to wax poetic about their Joy Summers' levels of good TV parents. They are wonderful. That is all.
Next essay will be about Dan and Blair's slowly budding romance, and how they compare to Pacey and Joey.