I don’t think she gets jealous, more like she has to actively work on not being herself, because being herself naturally attracts people to her and she’s a natural queen bee, whereas Blair actually has to work hard to be at the top, and has to use threats of social destruction for people to obey her, while people naturally flock to Serena and dote on her. Like season 1 where Blair’s mom chooses Serena for the fashion show because of the natural glow she has while Blair was rigid and awkward. Serena naturally works the camera and charms everyone, and tries her best to tell Blair that she really didn’t mean for it to happen, and Blair is insecure (but rightly so since S slept with Nate). Then in the beginning of season 2 when Chuck manipulates the situation and has S on top again. It’s just so natural for Serena.
@@ozlenergen3289 oh, I don’t remember. I blocked out everything after season 2 because it just got so terrible. Show writers for some reason can’t make teen shows interesting after the characters graduate high school. Season 3 NYU was cringe, and season 4 onward was terrible storylines. Season 5 was cringe with Louis and season 6 with whatshisname from 7th Heaven and Nate dating his teenage daughter was cringe af. For me the show ended with the perfect s2 finale
What’s annoying about Serena is that she’s clearly the definition of privilege, but she wanna act like she doesn’t see it most of the time while receiving the benefits.
"is she rich because she's nice? or, is she nice because she's rich?" I've noticed that in the corporate world the "Serenas" are beloved and always get ahead. They have this sunny optimistic (almost fake naive) personality that I see in a lot of privileged and sheltered people.
This, my ex was like this, and at first I really liked it, it's very flattering to be the object of affection for a personality like Serena's but I revealed some of my true interests such as the show Euphoria and boy did things change. A lot of the Euphoria characters I can relate to, I've dealt with alcohol addiction, I've had to deal with both emotional and sexual abuse. But because of how sheltered and privileged my ex was, he had zero ability to relate to any of the cast and characters in Euphoria, and boy did the judgement and ignorance pour out of him. And yet the people behind the reality show we met on, absolutely adore him. Hell, he's even got my mum wrapped around his little finger. I just don't get what is so appealing and attractive about someone that ignorant and naive.
I would guess your observation is correct, but you are attributing that "getting ahead" to their niceness. I believe that is way off. Nice+Rich are not related and you can tell how brainwashed/stupid/naive people are when thinking wealth and politeness are connected. these two have in 90% or more of cases *no* connection whatsoever. Richness and especially "sheltered rich" can produce very nice people. But they don't get very far - except if they fail upwards. Corporate speech for promoting someone after they mess up and need to be exchanged by competent replacements. happens a lot with nepotism-hires. No one gets rich by being nice. A nice person would be ridiculously blind and ignorant to get rich - let alone stay that way. a nice person wouldn't hoard their money. a nice person does not patent antibiotica or x-rays. the zar peter was nice to his children - but a warlord so heinous that the Soviets were seen as an improvement. Do. Not. Fall. For. Niceness. Sorry for the rant. something in that comment must have triggered a nerve in me...
@@trillionbones89 Similarly, niceness isn't kindness, and you can be simaltaneously nice and cruel(think no outward aggression, smiles and politeness, but the real impact is behavior that causes catastrophic consequences for others) vs. Mean and kind (think tough love. Direct, abrasive, but beneficial to the recipient.) The rich are usually the former.
Note, though, that one can be sheltered (with or without niceness, real or fake) without being priveleged. Probably most sheltered nice people aren't rich. And most rich people are neither sheltered or (genuinely) nice (although yeah yeah, there are exceptions, and nobody's attacking *you* o random reader who is reading this comment and taking it personally)
They did the right thing to cast Blake as Serena. She has that magnetic charm which is very important to Serena's character. Serena could've been one of the best character on GG but she became a victim of terrible writing. There's no development for her character since Season 1 until the series ended. Blair was much better written hence she's more popular among the fans.
Exactly! It started off so well and then she just became this one dimensional character whose only plot is centered around the guy she's dating. I wish they did something more with her character. However Blake Lively really emulated that It girl persona when playing Serena.
@@AmyJLiang I remember reading something about it, however she did audition for it as well, before being offered the role I found. Even Jennifer Lawrence reportedly auditioned, can you imagine!
