"Gossip Girl" as a Modern Six Degrees of Separation
“Gossip Girl” is an American drama
based on a series of books that fictitiously takes place in New York and is
centred on the lives of a group of interconnected Upper East side teens and
their families. The most crucial and representative characters of the wealthy
and luxurious lifestyle these teens lead are Serena van der Woodsen, Blair
Waldorf, Chuck Bass, and Nate Archibald. All drama circulates and
originates from the lives of these four characters.
In relation to John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, the most
crucial characters in “Gossip Girl” are those who resemble the character types
of Paul, Tess and Trent, Flan, and Ouisa, which are Jenny Humphrey, Nate Archibald, Carter Baizen, William van der
Bilt, Ivy Dickens, and Lilly van der Woodsen.
As the lives of the Upper East Siders in Six Degrees of Separation
revolve around business, material possessions, and social status, the lives of
the Upper East Siders in “Gossip Girl” revolve around the same superficiality.
The similarities between the two works suggest that certain aspects of high
society are shallow, defective, and falsely construed. Gaining acceptance from
high society is based solely on connections, and the empires built by single
families that are meant to be passed on through generations do not always carry
on as expected.
How to Get "In" with High Society
Six Degrees of Separation
In Six Degrees of Separation, Guare writes:
Ouisa (To us)
He named the greatest black star in the movies. Sidney--
Flan
Don't say it. We're trying to keep this abstract. Plus libel laws.
Ouisa
Sidney Poitier! There. I don't care. We have to have truth. (To us) He started out as a lawyer and is terrified of libel. I'm not. (Guare 22)
In an upper class world made up of business investments,
greed, and luxury, Flan constantly sees possibilities of lawsuits, even in his
personal life, which he demonstrates when he stops Ouisa because of “libel laws”.
As Ouisa points out the connections Paul seems to have in saying “he named the
greatest black star in the movies,” she suggests that a key way to integrate
and find acceptance from this upper class world is to know people who would be
considered of the same social status as these wealthy New Yorkers. If Ouisa and
Flan could consider themselves equals with Sidney Poitier, then they could also
transitively accept Paul by association.
"Gossip Girl"
Similarly, to get “in” with the wealthy Upper East Siders of New York,
the social-climbing character Jenny Humphrey, from Brooklyn, tries to employ
the same tactics as Paul by knowing designers, participating in the same
activities, and acting like the Upper East Siders. Jenny constantly seeks social upwards mobility, but a defining moment in
her willingness to transform into a stereotypical Upper East Sider in order to be
accepted by Blair Waldorf is when she attends one of Blair’s annual, luxurious,
and infamous sleepover parties.
At the sleepover, she dresses up in a designer dress after
having come in pajamas, engages in drinking, and plays a somewhat risqué truth
or dare game in which she calls a random man’s girlfriend to tell her she has
just kissed him with the intention of making Blair’s clique laugh and like her. Her behaviour at this event strongly contrasts her character’s original
innocence, suggesting that to fit in with this group of people, she must act
and behave as they do in order for them to be able to identify with her and
therefore be friends with her.
Jenny Humphrey constantly struggles with fitting in with Blair and her friends because she does not come from as affluent a family and therefore sees dissimilarities between herself and the other girls, creating feelings of separation, inadequacy, and desperation. Much like Paul uses connections, education, and clothes in Six Degrees of Separation, Jenny creates similarities between herself and the Upper East side girls in order to gain acceptance from Blair and high society.
Expectations of Children in High Society
Six Degrees of Separation
John Guare writes:
Tess
That's why I'm going to Afghanistan. To climb mountains.
Ouisa
You are not climbing mountains.
Flan
We have not invested all this money in you to scale the face of K-2.
Tess
Is that all I am? An investment? (Guare 71)
Guare illustrates two perspectives in Tess' parents' objection to her wanting to climb mountains rather than seek a lucrative career or marry. Ouisa responds to her daughter in an outright and blatant rejection of what she says while Flan more clearly points out that Tess is his and his wife's "investment". As an affluent family, Ouisa and Flan have sent their children to Groton and Harvard, giving them a very highbrow education, and they therefore expect their children to utilize that education in which they invested to go forth into the world with that advantage and continue the family's social class and opulent lifestyle. Flan, who is always concerned with business and even stops his wife from speaking because of "libel laws," sees Tess as a continuation of the family's empire of social class and wealth, so there is no time or room in her life, which he expects to control, for "[scaling] the face of a K-2". However, Tess seeks authenticity, substance, and real experiences in her life, which she suggests in saying, "Is that all I am to you?" In this sense, Guare creates two contrasting perspectives of how Tess' life should continue and thus shows that parents in high society often expect their children to follow a path in life the children may not agree with.
