Gossip Girl part one and original Gossip Girl spoilers follow.
"Who am I?" Back in Gossip Girl's original run, Gossip Girl himself herself promised us that this was one secret she'd never tell. But by the end, fans worn out by this overdrawn mystery eventually discovered her true identity, and inevitably, it was a disappointment. The new Gossip Girl smartly skirts around this issue by unveiling the new narrator's identity in episode one — and that's not the only way this reboot improves on the original.
The world was a different place in 2007, but that's still no excuse for the first Gossip Girl's lack of diversity. By the time it ended in 2012, almost all of its leads were still white, and queerness remained conspicuously absent for the most part.
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Executive producer Joshua Safran has since admitted his regrets about this, recently telling Vulture: "When I look back on Gossip Girl, the only things I regret were not as much representation for people of colour and gay storylines. Those are the two things I think we probably could have delved into more deeply."
Thankfully, Safran is also in charge of the new Gossip Girl, which provided him with the perfect opportunity to rectify these mistakes with a new, diverse cast. This time round, there are far more people of colour in key roles, and the majority of them are either queer and/or playing queer characters.
Queer actor Jordan Alexander, bisexual actress Savannah Smith and gay Broadway performer Jason Gotay are just some of the actors who are heavily involved in the reboot, but inclusion itself isn't enough. What's key is the way this inclusion is handled.
Speaking to Out, trans star Zion Moreno praised the new Gossip Girl for not tokenising her identity or that of any LGBTQ+ character on the show:
"That has always been a very, very, very horrible thing to have to experience, and it's kinda dehumanizing. It doesn't make you feel respected or accounted for in a respectful way. I love that the show doesn't stamp our identities on our foreheads and our characters just get to be... So I'm just really excited to just get to play a character that doesn't have anything to do with explaining her identity, or who she likes to sleep with, or doesn't, you know?"
Out of all the many LGBTQ+ characters seen in this new Gossip Girl reboot, it's perhaps Max who exemplifies this ethos best of all. For Max, there's no struggling with who he is. There's no internal conflict or any need to explain and justify his sexuality. Max is simply pansexual, and that's approached in the same way as any other sexual identity on the show. None of the other characters bat an eyelid at this either, treating him the same as they would anyone else.
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The erasure of bisexuality is still a huge problem on screen, not to mention the outdated idea that bisexual/pansexual men are just gays who haven't fully come out yet. Max seems equally attracted to men and women in a way that's entirely valid and refreshingly uncomplicated. If there is any issue with his character (beyond the lack of authentic casting), it's that Max is exceptionally horny in ways that feed into tropes around promiscuity among bisexual and pansexual men.
In the first episode alone, Max has a threesome (gasp!), and from that point on, much of his narrative revolves around an illicit lust for his teacher, which is eventually followed by a full-blown affair. This might remind longtime fans of similar relationships from the original show that were dangerously romanticised, including Serena's fling with a boarding-school teacher.
However, Gossip Girl flips the script this time round by transforming what starts out as steamy fun into something far more disturbing. When Max wants to end things, Rafa stalks him, spreads lies about his former lover, and even tries to have an affair with one of his gay fathers.
Not only does this scenario shine a light on same-sex student-teacher affairs, an issue still rarely explored on screen, but it also demonstrates that teen girls aren't the only ones in danger of being hypersexualised in these situations.
Just because Max initially chased after Rafa, it doesn't mean that he should be blamed in any way. Although the actor who plays Max looks far older, Max himself is still a young student, and the show does a good job of highlighting the dangers of this power dynamic, regardless of whether Max is hypersexual or not.
Some detractors may still argue that Max's sheer horniness feeds into those aforementioned tropes around queer male promiscuity, but it's worth pointing out that this unapologetic approach to sex is also affirming too. Max has a lot of problems, but embracing who he is and the physicality of that isn't one of them.
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Just by simply existing on the show, Thomas Doherty's character serves as a powerful reminder that bisexual and pansexual men do exist as a separate identity rather than just as some gateway to gay or straight.
The new Gossip Girl isn't afraid to explicitly show this either. Max, and plenty of other queer characters, revel in sex throughout these first six episodes. And that's important, because even in 2021, it's still unusual to see LGBTQ+ sex scenes treated with equal or perhaps even more weighting than their straight counterparts (We're looking at you, Riverdale).
Of course, not all queer men are the same, so beyond Max, it's also worth noting that Aki goes through a very different kind of journey towards confirming his bisexuality. At first, he's unsure of what he really wants, but by the end of episode six, Aki finally owns his sexual identity in a public space, even though he was robbed of the chance to come out on his own terms. Moving forward, Safran recently told Teen Vogue that he plans for Aki to "come more and more into his own power as a bisexual man" when part two returns in November.
The widely varied and intersectional experiences of queerness that we've already seen in these first six episodes is worlds away from that time Chuck vaguely admitting to kissing guys off-screen. And crucially, LGBTQ+ people are involved every step of the way, both in front of and behind the camera.
With that in mind, the future of Gossip Girl continues to look far more diverse and therefore reflective of the actual world we live in, even if these kids do still number among Manhattan's elite. And even if the show is still a bit trashy.
But regardless, you know you love it. XOXO.
Gossip Girl airs on HBO Max in the US, and airs weekly every Wednesday on BBC One in the UK. All six episode of part one are also available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.
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