When I was reading the books - before the show came out. I imagined Blake as Serena. I had seen her in the Sisterhood of Traveling pants. She did a great job
Considering we talk a lot about the “nice” guy, we rarely talk about the “nice” girl. Serena is an example of getting her hopes up and seeing a partner or experience as the ideal and than gives it up when it does not meet her expectations. Also, you’re right. She acts nice and bubbly to get job opportunities as well as connections, but never puts in the work. That is why more gravitate towards Blair. She works her butt off for things. She can manipulative and vindictive to get what she wants, but for the jobs she really wanted, she put in the time and effort.
@@stutisingh7205 both. I felt for her internship and working for her mom, she did. For college, it was a little wishy washy. While her “minions” did a lot, I felt she put in work behind the scenes to get the schemes going. She did the research and making the vision boards, etc. and than let everyone do the rest. So now thinking about it, my final answer is both. I do stand by if Blair really wants something, she will put the effort into it whereas Serena will only use her charm to do anything and give up if something is too hard. Even the show points that out.
@@gabrielleduplessis7388 sure, Blair may put in work than Serena but it's hard for me to admire her too much as she is extremely privileged to be able to put together a high level plan and then have others grind away on the actual execution. she may be seen as a good leader but she was set up her whole life to be that way. But yeah, compared to Serena she does have more skills and drive.
@@soapoperaz People love to ignore that. Serena has done bad things, but Blair's bad actions were basically a constant: Blackmail and destruction were her ways of getting ahead, but since she's entertaining she gets a pass like Chuck the r@pist
@@AlexClementine No one in this show is a good person (maybe only Nate). But! Blair actually faces some consequences for her bad actions, while Serena's problems mostly fade away. Serena chose to ignore everything bad around her and see the world as a happy fun place, while Blair faced reality and understood the people that are surrounding her. Yes, Blair actively did many bad things, but Serena witnessing those bad things and not doing anything to stop or prevent them is almost as bad. Also, Serena always relied on her family's name or money to solve her problems (the teacher, the guy that overdosed) while Blair mostly fixed her own problems (by blackmail, schemes, plans, etc, but still, she was mostly responsible for fixing her own problems).
they did jenny so wrong..she was a confused teenager..but then she turned into a hustler with real talent for fashion but no one ever truly supported her...
I am still shook how she just brushed off the fact that she had slept with her best friend's boyfriend, lied and got offended that Blair ignored her. All GG characters were toxic af but this girl was another level.
Oh please Serena was no saint but at least she wasn’t a stuck up snob like Blair. It’s also funny how you blame Serena for sleeping with Nate but don’t blame Nate who was also involved but maybe your just a misogynistic Blair twerp
she literally slept with any and every guy she met.... and shes not the only one, the whole cast of gg females did that, she did dan, nate, and his nephew then blair did nate, dan, chuck, then vanessa also did dan, nate, chuck even some of the females comming in for dating roles switched from guy to guy... way to set an example, also how are they not disguisted with eachother sleeping with every friend/ex/boyfriend etc....
One thing I've noticed about serena, at least in season 1, is that she's the definition of "a friend to all, is a friend to none". She keeps up her nice girl act by never involving herself in drama, but to a point where she is just a horrible friend to everyone. She maintains her friendship with Nate even after sleeping with him while he's with her BEST FRIEND and after he judges Blair for being with Chuck when they were broken up as if he didn't do worst, never defends Blair for anything, tells her she shouldn't have slept with Chuck and Nate, but also doesn't even react or defend Blair when Jenny purposefully overhears her conversation with her boyfriend and tells Nate that Blair slept with Chuck. She overall pretends to be super nice by never being a good friend and taking a stand in an issue unless it directly involves her and her ability to be the centre of attention.
As a teenager I used to love Serena and Blair but now, looking back I cringe remembering how much I adored them especially Blair. Teen me loved the glamorized and "sassy" characters but as I have grown out of it, I realise that neither Serena nor Blair were people that someone should try to emulate 'cause they are incredibly selfish and callous people. Chuck was the bad boy favourite in the heydays of gossip girl and I can't wrap my head around it. He sexually assaulted Jenny and Serena and ruined so many lives but somehow that's forgiven 'cause he is hot and he fell in love? GG fandom still adores Blair and Serena when neither were good friends or people to each other or anyone else. Substitute them for someone not pretty and well dressed and no one will either sympathies or like them.
