Gossip Girl Discussion Thread

[meimei42]

Since I know my girl Adia watching this show with me I thought I'd start a discussion thread.

Our topic for today: Chuck Bass

Complete jerk or just misunderstood with a heart of gold?


I sort of walk the line on this one. One the one hand we see Chuck come very close to date raping Jenny. One could say, 'well what was she doing up there with him anyway' but for as much as our little J learns later in the series, she's still pretty naive at this point in her life and so I hardly feel that is an excuse on Chuck's part.

Of course that isn't the only side of Chuck we see. Indeed, when Georgina becomes apart of Serena's life again you could see a protectiveness about him. He care about his friends, he's loyal and is obviously upset by his friends being upset. Even after everything Serena accused him of, after hurting his relationship with his father, he was still there to help her.

So what do you think?

[adiafaith]

Lol, how is it I gravitated to this thread? Oh, because I sensed a Chuck discussion brewing!

Aww, Chuck is totally misunderstood. I know some people think he's evil and can't stand him, but I really don't think he's bad at all. That rape thing, ehhhh, I don't think he would've really gone through with it. I mean, Chuck's a playboy and he's sort of used to just getting females so I think a part of him was just under the assumption that Jenny wanted him. And when she started flaking out he just took that for her being nervous or shy or maybe even as if she were playing hard to get.
(I gotta admit, I so would've preferred it if he'd just told her she wasn't worth his time and left her up on the roof, but these freakin' writers!!!) But like I said, I don't think he would've gone through with it even if Dan and Serena hadn't came up to rescue "poor innocent" Jenny

Of all the characters, I think Chuck is the most loyal and that's big with me. If someone tries to hurt one of my friends, I'm ready to go after that person because my friends are like family to me. And Chuck's the same way. He'll go to the ends of the world for his friends - to protect them and make sure they don't get hurt. He'll lie, cheat, steal, probably even kill to protect the people he cares about. When Nate gets in trouble at that poker game, Chuck's right there to help his friend out no matter the cost. When Serena breaks into the school pool for them and someone gets hurt, Chuck takes the key to protect his friends from getting in trouble. When Georgina comes back into town and Serena gets into a mess, Chuck's the one she calls and he jumps right in and helps her. He lies to Dan for her, he is willing to pay someone to take the SAT for her, he buys bagels to help soak up all the alcohol Serena drank, and he's willing to go after Georgina and exact revenge. I'm not saying these are the right ways to handle situations, but these are the ways Chuck knows and this just shows he's willing to do whatever it takes to take care of his friends when they need help. And when Chuck sees Nate's dad doing some shady business, he alerts Nate even though their friendship was like non-existent at the time, which shows that even when his friendship with a person isn't going well, he still cares about the person and will do anything to protect them.

Don't get me wrong though...Chuck has done some things. He totally blew up Blair's spot and had her humiliated in front of the school by telling gossip girl that she'd slept with two guys. And he did sleep with his best friend's ex. And he did try to embarrass Serena by letting Blair know that she was going to that treatment center (though he didn't know at the time she was going there for her brother). But some of that just comes from Chuck not knowing how to deal with his own feelings of hurt. When Blair dissed and dismissed Chuck by sleeping with Nate, Chuck was devastated inside. But he's not the type to cry and mope around when he's sad. He just retaliates in anger. And he did, by humiliating Blair. And then there's Serena. Chuck had a thing for her in the beginning too and when he made a move, she basically blew him off and acted like she was repulsed by him. So to get back at her he was more than willing to help Blair embarrass Serena by exposing her secret. But think about....Chuck's only like 16 or 17. We can't truly expect him to behave like an adult at all times. He's gonna make mistakes, he's going to do some bad things. But I don't think Chuck is a maliciously evil person, just the way I don't think Blair is pure evil either. But even if Chuck were just evil to the core.....I'd still love the hell out of him!

[meimei42]

Dude, I'm so impressed you found this!

I don't adore Chuck as much as you do, but I have serious love of character who don't rule their lives in black and white. Some people are so sickeningly perfect that you just want to puke. No one makes the right decision ALL the time. I like Dan, but sometimes his whole holier than thou moral compus can get annoying. So I guess while sometimes I go oooooh that Chuck is one evil son of a bitch I find I'm far more interested in a character that has moral shades of grey than someone who is the perfect protagnanist.

I do think Chuck has quiet a few sins under his belt, some we probably haven't seen. If Jenny the only girl he maybe kind of forced himself on? We can speculate what he would or would not have done if Dan and Serena hadn't found their way to that rooftop but we don't truly know.

