Mathis BOUSSETTA

Final Paper The Politics of Images: Gossip Girl: a reflection of teenage friendships or an
amplifier of gender stereotypes?

In 1986, the activist Bell Hooks wrote: ‘we are taught that women are 'naturally'
enemies of women, that solidarity will never exist between us because we cannot and must
not unite with one another’. Indeed, society, being dominated by men and by heterosexuality,
encourages women to divide themselves and to see themselves as competing for men's
attention. By the end of the 90s, friendship between women had become firmly established
in the media, particularly in television drama. It is the central theme of many series targeting
young girls, such as Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl and Vampire Diaries. Here, we'll be focusing
on a key series from the 2000s and 2010s: Gossip Girl (2007-2012), in which a mysterious
blogger reveals all the secrets of Manhattan's 'golden youth'. While female friendship now
appears to have been rehabilitated, it is not immune to sexist, racist and homophobic
stereotypes. By becoming a commercial object, we can question this representation and the
influence it has on its audience. We can wonder how the representation of female friendships
in series for teenagers conveys gender stereotypes and, as a result, reflects a certain form of
male domination with the presence of a male gaze.
In the first part of this essay we will see that these friendships are based on competition and
are the object of a form of glorification. We will then discuss the idea that the representation
of friendship between girls in teen series amplifies certain sexist stereotypes, particularly in
terms of sexuality. Finally, we will look at the role of men in these series and how the female
characters' relationships with them serve to maintain heteropatriarchal stereotypes.

1. Girl friendships fuelled by competition and betrayal

From a very early age, girls are taught that if a boy teases them, it's because he likes them.
Girls are therefore socialised to associate the idea of someone making them suffer with the
idea of being liked. In a way, the representations of friendships between girls in teen series
have the same dynamic. To illustrate this negative and stereotypical representation of female
friendships in teen series, we're going to use the Gossip Girl star duo of Blair Waldorf (Leighton
Meester) and Serena Van Der Woodsen (Blake Lively). To describe this type of unhealthy
friendship, the term 'frenemy' is used, a contraction of 'friend' and 'enemy'. A ‘frenemy’ can
be defined as ‘a person who is or pretends to be a friend but is also in some ways an enemy
or rival’ (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary). In teen series, the ‘frenemy trope’ is often present
when it comes to friendships between women. First of all, ‘frenemies’ are first and foremost
friends. They are there for each other when the other needs support, they help each other
out and enjoy moments of pure complicity and joy. They have often known each other since
childhood and are therefore seen as ‘inseparable’. Taking Serena and Blair as an example, this
is what stands out in their relationship. As the Gossip Girl blogger would say: ‘Serena and Blair
do besties better than anyone’. The two best friends travel together, shop together, share
secrets and talk for hours. They do what all friends do, they're there for each other through
the good times and the bad. Despite the quarrels, they forgive each other everything and
remain best friends. However, in ‘frenemies’ relationships, the comforting and friendly side of
things is joined by periods of pure tension and animosity. This type of friendship endures in a
climate of competition and jealousy that leads to the worst kinds of betrayal. This competition
may be linked to the desire to be the most popular, the most socially and/or academically
recognised. In the case of the series Gossip Girl, in season 2, Serena Van Der Woodsen accepts
an invitation from the head of Yale University to potentially study there, because of a dispute
with Blair whose ultimate dream is to get into Yale. In revenge, Blair decides to tell the
headmaster about Serena's shameful secret, the fact that a man had taken an overdose in a
hotel room while she was there. The story ends in a fight and the decision to stop being
friends. Once again, the series presents female friendships as being fuelled by rivalry. The
friendship between these two characters is characterised by extreme jealousy, which leads
them to play dirty tricks and reveal each other's secrets, even sending them to the Gossip Girl
blogger to make sure everyone knows. This is the case from episode 1 of season 1, when Blair
spreads the rumour that her best friend, Serena, is in rehab via Gossip Girl. This gives viewers
a biased view of female friendship based on betrayal and lies.