That’s what made the show so great to me. All of the characters were unlikable assholes, but they were also very human and relatable on an emotional level.
@@Transformers217 I mean I get what you are saying but are they really relatable even on an emotion level? I get it that it's a show for fun but I can't help but analyze it. The characters motives and their actions only made sense to me till season 1. Personally, I understood the insecurities and the terrible ways they acted in season 1 'cause they made sense. Serena wanting to be better after the whole overdose thing, Blair's bulimia and her need to fit into her dream life, Nate's frustrations with his parents, Chuck's asshole nature and Dan's desire to get in the elite club of UES but those things stop being reasons to justify terrible behaviour and crimes (like wtf were these people even doing?) and start being excuses after a while. Blair, serena and chuck dismantling someone's life 'cause they are teens is something that is understandable but they still kept doing the same juvenile shit as grown ass adults. Don't even get me started on the level of weirdness that is Dan and Serena's relationship. Guy stalked girl and her friends for years even when they were dating, his dad married her mum and they share a half sibling(?), wrote a book about how a character based on him is in love with her best friend and bashed her and then somehow got the girl? To me, the only character who bore any semblance of growing up was Nate.
The show does a very good job of clearly establishing that Serena is a product of her environment, arguably all the worse parts. The issue is that we are introduced to her through the eyes of Gossip Girl and Dan, both who idolize and worship her (yes he does end up being Gossip Girl but that's irrelevant). Their entire relationship is built on the fantasy of her, this idea that she is the "special snowflake" of the upper east side, different from all the rest, and the conflict comes with them both trying to reconcile the fantasy with the reality because they both believe it to be true. In fact their relationship fails and succeeds because of this- you guys should make a video about them, the perils of loving a fantasy and being loved as a fantasy. Serena is reckless, selfish, entitled, manipulative, irresponsible, out of touch, zero sense of accountability, constantly handed things others have to work for and always managing to fail forward- and to top it all off she's ungrateful for all of it. But they are right about one thing; she is different from all the rest. Because as awful as everyone else around her is they all have to work for what they want. They all have responsibilities and face consequences for their actions, even pretty boy Nate, yet Serena floats through life free as a bird crashing in and out of people's lives, making a mess of things and never looking back or bothering to clean up. She is the summation of everything we hate about that world, every negative stereotype. And does it with a smile.
She’s terrible😭😭😭Her faux activism reeks of elitism. Dan was right in that respect but girl, she’s NEVER risked anything except her money. Elitism at its best/worst. 🥰🥰🥰😭
I liked all the characters on Gossip Girl ( little J was probably my favorite). But I really felt that Serena shouldn't have ended up with Dan at the end. The little bit of growth her character had should have made her reject Dan for manipulating her, and insulting her in his novel. She should have stayed single and become more independent.
Serena and Nate should have been the power couple ruling NYC, with Nate as Mayor. Dan should have gone to jail, but instead they allowed him to change his name to Joe Goldberg and he went to LA to harass another ditsy blonde, and resorted to murder.
Sydney Sweeney would have made an amazing Jenny Humphrey in my opinion. Starting in season 2 but especially season 3 and for what little she was on in season 4, and even her cameo in season 6 finale, Taylor Momsen’s rock persona was so prevalent when she portrayed Jenny Humphrey, it didn’t fit in with the WASP-y UES persona
I thought I was the only one who liked Jenny 😅 people always criticize her for being a “wannabe” and a “mean girl” but… she’s 14. Not excusing her behavior, but I think people forget that she’s the youngest character on the show. Of course she’s going to be naïve, insecure, desperate and a little mean. She’s no worse than Blair or Serena.
Serena was the character that we were supposed to love the most, but I think Blair is liked more because even though Selena was the "nice" girl she was a professional victim that couldn't help she was beautiful and if someone had a problem with her, they were the problem. While Blair thanks to her mother had to prove herself and honestly, she didn't have the poor victim act to fall on when she messed up, she had to actually deal with the backlash and actually grew as character because of it. Yes, she was mean, but she worked for her success unlike Serena who was poster child just getting things handed to you even when you don't deserve it because of who you are and doesn't have to grew because their rewarded anways.
