In this increasingly visual age, television is seen to be a popular medium and an integral part of one’s life. It’s not surprising to see most people arrange their eating schedules, leisure time and even the furniture to accommodate the television set (Neuman, 1995, p. 1) . Television acts as a powerful tool to influence one's voting, shopping, and eating habits along with one's political or social viewpoints. It’s hard to believe that television has affected one’s life in one aspect or another. With the wide grasp of television, it has definitely contributed to our cultural literacy. (Smetana, 1997)
For this week, I decided to analyze the youth culture because as a teen myself, partly because it is easier to relate and also I find it interesting to understand their way of life.
Enter Gossip Girl.
Gossip Girl is a popular series of young-adult novels by Cecily Von Ziegesar and is based on the lives of Manhattan’s elite. Blair Waldorf and best friend, Serena van der Woodsen thinks that the world revolves around them. –which is true, in New York City's private school of Constance Billard School for Girls at least. In this series, it always begins with a voice over by an anonymous blogger ‘Gossip Girl’, who somehow has the latest up-to date news on the two main characters and their posses. Though there’s a narrator, the narrative structure adopts some of the rules of a post-structuralist approach by having more than one focalizer.
Gossip girl is famous for its back-stabbing, scandalous high society life where the wealthy, gorgeous high school students drinks booze, take drugs, shop and cut class to have sex. (Stanley, 2007)
The discourses of wealthy teens are linked now with the stereotypical idea of the rich and the famous. To part of the high end society you need to look a certain way, dress a certain way and act a certain way and that high school is all about boys, sex, fashion and drugs. This whole representation of youth culture provides the public viewers especially the youth that wealthy teens are snobbish spoilt brats who get what they want.
However, the politics of wealthy teens is produced in this representation. It is believed that not all rich kids are snobbish spoilt brats. According to the survey carried out by PNC financial services group, although 22 percent of wealthy teens said, “I deserve to be rich because my parents are rich”, 55 percent of wealthy teens disagreed. In fact, 45 percent of wealthy teens said no while 25 percent said yes and the other 29 percent were unsure (PNC financial services, 2007). In fact, most students are struggling to make better lives for themselves by doing the very hard academic work a private school expects rather than exploit wealth and the extravagant.
Works Cited
Growing up wealthy: spoiled and extravagant or responsible and hardworking? - Affluent teens dont fit Tabloid stereotypes, PNC survey reveals. (2007, February 20). Retrieved november 5, 2010, from The PNC financial services group, Inc. [US]: https://www.pnc.com/webapp/unsec/Requester?resource=/wps/wcm/connect/59feda004e5c711590e197fc6d630ad7/GrowingUpWealthy_Rls_2007.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=59feda004e5c711590e197fc6d630ad7
Neuman, S. B. (1995). Literacy in the television age: the myth of the TV effect . Retrieved november 5, 2010, from books.google.com: http://books.google.com/books?id=zuDCW_qHvpIC&dq=television+literacy&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=WWXUTMi-FYewvgOCw4GUBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=13&sqi=2&ved=0CFYQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Stanley, A. (2007, september 19). Reading, Writing and Raunch: Mean Girls Rule Prep School. Retrieved november 5, 2010, from www.nytimes.com: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/arts/television/19goss.html?_r=2
