The true identity of Gossip Girl, the xoxo'ing, blogging, rumor monger of the same-titled CW series, has long been a burning question. Until today's bombshell. The Daily News has apparently gotten a hold of the info. Find out after the jump. Spoiler Alert, obviously.
It's appropriate that an actress from Gossip Girl, a show whose narrator is an amateur high-tech gossip columnist, is picked up by Gawker Stalker, the cameraphone edition. In the style of the camp TV drama, here's the report: Hello there Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here. Spotted: Little J giving all of Manhattan's west side a peep show on the uptown 1 train. What was little J doing on the subway, you know I'm on it. You know you love me. XOXO Gossip Girl. (Borrowed from commenter SHININGSTAR.) The actual sighting, after the jump:
On this week's "Gossip Girl," the world's richest poor kid Dan Humphrey totally got a story published in the New Yorker! Whatever, we bet it was the Fiction issue, they'll let ANYONE in there! Later Serena gave him a nice present (a watch, so he'll be punctual meeting editors!) but he's such a fuckwad with class hang-ups that he can't accept it. But now we've "obtained" an excerpt of "his story" and we understand all.
Popular television program Gossip Girl is, according to Wikipedia, "an American television teen drama" that "revolves around the lives of socialite young adults growing up on New York's Upper East Side who attend elite academic institutions while dealing with sex, drugs, and other teenage issues." Also, according to the New York Observer, it's ruining New York forever.
This week on the most important television series ever made about New York, we met Serena Van der Woodsen's grandmother, a drinky dowager who is not only mean and classist but also a Shatnerianly terrible actress! How did she give birth to Serena's mom, who is a fantastic actress? Maybe acting skills skip a generation in their family, thus explaining Serena. Also on last night's episode, Blair and Nate got back together, breaking the heart of Chuck Bass and causing him to skip town, all turtlenecked, for parts unknown. U.E.S. teenagers waltzed gracefully at cotillion and "hipsters" milled about at Dan's mom's opening at the 'Bedford Avenue Gallery.' Now we understand how people who live in Orange County, California felt about "The O.C."
Some of the paintings in Rufus Humphreys' "Williamsburg" art gallery on "Gossip Girl" are by a 60-year-old artist from Forest Hills, Queens named Rita Wilmers. The one featured on tonight's show "marks the end of one part of [Wilmers'] life—my 32 years on Staten Island—and the beginning of a new life in Forest Hills and a new [more abstract] art style. It's a celebration of having lived on Staten Island, saying goodbye, and moving on." [NYP]
By now we've all agreed that Vanessa on 'Gossip Girl' is beyond annoying. Like, back off, sister! Give Serena and Dan the space they need. God. But the thing that most confounds us about this underminer? Her wack clothes. As New York's Fiona Byrne puts it, "What exactly is Vanessa's deal? Why does she dress like an extra from a New Kids on the Block video?" Well,
we've got an answer now, straight from the mouth of Jessica Szohr, who plays V. "In the book, Vanessa was very gothic, always in black, with piercings and when we started the show, they wanted to make her kind of Lower East Side ... tight skinny jeans, high-tops, and things like that," Szohr explained. "I had just moved here so I wasn't aware of the neighborhoods, so when I was doing homework for my character, I went to the Lower East Side." Ah.
On this week's episode of 'Gossip Girl,' called 'Blair Waldorf Must Pie,' B's father—whom, you'll recall, ran off with a male model—reveals his identity at last. He'll be played by John Shea, best known as Lex Luthor from 'Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.' At nearly 60, he will also be the only parent on this show old enough to look like he could have sired a teenager post-being one.
The 'Gossip Girl' ethnics are explained at last! "Originally, the Kati and Isabel characters on GOSSIP GIRL were actually listed in the breakdown as "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Jimmy Choos,' writes a tipster who auditioned for the show, but wasn't ultimately cast. "They were actually the funniest part of the show - they had these totally bizarre three line conversations at the end of each scene. Unfortunately, for those of us who went in 19 times for every part on the show and ended up coming down to the very end for those roles, the network decided that they had to go "ethnic," and they claimed couldn't find any black or Asian girls who were funny, so they, at the last minute, cast models and decided to just make them sight gags. No joke."
I went to an amazing party last night. I fit it in between meeting with Tyra (just Tyra, to me) to grill some aspiring models and discussing the day's events with Jim Watkins and Kaity Tong at 10. So anyway, at this party, we were playing "Guitar Hero"—my fave!—and eating raw fish! Can you believe that? Kind of slimy, but good!