I agree, I wish Chuck would have just left her up there and walked away. She was a f**king moron to do what she did. I know she's young but maybe then she shouldn't be going out to parties and stuff. Just a thought.

[adiafaith]

Lol, it was calling me, you know. I have the powers to sense these type of threads, lol.

Dan is such a difficult character for me because I really do want to like him (and a lot of times I do) but he is so freakin' judgmental that it sickens me. Like the way he acted when he found out Serena slept with Nate while Nate and Blair were still dating. He was such a d**k to Serena about it. And all I kept thinking was dude, she wasn't your girlfriend, she wasn't even your friend at the time. She didn't even know you existed so why are you acting all stink about it? Everybody has a past and skeletons in their closets (girl, I got cemeteries in mine, lol) so you can't judge people on their past mistakes. That really pissed me off and it made me look at Dan different after that.

But Chuck doesn't judge people on their past mistakes and I like that. He's got his own cemetery in his closet so he's not really looking down on someone who has their own indiscretions. Plus, you're right, he totally has these shades of gray and though he's considered an antagonist, there are still times when he’s in support of others rather than against them. There’s more than just meets the eye with Chuck, whereas with a character like Dan I often feel like he’s just this goody-two shoes and they never stopped to give him any real layers. Dan’s a very one-dimensional character while Chuck is multi-dimensional

I’m holding onto the belief that Chuck’s “almost rape” was a one-time occurrence. Denial, you know. Gotta use that denial sometimes. But I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he hasn’t gotten a little out of hand with females ‘cause he’s certainly not a gentle person, lol

And I just hate Jenny so I am totally willing to sweep what Chuck did under the rug. She did a lot of lying and conniving to get to that party and is such a naïve person – she was warned repeatedly about Chuck and she still chose to go off with him. Normally I would never blame the girl but with Jenny, since I can’t stand her, I feel like if she hadn’t been trying to act so grown, she wouldn’t have gotten into that mess.

[meimei42]

Dan frustrates me as well. There have been several times he's been really judgmental and Serena is ALWAYS the one left apologizing. Its never a two way street, Dan is always in the right and is always the good guy. He's a static character if you ask me. I mean, there are times I root for him and stuff, but on the whole I get easily frustrated with him.

Chuck is faaaar more interesting.

Jenny sucks. Seriously. I didn't mind her at first, she was just kind of this kid trying to find her way. But she went down this path that just made me really dislike her. I get that maybe its fun to see the high and mighty fall, but there is a line and I think Jenny crossed it. She was so selfish it turned my stomach. I mean when you start a series feeling like one character (Blair) is going to be the antagonist and really they end up being a character you root for and the character you felt was the underdog just ends up being just a really awful person. I like the rich kids because I feel like maybe they're more fleshed out. They've got more going on than you could ever understand.

Vanessa is an interesting character as well. I didn't like her at first because I really felt like she was introduced soley as a character to mess things up between Dan and Serena but once we got past the love triangle, I really grew to like her. I thought she was real and she spoke her mind and yeah, she was judgemental too, but I felt more like she was calling them as she saw them. Not judging people on the way they once were.

Not sure what I thought of her and Nate together.

[adiafaith]

Ok, first off, why are there all those smileys ^^ in my post? Aye, my office comp sucks.

Mei, are we the only two people watching this show? LOL

Yeah, Dan is pretty flat as a character for me too. I mean, I get that they want to make him the more stable person, especially in contrast to Serena and the other's lifestyles, but he just really seems devoid of personality. And everyone makes mistakes so it's frustrating the way he's quick to look down on someone for their mistakes and never even stop and comment on his own. He is sort of the underdog in this whole thing so I do like him during those times - like I didn't really want Chuck to beat him up (though I don't see Chuck as a fighter) and I did want to see Dan get Serena (but after the way he was with her at times it got annoying) but separate from that, I had difficulty dealing with him. I'm not sure how I'm gonna feel about him now that he's not with Serena - if he remains non-judgmental he may just end up on my "can't stand" list.

