OK, I promised myself I'd write every weekday (I would say for a month, but I won't during my vacation, I don't think), and even though I still am not feeling like it, I'm gonna do it anyhow. I do need to remember to post before I read commentary on my shows, as I have nothing new to say about Ugly Betty or The Fashion Show. It's tempting to totally detox from TV this summer, but aside from finishing my Rhoda DVD (one disk left with 5 episodes plus a special feature doc) and The Sopranos (I have four seasons left I'm just getting them through Netflix), I'm sure I'll end up watching the final season of Monk, Psych, the new Mark Feuerstein show on USA, the rest of In Plain Sight, Secret Life of the American Teenager, probably at least the pilot of 10 Things I Hate About You (sooner or later I'm going to have to draw the line and not watch every teen show), the rest of The Fashion Show, and Project Runway, which doesn't come back until August, plus of course Jeopardy, and the Daily Show/Colbert Report (which are both dark next week). In other words, nearly as much as I watch during the year, but nothing that isn't reaired 6-10 times a week, so I won't even care that my TiVo is on its last legs and frequently either freezes up in the middle of a show, or drops out the sound, or, a first the other day, freezes the picture but keeps the sound going (but I will replace it before September). I definitely will declare at least a few nights a week reading night, although I'm a little stimeyed in that as the library thinks I didn't return a book that I know I did.So anyhow, the stealth smart girl idea. A friend and mentor (thanks Peggy!) had a sort of a different take on this idea than my initial thoughts. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that the geeky type brainy girl is gone, replaced by the girl who is simultaneously smart, beautiful, attractive to boys, and popular with other girls? Her take was that this puts a lot of pressure on girls, and that girls put pressure on each other, to be all of those things. Rather than thinking that smartness has been integrated and isn't something to be concealed and erased as the girl gets popular and loved, as in the older shows, it's something to be flaunted, but in equal measures to the other characteristics.
Certainly that was the case for Veronica Mars once she was done being the outcast--she was up for valedictorian, she had two rich boys, and every other boy in school (plus another guy in college), interested in her, and tons of tertiary characters praising her beauty, sexiness, niceness, and coolness.
It's definitely true of Blair Waldorf who, while one would never call her nice in general, is always 
there for her friends, ready to pull some elaborate scheme. No matter how often she and Serena stop speaking to each other, they always get back together with avowals of eternal friendship, and she and Chuck have followed a two season long come closer/go away/come closer pattern that I'm sure will continue into next season. She also demonstrates extreme power over the other girls, who want her approval, even as she treats them like dirt.
there for her friends, ready to pull some elaborate scheme. No matter how often she and Serena stop speaking to each other, they always get back together with avowals of eternal friendship, and she and Chuck have followed a two season long come closer/go away/come closer pattern that I'm sure will continue into next season. She also demonstrates extreme power over the other girls, who want her approval, even as she treats them like dirt.
90210 is my problem. It's too muddy to even deal with yet, only I need to. The only attention we've seen paid to academics at all is Naomi trying to get out of writing papers (and having her parents back her up on this), and Silver going overboard with her assignment for the English teacher and making a borderline pornographic film. Annie and Adrianna seem only to care about drama class. Each girl is considered extremely desirable from the start. Part of the reason the original was good was that we had to see Brenda and Andrea learning to fit in with the rich and troubled crowd, while Annie just did, pretty much right away. Add to that, there being no "crowd as such"--the episode before the finale suddenly had all the girls at a baby shower, and all the boys at a bachelor party, seemingly having been best buddies forever, even though we never really saw Adrianna and Annie together much, and especially since we never even saw Liam and Naveed speak before--and it's just hard to read the interactions. Supposedly, Naomi, Silver, and Adrianna were all best friends at some point, hence the matching tattoos, but mostly we've seen every pair of characters off in their own storyline. It makes it easy to ask questions like what was up with Annie's totally non-promlike short ugly dress, and hard to ask who the stealth smart girl/perfect girl is in this scenario. Odd, as we've seen a lot more scenes in actually classrooms--given the co-star status of the principal, a teacher, and the guidance counselor--than we have on Gossip Girl, where all action happens in the hallways/courtyard/out in the city/in private homes, bars, or hotels. The other way to look at it is that no one really cares if the girls are smart on these two shows because in this society, money talks. Naomi's dad tries to convince her teacher to change her grade due to his money and clout. Although no one in Blair's family seemingly can get her back into Yale once her detention for bad mouthing a teacher (who was sleeping with a student), gets her offer rescinded, Nate's grandfather offers to get her into Columbia if she will only convince Nate to go there, instead of Berkeley (I think--too lazy to look all this up for now), and her lawyer stepfather knows a friend on the board of NYU, which is how she gets acceptance there, despite not applying. Serena gets into Brown because she frequently appears on Page 6, with other socialites, and despite her mediocre grades, and apparent lack of concern about academics.
That might be why this show doesn't have smart girls, while Secret Life of the American Teenager does. Everyone on that show is similarly middle class, except possibly for Adrian w
ho I guess is supposed to be poorer (but still has her own convertible). No one can pull strings because of all their money. Grace's dad is a doctor, and Lauren's dad is a psychologist, who you think would have more money than a furniture store owner, but it's hard to tell. It's a measure of how retro this show is that I do not know what either of the mothers do, and it's a plot point that Molly Ringwald's character Anne (this show is big on A names for women) dropped out of college to stay home and raise Amy and her sister Ashley and is only now trying to have a career. I believe Adrian's mother is a flight attendant. Other than 15 year olds getting pregnant, and plot points that sometimes revolve around cell phones, and a fixation with sex, for the most part this show could easily have taken place in pretty much any decade. There's absolutely nothing forward thinking here. Adrian is free with her sexuality, but is essentially punished for it by having the boys leave her for "nicer" girls. Minor character Alice can talk a good game about sex, but ends up having it and not much liking it.
ho I guess is supposed to be poorer (but still has her own convertible). No one can pull strings because of all their money. Grace's dad is a doctor, and Lauren's dad is a psychologist, who you think would have more money than a furniture store owner, but it's hard to tell. It's a measure of how retro this show is that I do not know what either of the mothers do, and it's a plot point that Molly Ringwald's character Anne (this show is big on A names for women) dropped out of college to stay home and raise Amy and her sister Ashley and is only now trying to have a career. I believe Adrian's mother is a flight attendant. Other than 15 year olds getting pregnant, and plot points that sometimes revolve around cell phones, and a fixation with sex, for the most part this show could easily have taken place in pretty much any decade. There's absolutely nothing forward thinking here. Adrian is free with her sexuality, but is essentially punished for it by having the boys leave her for "nicer" girls. Minor character Alice can talk a good game about sex, but ends up having it and not much liking it. Well, clearly this migraine isn't helping my thought process much. I'll think more about this next week.
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