I never understood why people feel like you have to deserve things to get things. In a society where gaining resources is the primary way to gain access to safety, comfort, success and ease in life, getting resources is a good thing that most people want/need. So whether or not you "deserve" it or "earn" it, why does it matter? If people hand you resources, the smart thing to do is say thanks and accept it. It's weird to be annoyed when people are able to get resources and network without having to put blood, sweat and tears into it. Humanity acknowledges that everyone needs certain things but hate people who get those things easily. I mean that's the whole goal isn't it? Find a way to get your wants and needs met with the least possible resistance. I don't get the bitterness behind it.
@@ZariDV thank u for that. I watched like 3 contents from this channel and my take on the Take is the same as you. I think this channel is resentful and full of anachronistic proletariat-like victim mentality as the contents whine and shit on "rich" people and "nepotism" while glorifying some crazy conartartists for cheating the riches, as if they are Robin Hood of our era or something 🤔 What is infuriating is they do this in the name of feel good and sound good ideologies like feminism, equality and what nots. While I do think ths character Blair Waldorf still is an aggressive immature heroine, and i don't think the original comment wasn't necessarily along the same lines as you were making as Blair is just as privileged if not more than Serena as that girl married some European prince then the supposed the wealthiest man of the UES, the overall connotation of this channel and its supporters would fall into some crazy victim mentality.
@@casebycase_904 my comment was mostly in response to the original commenter's last line. I'm don't think there was any hero or heroine in Gossip Girl. There were people we rooted for because we liked them in spite of how awful they all were, but I don't think anyone was decent enough to be a hero(ine). Mind you, this isn't a bad thing to me. I think the allure of the show was watching messy people be messy. It was tooth rotting entertainment. We didn't come for the moral compass. We came to watch rich folks lie, cheat, backstab, fight, manipulate, steal, swindle, and do crimes. All while looking attractive, wearing clothes we wish we could wear, eating/drinking food we wish we could taste and hanging out in places we couldn't afford to as teenagers. It was even marketed as something parents would hate their teens watching which only made more teens curious. It was never a morally good series and that was the fun part when we were kids. Blair was a terrible person and Serena was also awful. Not because they were rich but because of how they behaved toward others. I was pushing back against the idea that Serena was bad compared to Blair (who was openly villainous and I loved her for it back then). Blair and Serena were the children of people who were in similar tax brackets so both were equally privileged. The only reason Blair had to work hard to earn things later on while Serena didn't (as much) was because of their mindsets. Serena grew up with her mother who tended to marry into money. She saw her mom use her pretty privilege and networking to connect to people who already did the work and could marry and benefit from it. To the point where she got so much money from her divorces that she could live lavishly while single and do whatever she wanted for work as well. Serena adopted that and she'd use weaponized femininity and her pretty privilege and networking to connect with rich men while enjoying her trickle down family wealth too. It's smart. Why stress yourself out working for resources when people willingly throw them at you? Why? Just to say you worked for it? Then what? Blair on the other hand grew up with her mom who started a business and earned her wealth herself. She adopted that and made plans to go to an Ivy League university and work hard and be successful so she'd gain wealth like her mother. Admirable and wonderful, but also her choice. She never had a role model that showed her exactly how to use her charms to get her way. She only know how to use her charms to scare and manipulate people into doing what she wanted. Blair used her charms to command/control while Serena used her charms to coax/control. They're two sides of the same coin. Both manipulative, but in different ways. They were friends for a reason and that same reason is why they clashed so much. A lot of fans get tricked into thinking Serena never does anything and just get things, but she is very much using active tricks and tips to get everything she gains. She's just more subtle and sneaky about it. She's not naive, she's using weaponized helplessness that makes people rush to her aid. The show is aware of that when they show her snapping out of that and being perfectly competent when she wants to be.
Serena, Blair and Jenny make up the perfect trio- Blair is the vicious, calculating hardworking know-it-all who's ambition is on coke and Serena is the effortlessly pretty, reckless and selfish "it Girl" who everyone is obsessed with- and then there's Jenny, Lil J, who's a combination of the two. Jenny is as reckless and selfish as Serena and as vicious and manipulative and ambitious as Blair. That's why she's able to show them both up at times, because she has the "best of both girls".