As well as the nature of the relationships between friendships and animosity, group dynamics
are presented as primordial female friendships. In Gossip Girl, as in other series from this
period, the dynamic is often the same: there is the ‘leader’ of the group, who feeds the stories
needed to build the series, and other girls who gravitate around her, but whose friendship
mainly depends on their ‘leader’. This social construction was observed by sociologist Muriel
Darmon in a kindergarten class, showing that these dynamics are inherent in female
friendships from childhood. In fact, Darmon gave the name ‘club des chipies’ to this form of
group: mischievous girls who sometimes misbehave, but always stick together. Here, Muriel
Darmon explored this type of friendship in relation to school, to understand the gendered
differences in this environment, the differences in treatment between girls and boys. This idea
of the mischievous group can be applied to the groups of friends portrayed in the series,
although there is a major difference between the social reality observed by Muriel Darmon
and the portrayal of female friendships in the series. Indeed, friendships between girls are
often portrayed with a strong toxic aspect, sometimes glorified, due to the power of the
‘leaders’ of the group. The first episode of Gossip Girl begins with the return of Serena, who
fascinates her old friends but also terrorises her best friend, Blair. Right from the start, it's
shown that there's a competition between girls that feeds female friendships. But above all,
we understand that it is the ‘leaders’ who make decisions about how the group should be
organised. The group is thus nourished by internal competition. While they are mischievous
towards others, forming a separate, almost exclusive group, the girls within the group also
play dirty with each other. Their friendship exists because they feel valued in relation to each
other, through competition, which can be both explicit and implicit. So this is a recurring
representation of female friendships in teen series: they are non-mixed, exclusive and based
on ‘drama’, low blows between them. So the series represent a ‘club des chipies’ that
is the genuine product of real life female friendships, a group of girls who evolve together, but
it will also shape girl-girl friendships, through a dynamic that will inspire them. The many blogs
show that, while the series fulfills expectations of 'drama' within the friend group, they are
also seen as an example of what friendships are for teenage girls and what they should aspire
to. Rather than solely being a reflection of real-life friendships, the group of friends portrayed
in series such as Gossip Girl becomes a manual to follow, despite the toxic and harmful aspects
of the friendships that are represented. This is a confirmation of gender studies which show
that gender is learned, particularly through the media: the representation of a group of friends
in a series that is watched ritualistically and discussed on forums helps us to learn the
supposed social codes of female friendships, at least those portrayed in the series as reality.

2. Teenage girl friendships portrayed through the prism of male gaze

In teen series, friendships between teenage girls are often portrayed in a stereotypical
way. They often occupy themselves with activities that are rooted in a certain gendered
socialisation. Blair and Serena's main activity is shopping, finding out what to wear and how
to please the boys. It is often the relationship that these teenage girls have with men that
drives their ‘frenemies’ relationship. Boys are their main source of conflict. There's the idea
that girls wouldn't be able to maintain a friendship if they both liked a boy. Boys, on the other
hand, are thought to have a ‘bro code’, which is a kind of unwritten code that describes what
friends can and cannot do with each other. For example, one of the best-known rules is that
of ‘bros before hoes’, i.e. a woman must not come before her friends, so there will be no
arguments between "bros" over a woman. This expression was coined and popularised by
Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) who is a character in the sitcom How I met Your Mother
(2005-2014). There is the rooting of this idea in the culture that two girls fighting over a boy is
the norm. ‘Girls are like that’, whereas the opposite is almost impossible. This quest for the
‘male gaze’ can be a source of rivalry between teenage girls. Returning to Gossip Girl, from
the very first episode of the series, the first thing we learn about the friendship between Blair
and Serena is a huge betrayal about a boy. This rivalry over men affects not only the
relationship between the 2 best friends but also their relationships with the other women in
the series, which will prevent them from forming other friendships with women.

