We’ve come to the end of the first run of Gossip Girl’s much-hyped reboot, and after traipsing around HBO’s post-COVID fantasy New York with Julien, Zoya et. al for six weeks, we’re left with the question August always makes inevitable: did we have fun?

Well, no. Critically, the show was a disappointment. Reviews deemed it desperate, creepy, and clumsy—our own Richard Lawson wondered why a show about teenagers turned out so serious. For plugged-in types of a certain demographic (old enough to have obsessed over Blair and Serena in their heyday; geographically primed to recognize Sweetgreen and Fan Fan Doughnuts getting name-dropped), the new Gossip Girl was at least baseline enjoyable as an updated reference vehicle. Stripped of the mysteries that so titillated in the original CW show, maybe that’s where Gossip Girl 2.0’s legacy lies: as a reboot devoted to branding not only the Gen Z set at Constance Billard, but the new guard in our culture at large.

The old Gossip Girl thrilled by depicting the excesses of traditional privilege to soapy, often totally illogical extents. Remember when Serena skipped out on a guy’s coke overdose and fled to boarding school? Remember when Blair banished Jenny from the entire island of Manhattan? Or literally whenever Georgina Sparks showed up? (She’s alive and well, apparently). Not since Shakespeare’s prime were teenage whims this nonsensically dramatic, and that was what made the old Gossip Girl fun. It was a show about privilege so self-obsessed that it left zero room for moralizing; it was too busy imprinting upon countless half-formed millennial brains that there’s no truer love than your toxic ex flying to Paris and bringing back your favorite macarons.

So: the original show succeeded as a send-up of privilege wielded by real estate moguls and old money heiresses—A.K.A. white privilege. If we zoom out of the GG universe for a moment, we can see that one decade later, that’s still the throughline of most prestige programs. We’re at a point where all-white casts and storylines can be considered tacky, unless it’s all in service to making fun of white privilege. Then it’s not only okay—it can be extremely funny.

Take the success of The White Lotus, an HBO hit about the wealthy (white) patrons of a Hawaiian resort. As the LA Times noted, there are non-white characters here, but they exist on the periphery—not only to those main white characters, but in the show’s worldview, too. The Undoing, another HBO pandemic fave, was essentially billed as a twist on Big Little Lies, swapping the tribulations of several wealthy white women in California for just one woman’s unraveling on the Upper East Side. Need I even mention a certain chattering class’s obsession with Succession?

I’ll be the first to say that glossy, escapist television is one of the last remaining tendrils holding my psyche together. But it’s time to admit that there’s a dark lining to the appeal of these newer shows—as if punching up on the 1 percent equals a “get out of jail free” card when it comes to Diversity Stuff. If it’s satire, if we’re all in on the joke that rich white people suck, then we can have our cake and eat it while waving pitchforks at the Bezoses, too. Which brings me back to the new Gossip Girl.

The 2021 version of Gossip Girl is obsessed with privilege as well, but a different, non-white kind. To call the series “woke” feels reductive. More accurately, new Gossip Girl is a show that centers Black cultural authority as the hallmark of status. Julien and Zoya, the sometimes-opposing queen bees, are two Black girls (both light-skinned, which raises important questions about colorism) who carry Revolution Books totes and wear LaQuan Smith. In keeping with the original show’s formula, where each episode’s drama coalesces around one main event, this version trades the New York City Ballet and Jared and Ivanka party circuit for Jeremy O. Harris at the Public and a Christopher John Rogers show. (Backstage, a Lindsay Peoples Wagner cameo establishes Julien’s approval by the fashion institution). The guest artist who performs at Julien’s party is Princess Nokia. At Halloween, Zoya and Julien decide to dress up as the most famous Black sisters on earth: Solange and Beyoncé.

The breadth of references to real-life Black and afro-indigenous cultural authorities is refreshing; a mainstream show where teens live and breathe Black art as the cultural default feels like a revelation. But though the new Gossip Girl succeeds in depicting the kind of privilege that takes us from protest to Net-A-Porter all in one day, it stops short of truly engaging with the accompanying concepts of power and elitism. And maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel “fun.” It’s beautiful and interesting and a little revolutionary—but watching it is just not the same as laughing at rich white people doing rich white people things.

There’s an opportunity missed, I think, for Gossip Girl to engage more directly with race—though it’s worth wondering what duty any show about non-white people owes in that regard, in the same way that any BIPOC person shouldn’t feel like they need to bring a personal statement when they enter traditionally white spaces. Still: what would it be like if the new Gossip Girl, after building us this Black-centric world, asked deeper questions? What’s the backstory on Julien’s ascendency at a storied old prep school that, at least in Blair Waldorf’s day, was pretty white? How does she navigate her identity while being raised by a widowed white father?

Speaking of relationships, on this show, the romantic ones are almost all interracial—you’ve got Julien and Obie, Zoya and Obie, Aki and Audrey, potentially Kate and Zoya’s dad. You’re telling me none of their drama is going to involve navigating their racial identities? And don’t even get me started on the side plot that amounts to three white teachers bullying students of color and getting their Indian-American colleague fired. There’s a lot we could have unpacked here.

Again, we should be aware of the pitfalls that come with demanding that any non-white piece of art needs an accompanying thesis on race. But I think of the way the characters in Scandal and Empire grappled with power and privilege alongside their Blackness, and I wonder if Gossip Girl was so hellbent on giving us a picture-perfect campus brochure of a show—peppered with asides about gentrification and questions over whether Cartier uses genocide gems—that we ended up with a slightly detached, Bridgerton-esque fantasyland where everyone gets along and no one is ever racist to you on Twitter. (Consider, too, that series’ creators, Joshua Safran, Stephanie Savage, and Josh Schwartz, are white.)

It all reminds me of that iconic Broad City episode where Ilana forecasts the future to be “caramel and queer,” back when those descriptors felt like the ultimate metrics of progress. Gossip Girl gets that kind of optics right, but it ultimately skirts deeper questions—particularly since it doesn't seem like these kids are capable of any real misbehavior.

In the Halloween episode, there was a moment when we got close: the contrast between Zoya and Julien’s costumes as Solange and Beyoncé versus the ones chosen by Bianca and Pippa (white peers from a rival school), who’ve decided to dress up as Serena and Blair. The moment felt less like a nostalgic callback than something bolder—a true confrontation by cosplayed proxy between Gossip Girl’s old and new guards. The tension of that scene, though, was ultimately squandered, and I was left thinking about the way Zoya mulls over her ambivalent relationship with Obie (the rich white boy) earlier in the episode. “Sometimes I wonder if he actually cares about the things he talks about,” she sighs. “Or he just thinks that he’s supposed to.”

— Searching for the Truth About Anthony Bourdain and Asia Argento
— How Never Have I Ever Tore Up the “Immigrant Mom” Trope
— What Black Widow’s Final Minutes Mean for the MCU’s Future
— Can Hot People in Animal Masks Find True Love on Sexy Beasts?
— The Best Shows and Movies Coming to Netflix in August
— The Poignant Story Behind Anthony Bourdain’s Favorite Song
— How Brad and Angelina Inspired Loki’s Finale
— The Ballad of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee
— From the Archive: Richard Gully, the Man Hollywood Trusted
— Sign up for the “HWD Daily” newsletter for must-read industry and awards coverage—plus a special weekly edition of Awards Insider.