"Gossip Girl"
The parent-child relationship in "Gossip Girl" that most resembles Tess' relationship with her parent is Nate Archibald's relationship with his grandfather.
As his mother is a van der Bilt and comes from a politically active family, Nate is expected to go to Dartmouth, a prestigious Ivy League school traditionally a part of his family's education, and join his grandfather in becoming a politician. Already as an adolescent his life's path is planned out for him because he is expected to not only want the affluence that comes with his family's profession, but also to be at his grandfather's command. Nate in a sense owes his mother's family for his wealth, social status, and material items, and it is because of this indebtedness that his grandfather expects him to be a part of the next generation of van der Bilt politicians if he wants access to the family's wealth and status.
Another character in "Gossip Girl" who acts like Tess in rejecting his parents' chosen path for him, is Carter Baizen, a minimal but indicative character. Carter graduated from the same preparatory school as both the main characters of Chuck and Nate did, St. Jude's, and left the Upper East side of New York without a trust fund to travel and pursue a lifestyle different from that of his parents. About Carter, the socialite, playboy character Chuck Bass says to his best friend Nate, "Are you high? He looks like Matthew McConaughey between movies. The guy's a loser. Look, anyone who trades their trust fund for a fanny pack flies in the face of all that is holy to Chuck Bass." He was forced to support himself without access to his parents' bank accounts, and he therefore offers an extreme example of deserting wealth despite its advantages for meaningfulness in life.
Both John Guare's play and "Gossip Girl" suggest that in high society, parents see children as investments in the future of the family's wealth and class, and children can simultaneously reject their parents' choices for their paths in life in search of substance and authenticity rather than the superficial materialism of their parents' wealthy world.
Constructions of High Society
Six Degrees of Separation
Guare writes:
Ouisa (To us)
Can you believe it? Paul learned all that in three months. Three months...Paul looked at those names and said I am Columbus, I am Magellan. I will sail into this new world.
I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet...It's anyone. A native in a rain forest. A Tierra del Fuegan. An Eskimo. I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. (Guare 81)
Ouisa's speech begins in complete disbelief of the absurdity of how easily Paul was able to connect himself to her world. She sees Paul as a representation of the "six degrees of separation" she later discusses because he "sail[ed] into this new world" successfully from the lower social status of being homosexual and poor in the twentieth century. Ouisa's perception of her social class's exclusivity based on education, connections, and dress is completely shattered when she realizes that she can be connect to "anyone" by "only six other people" and that those people could be "native[s] in a rain forest" or "Eskimo[s]". Ouisa's realization contains a certain level of incredulity, but she also suggests a negative tone toward the idea that she is "bound to everyone on this planet". When Ouisa first says that there are only six degrees of separation between "us and everybody else," she suggests that the "us" is the wealthy class of people of the Upper East side of New York and that their social circle is no longer limited to those who have attended schools like Groton or Harvard or who are familiar with Kandinsky--but now extended to everybody in the entire world, linking them to people with whom they would not want to be associated. Although Ouisa ultimately helps Paul, she remains in astonishment about the fact that Paul's ability to come into her world after only three month of learning about schools, clothes, and people--disintegrated the misconstrued idea of high society that their wealthy and luxurious world is somehow separate from the rest of the world.
"Gossip Girl"
Similar to Ouisa's realization that she is in fact connected to everybody on the planet, the socialite mother of main character Serena van der Woodsen, Lilly van der Woodsen, faces a similar realization about a girl who pretends to be her niece:
Ivy Dickens acts as a sort of Paul of the Upper East side in "Gossip Girl". Lilly's sister, who, like Carter Baizen rejects her family's lifestyle, pays Ivy to pretend to be her daughter Lola to sieze access to the trust fund that Lola was supposed to receive. Lilly takes Ivy into her home, as Ouisa and Flan do with Paul, because she is supposedly a family member. However, as soon as the truth comes out about who Ivy really is, Lilly is not the same welcoming mother figure she once was. Lilly essentially disowns Ivy after she knows that she is not a family member and is in fact a poor, struggling actress.
Lilly's reaction to Ivy, although much more negative, is similar to Ouisa's reaction to revealing the truth about Paul. As soon as Ivy is not a part of the inner circle of Upper East siders by blood, she is no longer of importance to Lilly, nor is she allowed into the social circle.
Lilly's rejection of Ivy and Ouisa's less negative realization that she is connected to "anyone" suggests that many people in high society consider their worlds to be separate and untouched by outsiders such as Paul or Ivy, when in reality becoming an insider into this elite Upper East side type of world can be easily faked by learning how to dress and drop names such as "Sidney Poitier," Harvard and Groton, implying that the assumed separateness of high society is in fact a fallacy of those within that high society.
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