It's a Thing: When Celebrities Become Their Characters

Thoughts and theories on Gossip Girl. I could go deeper...don't tempt me.

Another week, another confluence of pop culture events. But this one is not nearly as serious as my post about The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. I’m starting a new column called “It’s a Thing” where I untangle loosely connected thoughts, trying to prove how it all makes sense. Let’s start with some thoughts I’ve had over the years about Gossip Girl, Adam Brody, and men who like women.

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Xoxo

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been the type of person who beats a song or a show until it’s dead. As a teenager, I’d sit in my room playing the same song on repeat for hours, probably driving my whole family nuts. I watch certain movies and shows on repeat—and sometimes prefer them to new titles. My repeated list includes some of the same comfort shows you’ll find burned into a lot of millennial women’s minds: Sex and the City, Gilmore Girls, and perhaps the worst? Gossip Girl. 

Gossip Girl gets more terrible every time I watch it. The first two seasons are gold, the third is annoying, the fourth is a tragedy, and the fifth and sixth should not exist. Down with Ivy Dickens. Down with Juliet Sharp. Lola Rhodes actually deserved better. Trip van der Bilt can go to hell. But it’s precisely the devastation I feel watching the show burn itself to the ground that makes me nostalgic for its beginnings—so I return, again and again, telling myself each time that I’ll stop after season two. 

It’s easy to excuse it as a “background show,” one I watch while working out in the mornings or use as fake company while I do tedious tasks. But still, while people at get togethers rattle off trivia about economics and local politics, my brain is full of storylines about rich and privileged Upper East Siders and Nate Archibald’s attempt to get his cousin elected to local office by setting up a fake rescue mission. 

Over the years, as the show rattles around in my otherwise empty brain, I’ve come to the conclusion that the actors are their Gossip Girl characters. 

Let’s start with Blake Lively, who played Serena van der Woodsen. Both blonde, vivacious, gorgeous it-girls. Blake Lively is, in my opinion, not that great of an actress. (I can’t tell if this is a hot take?) Every time I see her in something, I think, Oh, that’s Blake Lively playing a character. But she’s still getting all these high-profile roles, she’s a Met Gala star, she’s one half of a Hollywood “power couple” with her husband, Ryan Reynolds. It reminds me so much of what would probably be happening to Serena van der Woodsen if the show continued; both of their lives seem so effortless, like everything just falls into place for beautiful, white, charismatic women. (Which, shrug, that do be happening.) Of course, Serena would be all over Instagram, schilling products like Blake Lively does now. Serena was already working in Hollywood—who’s to say she wouldn’t have landed a role at some point which led to further stardom? I’ve also heard Blake Lively is good friends with Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue. Can’t you just picture Serena falling into a beautiful relationship with one of the world’s most influential women? She’d be front and center at the Met Gala, just like Blake. As for the power couple, I guess it depends on if she stayed with Dan and if he stopped being a sociopath. Harder to say. We’ll dive into all things Dan in a bit.

Next, we’ve got our queen B, Leighton Meester, who played Blair Waldorf. Blair called it like she saw it, and she saw it correctly, in my opinion. While Serena had everything fall into her lap (except her father’s love, sigh), Blair was working overtime even amongst her incredible privilege. While Leighton Meester is not from the same means whatsoever—she lived with her grandparents because her mother was in prison—she has suffered the same overlooked fate as Blair. She’s not getting as many spicy roles in Hollywood; she’s been in a series that was canceled due to low viewership, and a few indie movies here and there. She is a good actress, and yet outshined by the people around her, mirroring Blair’s deepest insecurities. I hope, like Blair and her eventual successful clothing line, Leighton Meester finds her footing in the coming years. I’ll watch anything she’s in! Including the terrible film River Wild which starred her AND Adam Brody. Arguably, I actually think Adam Brody represents what Blair’s life would have looked like if she had ended up with Dan. What a dream, to love working with your spouse and to make a movie out in nature. She’s also underrated as a singer, but I digress.

Let’s head on over to Penn Badgley, who played Dan Humphrey. *Cracks knuckles.* Just like Dan in Gossip Girl, Penn Badgley has many faces. He plays a sociopath in the Netflix series You, he hosts a podcast that digs into famous people’s lives, and he’s also a beloved rom-com protagonist in movies like Easy A. He’s a tricky one. We never know quite what to do with him. The more I look at him, the more he resembles Jason Mantzoukas. I think I still believe in his boyish smile, but I’m always waiting for him to confess something unexpected…

Last, I want to touch on Ed Westwick, who played Chuck Bass. It makes total sense to me that Chuck Bass would disappear off the face of the earth, just like Ed Westwick has (or at least, he’s disappeared from Hollywood, and that’s basically the face of the earth). Even more so that Ed Westwick disappeared after a sexual assault allegation. I believe the allegation has been disproved at this point, but since when has that ever actually answered anything? We’ll never know what happened for sure, but my little sister did tell me that apparently he got married recently and it was a beautiful affair. Congrats.  

I was going to ignore Taylor Momsen, who played Jenny Humphrey, because I think she actually presents the inverse to my theory—as in Jenny Humphrey became Taylor Momsen. Jenny wore heavy makeup because Taylor Momsen did. She went punk because Taylor Momsen did. Gossip Girl tried to write these details into Jenny’s life, but ultimately Taylor Momsen had to go—her heart wasn’t in the role. So, sure, Taylor Momsen and Jenny would definitely converge into what’s happening now: a willowy punk who sings (and screams), largely leaving her old persona behind.

