I can’t even keep track any longer.
It’s been well documented here on Premium Hollywood that I’m not exactly a fan of the show, and I’ve held that position since the very beginning. Granted, I’ve only watched a couple of episodes (though I do have every intention of watching the Season 1 DVD set when it’s released), but even those were enough to see that the series provides a really awful example of teenage lifestyles in the big city…and, even worse, those lifestyles are painted as being something to emulate as often as not. But when The CW decided to use this ad campaign to trumpet the return of the series’ first new episodes after the WGA strike, it seemed evident that they had nothing but contempt for concerned parents, anyway:
I mean, really, don’t tell me there aren’t kids seeing those ads and asking, “Mommy, Daddy, what does ‘OMFG’ mean?” Personally, I’m not looking forward to coming up with an all-new acronym invention on the fly. (“Why, sweetie, aren’t you familiar with the Oddly Melancholy Fat Giant?”)
Given this contempt, it should come as no real surprise that the network has continued with this theme with their newest promotion for the upcoming Season 2 premiere, using billboards which bear phrases from the show’s reviews, including The Boston Herald’s “Every Parent’s Nightmare,” The New York Post’s “A Nasty Piece of Work,” and the Parents Television Council’s “Mind-Blowingly Inappropriate.”
Steve Johnson of The Chicago Tribune says, “Let’s trust that any real-world kid with half an upbringing understands that what goes on in this show, and in its advertisements, is a cartoon extreme, meant to entertain rather than instruct,” and I’d like to think that I’m providing my daughter with that kind of safety net. But, then, I had a great upbringing, and I still grew up being sorely disappointed that high school didn’t play out like it did on TV and in the movies. Given that “Gossip Girl” just won a slew of Teen Choice Awards, I sense that the same thing’s going to happen with today’s kids, where they’re left thinking that what they see on that show is what’s cool…or, more likely, the cool kids will try to make stuff they’ve seen on “Gossip Girl” come to life in their own schools, and the peer pressure to live up those cool kids will inevitably trickle down to the other kids.
In other words, my child may be doomed…and if she is, I’m totally blaming “Gossip Girl.” (If she isn’t, though, I’m patting myself and my wife on the back for being good parents.)