Appearance in order to please then becomes a major topic of discussion in the series, with a
focus on food that occupies a lot of space in the representation of interactions between girls.
In Gossip Girl, Blair is shown to have suffered from bulimia, something that seems to be due
to her friendship with Serena as they are pitted against each other. This toxic aspect of female
friendships is also illustrated by the extensive hypersexualisation of actresses, even though
they are supposed to be playing teenagers. First of all, it should be noted that many nude
scenes are shown without adding anything to the series. Instead, the aim is to highlight certain
female characters through their appearance rather than by exploring their relationships in
greater depth. For example, Blair's first romantic interaction with Chuck in Gossip Girl is a
striptease in a speakeasy. She undresses and reveals herself in a long scene to seduce him. In
order to measure up to Chuck's other conquests, Blair voluntarily puts herself in a position of
hypersexualisation. ‘Hypersexualisation valorises appearances at the expense of being; having
rather than knowing’. - Francine Descarries, Professor in the Department of Sociology
(UQAM). The major problem here is that character development depends on revealing
oneself, which gives rise to the idea that seduction must involve hypersexualising young girls.
The lesson that young female viewers of the series can draw from this is that sexual exposure
is necessary in order to please. This is due in particular to the ‘male gaze’, a concept developed
by Laura Mulvey in 1975 in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, which imposes a
heterosexual male vision and perspective on the female body. In the context of the female
friendships we are studying, the ‘male gaze’ is used in two ways: on the one hand to sexualise
adolescent girls, as shown in the example of Blair, but also to reinforce the competition
between young girls within their group of friends in the teen series. This competition is then
maintained by viewers on blogs with questions and polls such as ‘Who's prettier: Blair or
Serena?’. This then gives rise to long debates about the negative aspects of the protagonist
they don't like, often involving slutshaming.

The major paradox of 'teen girls' series is that, despite the fact that young girls are
hypersexualised, even putting this notion at the heart of their friendship, the sexual
relationships that result are seen as degrading. The scripts use female friendships to compare
‘good’ and ‘bad’ behaviour with boys. For example, Serena in Gossip Girl is much more
comfortable with her body and has a series of partners, whereas at the start of the series, Blair
has only had one boyfriend, with whom she has not yet had a sexual relationship. This is a
theory explored by Isabelle Clair in her article Le pédé, la pute et l'ordre hétérosexuel, in which
she explains how homosexuals and young girls who are sexually active are rejected by society
because they challenge the heterosexual order. Indeed, the social norms imposed by
patriarchy place women who have numerous conquests in a position of inferiority. This points
to a certain paradox within female friendships: girls are put in competition through their
bodies, which are hypersexualised in order to seduce, but they are not allowed to engage in
an act with a boy. This is what Gabrielle Richard at UPEC, shows through the prism of revenge
porn: she analyses how teenage girls are expected to be seductive, but where their sexuality
can quickly make them look like ’an easy girl’ or a ‘whore’. It's an ambiguous discourse that
serves as a model for young teenage girls: they have to seduce, especially boys, and to do so
they have to be more beautiful than their friends, but they would be in a degrading position if
they had a sexual relationship with a boy. So it's easy to see how BFFs like Blair and Serena are
used to demonstrate two opposing behaviours with boys: what to do and what not to do. In
this way, the series disseminates a degrading image of sexuality, influencing female viewers
through one character serving as a ‘role model’ and another as a ‘bad example’.

