Ryan Sheely and Matthew Wrather return to examine the intellectual foundations of Gossip Girl (Glee being still on hiatus), discussing the characters’ romantic entanglements, the dramaturgy of missed calls, discursive power, and meaning of virginity, transnationalism and the origins of diplomacy, the myth of the sovereign state, the cultural significance of Europe, and the comforts of elitism.
There will be no spoiler warnings and there will be many naughty words. If either of those things bothers you, don’t click!
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I wonder if there’s any relation to this resurgence of Old World elitism in GG with the prevalence of vampires in pop culture today. As we’ve oft discussed on this site and the regular OTI podcast, vampires were often used as stand-ins for the decadent, corrupt Old World, and although that has changed a lot in the post-Twilight era, there are still (clumsy) calls to this idea of the Euro-vamp in things like the “Morning After Dark” video that Fenzel wrote about a couple of weeks ago.
Also, re: meaning of that guy being from Belgium, well, Brussels is where the seat of the EU is located, so perhaps it’s their way of making the dude trans-European and not tied to any one specific European power that taps into a lot of pre-programmed references that an American audience would have.
That’s a good point about the EU.
And a good point about vampires, who have often reflected an Anglo or New World fear about a decrepit but irresistibly compelling old European aristocracy.
(Even in Twilight, Edward and his family are associated with cultural pursuits—playing the piano is his big one—which are what they do when they’re not masquerading as upstanding members of society.)