Gossip Girl's Negative Effects

 Returning to an old favorite of mine for my final blog post, the ever popular Gossip Girl. Although the show is no longer on air I want to bring it into discussion for a few reasons. #1 it is still on the Netflix most watched TV shows. #2 A young teenage girl (12) in my family asked her mom for the box set of DVDs for a holiday gift. The second it what inspired me to write the following post. 

Gossip Girl originated as an American teen drama book series written by Cecily von Ziegesar. The series includes twelve books, along with a prequel and a successful spin-off book. The first novel, Gossip Girl, was released in April 2002 and the series quickly climbed to the top of The New York Times Best-Seller list. The series revolves around the lives of privileged young adults in New York City’s Upper East Side. Their lives consist of cruel scandals, underage drinking, illegal drug use and explicit sex, which are dished out daily by the anonymous Gossip Girl through text messages and Web postings.

In 2007 this incredibly popular series was adapted for television. The CW, which airs the program, claims the show is targeted for an audience between 18-34 Also, Gossip Girl is rated TV-14, which means that it is recommended to people 14 and older. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that thousands of young teenagers are watching the show. The first season of the show stayed reasonably true to the books expect for some casting decisions, which changed the looks of some of the main characters. However, as the show continued it began to stray further and further from the books and increased the scandalous behavior to keep audiences’ attention.

The show is sensationalizing and glamorizing all aspects of rebellious teenage behavior, which is having a profound effect particularly on its young impressionable teenage viewers.

Problems occur when teenagers begin seeing Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf, the two main characters of Gossip Girl, as their role models. Television shows often make their characters seem like the ideal high school girls. Some real life teenagers begin emulating them to the point that they want to be their exact likeness. 

All of the women cast members of Gossip Girl fit in the high fashion genre of extra tall and ultra thin.As a result an increasing number of young girls and even young boys are starving themselves in an effort to gain a fashionable look. Conceptions of ideal appearance depend strongly on images in the media. Ed Richards said, “Many studies have concluded that the media's exaltation of female thinness, both through the use of thin women to set the standard of beauty and through constant propaganda in favor of losing weight, is responsible in part for the current epidemic of eating disorders, including anorexia and bulimia” (Richard, 2011).

This lead me to consider the results Aubrey and Taylor’s article concluded that men who saw a photo of a woman alone were more self conscious than those who didn’t (Aubrey 2009). Although our first response may be for the concern of young women watching, young men are also at risk. A show featuring successful, gorgeous young women replicate this effect causing men to feel inadequate. 

 Gossip Girl contains heavy doses of sexual content, ranging from touching, kissing, jokes, and innuendo to conversations about sexual activity and portrayals of intercourse and even a threesome. The tenth episode of the third season caused significant controversy. Parent groups urged the CW not to air the episode that contained a sexual threesome. However the network went on to air the episode despite the complaints. Sex on the show is often presented as a casual activity without risk or consequences. Teens who watch a lot of television with sexual content are more likely to initiate intercourse in the following year (Rand, 2004). 

This made me think of Chia's study, “How Media Contribute to Misperceptions of Social Norms About Sex” which found that, “students tend to overestimate the sexual permissiveness of their peers students,” and that “students form erroneous impressions of peers partly according to their estimates of media influence on peers and their own attitudes (Chia 2006). With a show featuring high school to college age students it would be easy to see how Gossip Girl could be perpetuating the idea that sex is extremely pre levant, even more so than in reality.

The RAND Corporation did a study that examined this issue. Analysts surveyed a national sample of households containing an adolescent from 12 to 17 years old. A total of 1,762 adolescents were asked about their sexual experiences and also their television viewing habits and, one year later, were surveyed again. The researchers measured levels of exposure to sexual content on television. The results showed that heavy exposure to sexual content on television related strongly to teens’ initiation of intercourse. Teenagers who viewed the greatest amounts of sexual content were two times more likely than those who viewed the smallest amount to initiate sexual intercourse during the following year or to progress to more-advanced levels of other sexual activity (Rand, 2004).

It is probable that this notorious television show is having a profound effect on its younger and impressionable viewers. The mildly rebellious books have morphed into a television series that glorifies or justifies everything from murder to threesomes.  The evidence clearly shows that what teenagers see on television can have a measurable effect on how they act in real life. In the ever-increasing thirst for higher ratings there has been an overpowering and intentional drive for ever growing shock value in all aspects of teen life. As this show continues to glamorize aberrant behavior, teenagers will continue to be at risk of this negative influence that was not the original intention of the books.

Bibliography

Aubrey, J. S., & Taylor, L. D. (2009). The Role of Lad Magazines in Priming Men’s 

Chia, S. C., & Gunther, A. C. (2006). How media contribute to misperceptions of social norms about sex. Mass Communication & Society, 9(3), 301-320.

Rand Health. "Does Watching Sex on Television Influence Teens' Sexual Activity?"Www.rand.org. 29 Oct. 2004. Web. 

Richard, Ed. "One Real Cause of Our Trouble." Www.themoorings.org. 13 July 2011.Web.