3. Male friendships: a way of perpetuating gender norms

In this final section, we will focus on male friendships, which often play a secondary role
in teenage series but reveal the dominance of the patriarchal and heterosexual model.
In series aimed at teenage girls, love and relationships with boys or men appear as a central
theme. Love is presented as the ultimate goal of personal development. Without a partner,
the characters cannot achieve true and complete happiness, and there is only one true love
that can satisfy them. Girls’ relationships with the male characters therefore appear to be
predominantly romantic, making it almost impossible to have a 'friendly' relationship without
a sexual or romantic element. In Gossip Girl, Vanessa is initially introduced as Dan's best friend,
but the two end up having a brief romantic relationship. It would be impossible for men and
women to coexist without some form of physical or romantic attraction. In their study Gender
difference in best friendships, researchers Leigh Elkins and Christopher Peterson demonstrate
that it is far more common for men to feel attraction and to consider that a romantic
relationship is possible with their female friends than it is for women, who are statistically less
attracted to their male friends. Friendships between men and women appear to be not only
difficult, but when they do exist, they always contain an element of physical attraction. The
idea that men don't make friends with women 'for free' was popularised by one of the most
famous and influential TV shows of the last 30 years: Friends (1994-2004). In episode 7 of
season 1, Joey refers to Ross as the ‘mayor of the friendzone’ because he has been in love with
Rachel for years and she doesn't see him as anything other than a friend. This inability to turn
a friendly relationship into something romantic is one of the most frequently used comic
devices in the early part of the series, underpinning an idea often considered
misogynistic: women must return men's kind attentions, particularly with sexual favours,
because men are not 'nice' to them for free. The rejected man, in this case Ross, finds himself
humiliated because he has compromised himself by doing favours for the woman who is
supposed to be his friend, without her being attracted to him. Although his intentions are only
friendly towards her, Ross wants more and believes that his kindness entitles him to ‘more’.
The friendship is somewhat fake, as it is motivated by a goal, whereas it is not on Rachel's
side.
In the field of the impossible friendship between men and women, one type of relationship is
repeated throughout the 90s and into the 2010s: the gay best friend. Perceived as effeminate,
deviant and a problem to be solved, gay men are portrayed as detached, comical, effeminate
to the point of ridiculousness and obsessed with sex or, on the contrary, completely
desexualised. In her article Reinventing Privilege: The New (Gay) Man in Contemporary
Popular Media, Helene Shugart shows how homosexuality in series for teenagers is perceived
almost exclusively through the prism of heterosexuality via the gay man/heterosexual woman
duo. The gay characters are seen but not known, their lives, particularly their love and sex
lives, remaining in the background or non-existent in favour of their heterosexual best friend,
whom they show off. This is also true in Gossip Girl, where Eric is the only gay character and
we know almost nothing about him except that he's gay and that he's best friends with Dan's
sister Jenny. Although these television representations offer a form of diversity and
normalisation of different sexualities, they do not challenge traditional gender models. On the
contrary, these gender roles are reinforced, with the gay best friend's extravagance serving to
contrast with the traditional masculinity of heterosexual men. The heterosexual female best
friend is seen as an feminine equivalent of the gay man, reflecting a diminished masculinity.
Raewyn Connell defines several types of masculinity as such: ‘At any given time, there is a form
of masculinity that is glorified to the benefit of others’. The masculinity of gay men, which she
describes as 'subordinate', is part of a hierarchical space in relation to other, more traditional
types of masculinity, because it refers to femininity, and therefore to weakness and a form of
betrayal of masculinity. The gay character is thus essentialized, constantly brought back to his
sexuality, which becomes the central characteristic of his character. Gay men in fiction,
however, remain one of the rare examples of long-term friendship between men and
women. Although teenage series present caricatured visions of gay men, serving to reinforce
gender roles within a heterocentric model, the fact remains that the ‘gay best friend’, while a
reductive cliché that prevents genuine development of LGBT characters, nevertheless
embodies a form of security for women that is to some extent mirrored in the real world.

