The It-Girl
Serena van Der Woodsen is a main character in the series Gossip Girl, often being described as 'the It Girl' of Upper East side New York. She's rich, she's blonde, she's gorgeous, she's got the figure of a supermodel and to top it all off, she's smart and a total sweetheart!
In the first part of Gossip Girl's Pilot, it's established that Serena has returned from her boarding school, but the reason why? No one knows. Another mystery is why she left in the first place, a little detail that not even her bff Blair Waldorf was informed of, since one day she just " came over to your [Serena's] house and you were gone! No goodbye, nothing."
What we do know however, is that S used to be kind of a bad girl. Flashbacks show us of her crazy partying antics; she even slept with Blair's boyfriend, Nate, at a wedding just before leaving for boarding school! Uh oh! Maybe this is the reason she left.... The audience isn't told yet but they sure are left wondering.
But S insists she's trying to change her ways and become " a better person" now that she's back in town.
We'll see about that....
The S and B showdown..
In the pilot, a scene packed with tension is when Serena and Blair have a passive agressive power struggle on the steps of the Met during school lunch break. Despite being totally gossip-worthy, it was also a great oppurtunty for the director to show a lot about Serena's character.
To start with, she's been dressed in a cute, preppy blazer and shirt which is the epitome of a ' good girl' image. But she's paired it with a skirt that barely covers her underwear. This basically symbolises the fact that Serena is TRYING to change her ways and become a goody-two-shoes... and she's starting with a classy little blazer. But he also shows her inner conflict between the two identidies she has and how she hasn't fully changed from her bad girl ways just yet by having her in a skirt that shows off her long legs (and she's not even wearing tights).
The snappy dialogue between S and Blair shows the power struggle that they're retreating back into now that Serena is back; Blair has become the queen bee since Serena left, does Serena really think she can waltz back into town and reclaim her title? Apparently so as she basically commands Blair to meet her for a drink that night, despite B already having plans with Nate. Serena's passive-assertive way of demanding what she wants shows that she expects Blair to go back to being second in command. Her body language is confident, never wavering despite Blair's cold responses; the girls stare each other down until Blair eventually gives in . This shows that despite Serena's sweet, polite and modest exterior, she simeltainiously rates herself highly on a social scale and expects to get what she wants from her friends.
Typical, typical, typical...
Despite the fact that Serena VanderWoodsen is hardly a typical teenager in looks or wealth (if only we all looked like that...), her actions and issues are basically a representation of a usual teenage girl in the media. Serena's inner angst ("who am I?" "Who should I be???") is representative of how the media portrays all teenage girls to be hormonal and angsty in so many tv shows and movies, how they always throw temper tantrums and have a never ending circle of emotional issues.
Teenage girls are often represented as ' bitchy' , how many times have we seen ' cat fights' on television between girls (Jersey Shore anyone??)? Too many times. Serena portrays this aspect of a typical teenager in her showdown with Blair, the subtle, passive agressive nastiness is all too common amongst girls of this age, something that the media uses as a source of drama time and time again.
The female teen obsession with popularity and social climbling is also evident in this scene between B and S, something that 99% of the time is a huge theme in the media portrayal of teenage girls in movies such as Mean Girls, as is the unstable and usually unsincere nature of teenage girl friendships.
But then maybe not so typical...
Although in Gossip Girl, aspects of the girls are quite typical of teenage girls, there are other aspects that are very out of the ordinary. While the girls are heavily portrayed as being superficial and bitchy, their good traits are underplayed a lot. Where is the mention of their intelligence? Their talents? Their hobbies (other than partying, shopping and plotting against friends)? Their aspirations and values? Why are these not mentioned as major part of the show's plotline and character make-up of the characters?
Simple: thats not interesting. Anyone can go out into our local society and find a girl who has good traits and bad in equal proportion, with a good brain and unique talents. Audiences want a scandalous character that is out of the ordinary and who's traits are extreme and not usual. Serena is a smart girl, with a good sense of style and although she has a nasty side sometimes, she deep down has good family values and wants to be a good person. However the general description of Serena is always of her being "an It-Girl" with a dark past who knows how to reel all the boys in. The director overplays these interesting aspects of S because its more appealing to audiences that heavily portraying the aspects of her that make her more relatable; I mean really, who wants to watch someone onscreen who is naturalistic? We might as well just walk down to the mall.
Serena represents a typical, perfect teenage girl in the media but she is not realistically a typical girl in true society. Realistically, we are not all completely focussed on social climbing and our issues aren't " oh no, which insanely sexy guy should I date this week?". Despite being scandalous to the max, Serena's life is actually a lot more clear cut and simple than the life of a typical teenage girl today. Serena's day consists of getting up, looking perfect, going to school (although this is rarely a part of the show), gossiping and engaging in various glamourous outings. For girls today, we have to deal with getting up, dealing with body image issues and not liking the way we look, going to school, wanting to do well but trying to find a balance between studying and a social life. We play sport, have hobbies and interests, part time jobs (not every family has millions like the VanDerwoodsen's), fights with friends and families, social networking (not on blogs that obsessively track our every move like gossip girl, we generally stick to facebook) and then we fall into bed and begin the cycle again.
Real life for teenage girls today is so much more complicated and difficult, but when we see girls like Serena portrayed on tv shows as supposedly ' typical' , it makes real girls feel like our lives should be like that, all parties, beauty and a sky-high social status. It makes us strive to be like Serena so we are typical too and don't fail at being a teenage girl in our lives.
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