I am ignoring Chase Crawford, who played Nate Archibald, because he doesn’t really fit my theory. But who knows, maybe Chase Crawford will head into politics just like his alter-ego. I’ll be ready with a post if he does. I do think he should have played Edward Cullen in Twilight because he’s so beautiful, but he wouldn’t have the depth that Robert Pattinson gave. As in, we’d probably never have this iconic scene:

We All Want This

These pop culture references are always criss-crossing in my circus of a brain. That’s why, while watching the new Netflix show, Nobody Wants This, my thoughts matched this meme perfectly:

Nobody Wants This stars Adam Brody, who lights up every room he enters. Most know him as Seth Cohen from The O.C. I never watched The O.C. (I’m sorry! And I’m also not. I couldn’t possibly retain another one of these early 2000’s shows), so I know him as Dave Rygalski from his short stint on Gilmore Girls. But REALLY, I know him as Leighton Meester’s husband. 

Ugh! Millennials’ favorite couple, right? Blair from Gossip Girl married Seth from The O.C.?! 

Ever since reading this article about “men who like women,” I’ve been watching every man closely, evaluating how he interacts with the women around him. In short, the article posits that there is a difference between men who like women—like appreciate and show a real interest in women—and men who don’t waste their time considering women as people and who really only value other men’s opinions and thoughts. We can test this by observing: Does the man ask women questions? Do they ask follow-up questions? Do they declare loudly they are a feminist and then disregard the idea of the “mental load”? Do they value women’s recommendations and opinions? Do they read female authors and listen to female podcasters? I want to believe Adam Brody is a man who likes women because, well, I’d like to believe all men like women, but I know that’s not the case. Still, here’s my reasoning for why I think he meets some benchmarks. 

1. He remembers details about his co-star’s lives. Look, if we’re saying Glen Powell is a man who likes women based on ideas like this, I can say it for Adam Brody, too. In one of those silly little YouTube videos stars do on press tours, Adam Brody remembers intricate details about where he first met Kristen Bell, knows how she started her acting career, her favorite scene to film in Nobody Wants This. I mean, it’s a low bar, but retention of details means a lot.

2. He works with female directors to showcase their vision. Did you see him in Promising Young Woman? What about Jennifer’s Body? In PYW, he plays this charming guy at a bar who secretly has no qualms about sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. PYW’s director, Emerald Fennell, chose Adam Brody and actors like him (think Bo Burnham, Max Greenfield) because she wanted to show how even the “nice guys” we’ve built up narratives about can be sexual predators. Adam Brody saw the vision, knew he fit the bill as the nice guy, and signed on. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jennifer’s Body director Karyn Kusama had a similar thought while casting him. 

Anyway, I think it’s bullet points like these that contribute to the longevity of people’s love for Adam Brody. And even if in reality Adam Brody doesn’t like women, I’d rather hold onto the image he presents as someone men can look up to, rather than, say, Ryan Reynolds. (Had to! We’re talking Blair and Serena, Leighton and Blake here!) 

Frenemies

I’ve never fallen for Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds publicly trolling each other and singing the praises of friendship equaling the greatest love. They’re at the top of every Miss Mojo list about power couples because they’ve campaigned for the title their entire relationship. To me, it’s so obvious, and therefore, boring. 

I’d much rather see paparazzi shots of Adam Brody and Leighton Meester surfing. They’re not shoving their relationship in our faces even though we’re all begging for more behind-the-scenes content. What do their kids look like? I think it would be too much for our mortal eyes. 

I don’t totally buy that Ryan Reynolds likes women. It seems clear to me that he talks over them in interviews, or uses their answers to jumpstart some joke he knows the bros will like. He has this raunchy, irreverent persona, and he and Blake push it however they can. It honestly makes sense to me that their jokester facade would land Blake Lively under fire because of her terrible showing on the press tour for It Ends With Us. It’s too much! It’s all too much.

Are Blake Lively and Leighton Meester even thinking about each other? If they were still their characters, you know Serena would be asking Blair for help with this scandal, and Blair would pull off some insane shenanigan by creating another celebrity villain, exonerating Serena in the meantime. I can’t imagine Serena doing the same for Blair, because it never really happened in the show. Instead, I imagine Serena sitting in bed, scrolling through all the hype about Adam Brody, eating raspberries, wishing for her effortless yesteryears. Blair would gloat, for sure, about the fact that she has the better public relationship—but she’s justified. She always has been. 

All this to say, *stretches aching back* none of this matters. But to paraphrase Ryan Reynolds quoting John Green quoting Pope John Paul II, “Of all the unimportant things, Gossip Girl is the most important.” If you’re a Serena stan, good luck, I guess. She probably has to go as soon as she arrives.

I’ll leave you with some of my favorite Blair looks:

The sleeves. The waist. The hair. THE EPISODE. Sorry, but I lived for the Blair/Dan kiss.

Love the shape, the pattern, the makeup. She’s an angel.

I’m usually not one for coordination as perfect as this, but I think because they went SO HARD on coordination, it makes it more interesting, especially playing with shades of orange.

This wrap dress! Blair usually dresses so conservatively, so I love when her looks feel edgy.

I love how there’s a million things going on: the tie, the shirt, the vest, the blazer, the belt, the RED tights. If only I could be so brave.

I love the top of this dress. Would die for it. This is what I believe we’ll all wear in heaven.

Thank you for coming on this journey with me. I’m about to go finish Nobody Wants This while eating pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies. Over and out.

Abi