The nonwhite Greek chorus of the candycoated Upper East Side universe of 'Gossip Girl' giggled as they snapped cellphone pix of Serena and Dan's makeout session, but once more, their behind the scenes plot-advancing role was not rewarded with lines of actual dialogue. Will we ever be allowed to know the inner lives of Black Girl and Asian Girl? Or will their exploits continue to be overshadowed by the forbidden love affair between Dan and Serena, who come from such different worlds that they go to the same school and also their parents used to bone? Good thing the new Judith Butler-Gayatri Spivak book comes out the day before next week's episode: Maybe that will help us puzzle things through.
"To me, one of the biggest differences between the ['The O.C.' and 'Gossip Girl'] is that New York City is a character in 'Gossip Girl," according to both shows' wunderkind creator Josh Schwartz. And: sure! Especially if you mean "the only difference" and "Vancouver or Toronto or a soundstage is a character." Anyway: on last night's episode, Jennifer Aniston's little sister Serena Van der Woodsen has called her star-crossed Williamsburg love Dan. She is just about to ask him to her on-again friend Blair Waldorf's masquerade ball, but then she hears a girl's voice in the background and she's all "Who's that" and he says, "Um, my sister," even though it is actually his old best friend, the terribly-wardrobed Vanessa, whose tacky outfits pissed me off in every scene (she can't dress well because she is meant to portray a poor!).
In last night's episode of what we thought was the extremely sociologically relevant CW series "Gossip Girl," we noticed a certain... hmm, stultifying dullness and fakey plot-pointness creeping in! This clip shows what we mean. "Gossip Girl" is brand new, and yet we already feel something bad is maybe happening. This is when T.V. shows get weird-desperate. Like when "Melrose Place" went crazy and someone would always kidnap Jo's baby and then Traci Lords would start guest-starring as a cult leader-recruiter? The next step is the insanity that was "Models Inc." and we know how well that turned out. That's right. It gets replaced by fucking "Party of Five." And no one wants that to happen again.
Last night's episode of "Gossip Girl", which is a retelling of the Bible through the hurlyburly lives of rich Upper East Side teenagers, sorta good girl Serena once again finds herself in sorta evil girl Blair's poor graces. Blair was supposed to model for her mother's clothing line, Waldorf! But Serena was recruited too. Through this Medean maneuvering of Blair's mother, Blair feels somehow less than. And so what could have been a rapprochement turns instead into another wedge in their friendship. Sad! In this Dreamgirlian scene, Blair chastizes Serena for improperly seizing all that was hers. Serena is the Deena Jones figure; Blair, the Effie White. At any rate, Serena's love interest Dan hears the argument and gets upset. These two drifters seem destined to float down the Moon River, after the same rainbow's end and the same pot of gold.
We've been so crazed over here that we forgot to update you on the most important show ever on television, Gossip Girls. Where to start? First of all, with the observation that it's amazing how the entire arc of human conflict and resolution can be crammed into less than an hour of television. Blair and Serena were best friends, now bitter enemies. Earlier in this episode, they got in a field hockey fight which was bad for their friendship but good for fans of upskirt shots. This scene represents what should have been Battle of Salamis with Blair as Themistocles. So Blair exposes Serena as the drug addict she is in front of the virginal ears of Ivy League reps. But, as it turns out, it's Serena's younger brother who is the patient at the Ostroff Center, not Serena. Thusly what should have been her greatest triumph is actually a calamity. Also, contrary to what the episode would have you believe, Journeys Back from the Brink of Addiction are college essay GOLD. Trust me, that's how I got into school.
Last night on the CW's "Gossip Girl," the most important and salient show ever made for television, our protagonist Serena and her Brooklyn lover Dan enjoyed a charity brunch at Gilt. But Dan finds out that Serena might not be a virgin. And then...drama ensued! Not that we ever would criticize the show, which is a picture-perfect snapshot of the life experience of the young people of New York, but a little of Billy Joel's Uptown Girl faded into Left Banke's Walk Away, Renee couldn't have hurt.
"Our shit still stinks, but you can't smell it because the bathroom is sprayed hourly by the maid with a refreshing scent made exclusively for us by French perfumers," wrote Cecily von Ziesgar in the first volume of the Gossip Girl series. Hewitt School student council president Kari Brandt, writing to the New York Times to protest what she felt was an unfair characterization of her class (heh) in Ruth La Ferla's article about the TV series based on those novels, would beg to differ. Hewitt girls' shit does not stink—although we've heard that anyone who says it does will be drummed right out of the cool girls' club.