"We straight men carry a self-imposed burden: we absolutely want to be seen as straight.
We're the only sex group that gives a shit about not being seen as something else. [...] I don't
know any woman who's worried about being mistaken for a lesbian. I've never heard a gay
man say, "Everyone's going to think I'm straight!" And that's a real shame, because there are
a lot of things we could do that would be cool, but we don't do them, because we figure
someone will think we're gay." - Louis C.K. in season 3 of the tv series Louie.
Far from being a marginal element in series, male friendships are nevertheless different from
female friendships, and especially in series aimed at a young audience. As Ron Becker explains
in his article Becoming Bromosexual: Straight Men, Gay Men, and Male Bouding on U.S. TV,
the 1990s and the arrival of openly homosexual characters in the media sphere gave rise to a
form of anxiety. It engendered a fear for heterosexual men of appearing gay that is felt right
through the series of the 2000s, challenging the presumption that all men are heterosexual
and dominant in social relationships. The fear of appearing gay isn't just what fuels the series,
it's the joke itself. In The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019), for example, the fear of appearing gay
is one of the most frequently used comedic devices, particularly for characters perceived as
‘not masculine enough’. Homosexuality is used to provoke laughter from the audience, all the
more so as the characters panic as soon as the slightest suggestion is made that they might be
homosexual or have feelings for each other. While friendships between women are often
portrayed as almost romantic, with a genuine love for their friends, friendships between men
reject intimacy, or at least the verbalization of it. Instead, we see friendships based on a form
of childishness, like that of Joey and Chandler on Friends. Friendships between men are
portrayed in a similarly caricatured way. While Gossip Girl uses friendships between girls as a
dramatic tension, friendships between boys appear to be of little interest. Nate and Chuck's is
one of the show's most important friendships, but unlike the female characters' friendships,
which are full of feeling and passion, it's characterized by strong stability and few dramatic
moments. Male friendships revolve almost exclusively around either girls or a form of playful
immaturity. In the case of Nate and Chuck, their friendship is based on seducing girls, with
evenings during which flirting constituting -es most of their discussions and preoccupations.
Mélanie Gourarier explains how men use the seduction of women to forge bonds between
themselves. According to her, men come together through their shared interest in women, as
in Gossip Girl, but above all, going out in gangs to flirt becomes a way of reaffirming their
dominance as men. Feelings are rarely present and leave little room for confession, because
homophobic undertones are more prevalent among the men, as shown by Leigh Elkins and
Christopher Peterson. Latent homophobia is thus an obstacle to intimacy. In opposition to
homosexuality, the need to affirm a form of virility becomes more pressing, to the detriment
of other forms of intimacy. In the study conducted by these researchers, the majority of men
described their friendships with women as more rewarding, while women described their
friendships with the same gender as more rewarding. This can also be seen as an impact of
gendered socialization, in which women are much more encouraged to be in touch with their
own emotions, which is also reflected in teen series, almost exclusively turned to an emotional
register. However, we can already see an evolution in the representation of these friendships,
between heterosexuality and homosexuality. For example, Sex Education focuses on the
friendship between Otis and Eric, two high-school students, one heterosexual, the other gay,
and the importance of mutual feelings, with the development of a ‘bromance’ (a combination
of ‘brother’ and ‘romance’). Ron Becker describes bromance as a form of balance between a
strong male friendship and a homosexual relationship. He explains how television has
appropriated gay codes of behavior and adapted them to friendships that never cross the line
to romance, even though the protagonists are in an intimate relationship. In this way, male
friendships come closer to the emotional intensity that was previously unique to female
friendships.

To conclude, as we have seen, Gossip Girl reinforces traditional gender roles. By

portraying forms of friendship that have long been ignored or devalued as feminine, teen
series could have highlighted them and diffused new friendship models. But this hasn't been
the case, and they end up being a means of propagating gendered stereotypes, which then
become ingrained in the social behaviors of teenage girls and boys learning new social norms.
In Gossip Girl, friendships between girls are toxic, competitive and in the grip of male gaze.
Gender norms are also reinforced in representations of male relationships, with friendship
between a man and a woman without sexual desire almost impossible, unless the man is
homosexual. As for friendships between men, they are often shallow, superficial and driven
by their relationship with women, even if this dynamic is tending to change with more
bromances being written.
Finally, in Bad Feminist (2014), Roxanne Gay wrote ‘Forget the cultural myth that any
friendship between women is necessarily bitchy, unhealthy or competitive. This myth is like
stilettos and handbags: cute but designed to slow women down’. Cultural works have often
portrayed female friendships negatively, shaping the behavior of their viewers, but this isn't
necessarily the reality in every situation. Today, the usual representations and old recurring
tropes concerning female friendships have evolved without disappearing completely. There is
a desire to put ‘girl power’ to the front and create a certain sisterhood between female
characters.

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