As for Jenny...she's a bee-yotch. I hate her. Seriously. Like I'm never a fan of characters who kinda run behind somebody like a little servant just so that they can move up in the echelons of the high school elite. It sickens me. So in that alone, Jenny was a nauseating character. But then add to that her turning on Blair and into someone far more evil and cutthroat than Blair could ever be and Jenny placed herself firmly at the top of my s**t list. And if you're gonna be top dog and stake claim to that position, have the money for it. Like Jenny's some poor little girl from Williamsburg (and no disrespect to Williamsburg because I have friends there and it's far from being a poor neighborhood) who had to steal and lie to be the "Queen B". It was pathetic to watch. Plus, what was so wrong with her life that she felt like she had to turn into such a snot? It's sort of strange because after all that she did, I almost feel like there's not a lot more to be done with her character. Like either she'll learn to be content with the way things are for her or she'll make amends with Blair (hope not) and be one of B's minions, blending into the circle of yogurt eaters - but outside of that, there's not a whole lot more to be done with her. I'm kinda wanting to see her go away anyways.

And Vanessa! Don't get me started on her, I LOVE that girl, lol. I loved her from the moment she showed up with her little Bohemian fashion sense. I love the outsider-type characters who don't fit in to main characters outrageous lifestyle but who can sit back and quietly mock them - 'cause frankly, I'm at home watching mocking them, lol. And Vanessa so is that character. She finds their way of life amusing and is totally sarcastic so how could I do anything but love her, ya know.
I do think the writers have no real idea what to do with her (which so pisses me off) and the way they brought her in aggravated me to no end because they had to make her seem like the little homewrecker. Geez...writers. But I've been dying to just see her and Dan together kinda being the outcasts and quietly mocking the way things are - but I'm not sure if that'll ever happen. Plus, at this point, I'm not sure if I want to see her hook up with Dan because that would just be the death of her character. Once they hook them up and then break them up so Dan can be back with Serena, they'll probably ship Vanessa off to another boarding school or send her away to pursue an artistic job. Aye, I so see that coming.

I'm not quite sure how I felt about her with Nate either. It was okay, I guess, but I'm still kinda shipping the whole Nate/Serena thing. They had some chemistry on top of that bar, lmao.

[meimei42]

Oh Dan--like I want to like him, I do. But there are just times I just get so frustrated. He has foot in mouth disease way too often but hey that's cool and quirky. Of course if anyone else makes a mistake he's so quick to question his relationship with that person and the kind of character he thought they were. News flash Dan--we're not all perfect. I think Serena is pretty close to it though. I mean he supposidly loved her when she was a wild child and had no clue who he was. Serena really turned herself around into this caring person who doesn't care about the material things in life but is really just looking for love and acceptance and Dan is so quick to both give and take that away. Its heartbreaking to watch her be in such turmoil over Dan because a mistake she could admit to her friends she could never admit to him because he puts her up so high that any slip is devestating. It's a long fall. And Dan puts all that on her, that pressure to be perfect, to be the new her. I think I liked Dan in the beginning but I started to get weary as the realtionship went on because he could be just so weird and judgemental about things.

Vanessa was brought in so poorly in my opinion. They had a couple scenes that really just made me not like her. They made her seriously seem like a homewrecker--like you said. However Vanessa earned my respect as a character when she managed to get through the relationship junk and just became Dan's friend. I liked their friendship. They were both kind of judgey, but more in a laughing kind a way than a 'this is going to end our relationship' way Dan was with Serena. And the 09ers...er...sorry, not Veronica Mars lol...the Upper East side kids gave it right back to her. They both had back bones so it was kind of like watching an instense tennis match or something, watching the verbal insults get thrown back and forth without anyone getting really hurt because they don't really care about each others feelings.

And Jenny...oh little Jenny. I totally got the whole fitting in thing and how hard it is. Especially in a school like that I could totally buy feeling like the little poor girl outcast but she wen't all power hungry and stuff. And seriously, why not just be upfront about your status? Haven't we all learned lying helps nothing. She got kudos from Blair's friends for doing what she did to Blair. She dressed like the girls and acted like them. Yeah maybe if she was upfront they would have told her to piss off--or maybe she would have just been their little charity case or something. I don't even really care that she wanted to be like Blair and those girls, I was totally bothered by how she went about it and the backstabing that happened.

Besides, didn't they know she was Poor Dan's brother. Everyone probably knew him because Serena was dating him and I doubt it was a secret that his family wasn't well off. Jenny could have totally played up the 'my father's a former rock star' angle or something. Girl needs to learn to work with what she's got.

And Lila watches this show I know but she hasn't been around in forever.

