The Perplexing Social Economy of "Gossip Girl"

I find “Gossip Girl” to be rather bizarre. Most CW shows I have seen are, but “Gossip Girl” is a particularly potent example. I don’t understand the stakes here. I don’t understand why certain things matter in this world and why certain things go without notice or comment. I don’t understand the value system. By “value system” I don’t mean the moral structure per se, but, rather, the entire system of assigning and recognizing value in its various forms. Basically, I am perplexed by the social economy of “Gossip Girl.”

It is clear that, while economic capital is a major theme, the primary form of capital is socio-political capital. Money is a ticket past the threshold of representation (although there seem to be exceptions), but once inside this world, cultural cache pays the bills. This is not entirely surprising. What confuses me are some of the ways this cache ebbs and flows (and the reasons). Lynne Joyrich discusses this odd dynamic in her discussion of Television and melodrama:

This rhythm, in film melodrama and the TV soap opera, is one of exaggerated fluctuations, marking the discontinuities of emotional experience as the plots slowly build, amidst much delay, to dramatic moments of outbreak and collision before sudden reversals of fortune begin the movement again.[i]

Why is Dan so incensed when he finds out that Serena slept with Blair’s boyfriend a long time ago? He doesn’t even like these people (in fact, it seems that he barely knows them). I can imagine being disappointed to find out that Serena would do such a thing, but he seemed personally offended. Why is this immediately a deal breaker? Serena has already explained that she has actively tried to make changes in her life since that time, even leaving town for an extended period. What I assume is an attempt to paint Dan as having integrity ends up looking like morally superior posturing. Like other shows of this kind, “Gossip Girl” assigns oddly excessive value (or, to put it another way, stakes) to certain plot points and character developments. But, of course, that is the bailiwick of a sensational drama, particularly about teenagers – inflation of value.

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[i] Lynne Joyrich, “All that Television Allows: TV Melodrama, Postmodernism, and Consumer Culture,” Private Screenings: Television and the Female Consumer, eds. Lynn Spigel and Denise Mann (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), 229.