Season 1 Serena, I loved. She was actually, genuinely, sweet and not just a fake nice person. Was she Uber privileged and completely ignorant of it?? Yes, but it was very endearing and her personality made up for it. But after that, everything goes downhill for her and she becomes one of the most unlikeable hypocrites of the main cast
I think this analysis could have gone deeper into her character. As a caricature of the rich white girl with all these problems, yes she is pretending to dislike the wealth and attention. But there are motivations and experiences through the show which fuel it. Those are worth exploring too
Absolutely! They barely scratched the surface with this one. It felt like they just glorified everything wrong with Serena because she’s beautiful and stylish.
Blair was my jam. I related more to her than Serena, she felt more human with her insecurities and hard work. Blair always worked for what she wanted while Serena got everything handed to her
Such is reality when the wealthy just sit in their little bubbles but then have the audacity to tell the rest of us to donate to causes that they themselves could donate 0.063% of their wealth to accomplish the cause’s goal, or encourage us to live green while they fly in private jets, or shame Trump for being misogynistic in early 2017 awards season and then later that year when the Harvey situation came to light, and they all got cancelled for being sleezy and abusive themselves, then have the audacity to act like they didn’t know. The wealthy are hypocrites
This was such a cool video essay. I see it in my circle too: We all know a Serena. Maybe the silver lining is that Serena doesn’t discriminate. Well, atleast she doesn’t in a conscious way.
as someone who read all the GG books during my teenage years, i can't quite acknowledge the series because the two have little in common. serena, in the books, was also "perfect" and in theory, questioning the status quo by interacting with the brooklyn cast. but looking back, i don't think she was interested in dan because he was lower class, but because he was an artist and so is she, with the books ending with serena becoming a model and a actress. maybe that's why she didn't fully belong in the upper east side. and also, Gossip Girl was never revealed in the books - and i personally think she was serena. first, because serena was too flawless (lol) and second, because i always felt that GG was really easy on her and super mean to everyone else.
Serena seems very nice and her personality is charming, but her life as a general is a mess. She went from one boy to another instantly and dropped out of collage.
I agree the dating others instantly showed a cry for help, but her dropping out of college really wasn’t a big deal. Some people just don’t want to do college.
Queen B all the way! Blair, Georgina at least were not hiding their personalities and they haven’t acted like a victim ALL THE TIME. Serena did so many terrible things but tried to make herself look as if it wasn’t her fault. She was more responsible in s01 than in s06. Out of all the main characters she’s the one who played the victim most of the time. Blake is gorgeous(so is Leighton) but even when I started watching the show in 2007&was 13 years old, I disliked Serena(Blake L.) really quick. Blair(Leighton M.) knows and isn’t trying to to hide the real Blair. But sure, neither of those two is a good role model anyway(well my inner child/teen still loves Blair😂❤
That's the thing people don't get about Serena. She isn't intentionaly mean for MOST of the show, she is just oblivious to damage she is doing because she never faced any consequences for doing something bad or any challenges to get what she wants. That of course isn't good but is probably meant to show how people like that behave, even though they might not be intentionally mean.
I don't care what anybody says. Serena and her mom are my spirit animals, and I love how both of them are so unapologetically free-spirited, rebellious and non-conformists in love. I never liked how much I resemble Blair - I always found her petty, closed-minded, mean, envious, jealous, insecure, and low on self-confidence. I know she was very relatable, but never saw her traits as aspiring, even though she was an extremely loyal person. Serena, on the other hand, was a nice person with a good heart, whose only errors were her recklessness and selfishness. Will forever love her natural magnetism and courage to follow her heart at any given moment with no care of what people will think of her!
Make a video about the one known as "Lonely Boy." I'd love to watch the dissection on one Dan Humphrey at some point. And yes, no one has forgotten that infamous twist during GG's series finale, either. 😉
Serena acts like she has substance and that she deserves more "crave more than this provincial life" but she just wants to go off on adventures and when they don't work out for her, she goes back to her safety net of being Serena VDW, having everything and being loved by everyone. Her default is something most people dream of, and she chafes at it. She is the furthest anybody can get from being an underdog.