[adiafaith]

In the beginning I found Dan's blurting out comments to be cute and endearing, especially when he did it to the likes of Chuck and Nate. But when it comes to Serena, I'm not liking all the things he says to her. Serena has turned her life around (though I'll get into my feelings on that in just a sec) but it seems like that'll never be good enough for Dan. Anytime she messes up he's right there to point out her mistakes and judge her on it. And I'm not saying that it's wrong for Dan to want his girlfriend to be this "perfect girl" but it's not realistic and it's not fair for him to persecute her when she doesn't live up to that. Who could, you know?

In terms of Serena, gotta admit that it really...REALLY bothers me that we haven't seen her truly wild side. We heard about it all season but never really saw it. In the beginning I bought into the whole once-wild-but-now-reformed stuff but I figured she'd have a relapse and I was excited to see her acting out. We had a glimpse of her drunken state in Blair Waldorf Must Pie, that Thanksgiving ep. But she wasn't horrible in that...just drunk and loose and flirty. I wanted to see her really drunk and drugged out...barely able to walk, so coked up that she's ready to screw any and everybody, vomiting in her hair (as they claimed she used to do), being belligerent and unruly. I needed to see that...not for a long time but I needed to see it for at least an ep or two. But they never really went there and for a show as scandalous as Gossip Girl is, or should I say claims to be, they really should've taken Serena to that point. It almost makes me feel like they didn't want to mar the "All-American girl" thing Serena's got going on now. So with all of that...the fact that Serena at her "worst" still wasn't that bad, it makes Dan look even more of an a** for the ways he treated her. Plus, it really makes me think differently of Serena that she hasn't said anything to Dan - she sort of puts him up on this pedestal as if he's this great boyfriend and she has to be "good" for him yet doesn't deserve him because she's got this dark, bad past. Her past isn't that bad (I've done worse crap than she's done and I'd never let a guy make me feel like I was beneath him or like my mistakes defined me as a person). I really hope Dan grows up next season and Serena grows a backbone.

When Vanessa showed up in the show, I sort of cringed a bit. I had this "omg, she is so gonna be the most hated character on this show" feeling because they really did introduce her into everything in such a screwed up way. But either I'm learning to ignore the stupidity of TV show writers or I saw something great in Vanessa/Jessica from the very beginning. Possibly both. But I felt like we needed a Vanessa to enter into the picture to flesh out Dan more - to see things from the outsider side and to get a glimpse into what his world is like. Plus Vanessa is just such a kick a** girl, you know. Dude, I love that about her. She can take on Blair and Chuck without blinking and isn't intimidated by them in the least. And she can be that voice of reason for Dan when he's being an idiot. They so need to flesh a storyline out for her though.

You know what kinda irked me about Jenny. In that ep where Blair had her steal from her mom's store, I really thought Jenny had learned from that. I thought she'd made the decision that she could play the game but wouldn't because it wasn't her style. But apparently being a cutthroat little b*tch is style. I know that technically speaking both Jenny and Blair treated people badly when they "reigned" but Blair still had a quality about her that made her likable, underneath all of that. Jenny, on the other hand, just became more and more despicable to me. She even went off on Rufus and Dan. B*tch. LOL
But you're right, she needed to be learn how to work with what she's got, which shows again how young and inexperienced she is.

Yeah Lila's into GG a lot but she's sort of abandoned me for the real world when she moved. If she were here though she'd love this 'cause she comments about my SN posts and lack of GG posts on LJ.

[Nanika]

Didn't read a thing *looks through fingers while writing* just wanted to let you know that *fine* I'm gonna start watching it tonight, and it better be good

edits 45 minutes later
ha! I love it!!
1. I LOVE Serena (for now) so thanks sis for saying I remind you of her (drugs or not lol)
2. Nate is a sweeeeetie
3. Ok so I said Penn isn't THAT hot, but I'm SO lovin' DAn....and RAWR @ that voice *fans self*
4. Blair...dude! I wanna smack that b!tch upside down!!
5. Chuck....the guy gives me some serious chills in all the wrong ways....dude. He and Blair should hook up. It would be like Gina and Ketih (Santa Barbara lmao)

Ok, off to se the second ep


....aaaaand back! I just want to add that the soundtrack to she show ROCKS!!
off too sleep now *yawns*

[Nanika]

sorry for the double post

Did I mention how I melted when Dan took Serena by the hand at the Kiss on the butt....eeeer...mouth party (lolol).....so loving Dan, he's too cute.

But I also kinnda like the forbidden romance between Nate and Serena lol - totally my kind of romance.

Ok, ok, chill, I'm just done with the first two eps, and I can't wait to get home and see the rest