In my opinion, Serena was the least honest about who she was and what she wanted. Blair, Chuck etc behaved atrociously but they were always straight down the line in terms of their personalities and goals.
Without watching a second of this video, the answer is no...Serena is most certainly NOT nice. Not only is nobody on Gossip Girl nice, literally every single character is aggressively toxic. The only thing that separates them is the degree of how terrible they are. But Serena being slightly less terrible than somebody who is objectively awful doesn't make her nice.
This articulated my dislike or Serena so well. I couldn’t finish the series because she irked me so much with her holier than thou ‘I’m a nice girl, everything will be alright’ optimism. When she was blind to the good fortune and insane privilege that was the main cause of Serena being all right.
Terry prachet said the rich can afford to be poor. I think we see that here, she can afford to do certain things and act a certain way because she’s rich
I wacthed Gossip Girl recently, in my twenties, the only characters I really rooted for were Jenny and Vanessa, ironically they are the most hated in the fandom. You trully understand their struggles and motivations, sure they made mistakes but most of them were understandable given the context. If you are mature enough to see through the rottness of the Upper East Side and everyone envolved in that life the only likable characters are Jenny, Vanessa and Eva.
I liked her in the first two seasons where I really felt she was trying to change. I liked that about her but then she became someone going from guy to guy. I never hated her but the writers gave up on her character. Like they did on everybody else. She is nice compared to Blair. I love Blair but she wouldn’t like me lol
"I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." The Great Gatsby.
GG portrayed the difference between even though the side characters were from rich families, they didn't have power as much as the main ones. Serena was Charming and beautiful, the reason many people prefer Blair over her is because she doesn't own her privilege. Blair was so vicious and if you assess her, she was a bad person, she would ruin people's life but she owned it and didn't run away. Serena also ruined people's lives but she wasn't the person you can blame because she was so charismatic and innocent. But there was a season in which she was jealous of Lola and she did her best ti ruin her life just because she wanted the spotlight back to her which she herself gave away acting how much she hated it. They didn't put efforts in Serena's character at all. All the characters in the end would do the same things over and over again without any good reason. When I started watching the series, I was so enchanted by Serena and as the series progressed, I liked Blair more.
I think this video is really unfair. I don’t think she is a “fake nice girl”, I think she tries. I mean, try to put yourself in her shoes, she was born with everything and everyone loving her and getting away with everything. Her mother, her family and all of her friends aways say she doesn’t need to be good or try hard because she is who she is and doesn’t need to be a good person. However, she TRIES to understand the world out of her bubble and TRIES to be a good person. Maybe she is not all the time, because it is easier to be shallow and elite (like Blair and all her friends and family), but she wants to. Everything she knows since she was born, its how to be shallow, being the center of attention, the comfort… So even if she doesn’t successfully manage to be the nice person all the time, she tried to become even though EVERYONE around her doesn’t want her to get out of her privileged world. I think wanting to be good and wanting to be a better person even thought she doesn’t need to, is a really huge and amazing thing in the toxic world they live in.
a few years ago a bunch of my friends binge watched Gossip Girls and it still cracks me up how they all ended the show completely hating nonstop on Serena lmao
Serena is one of the faces of nepotism presented in the show. She doesn't have to work to be succesfull, things just happens to her (like her job on the production of the movie in season 5, i belive). She tries to engage in college and work but ultimatly everything bores her. In the end she became this afluently rich women married to a big writer, showcasing the end of many rich girls. She doesn't have to work, and we know she's not dumb. She has connections, knowledge and access to things since she was very young (and we can see that in Lily, in the begging we are led to belive she's just a silly beautiful woman marrying rich and by the middle of the series she's commanding Barth enterprise, and very well!) . She can have everything she wants but she doesn't ~really~ want them, and that's shown in the series. the contrast between her and blair is that while blair was the "try hard" serena knew that in the end not much matters when you know the right people. it's also funny how the show plays with the marylin x jackie (in blair's case, audrey) persona of the girls.
Am I the only one that don't see it? We introduced to Serena as the party girl who ran away after sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend. Was she the nice girl? I don't remember her like that at all. She wasn't the most awful character on the show, she was a main character that we were suppose to root for, but I don't remember ever thinking that she is "nice" or "good". Also, even if Dan is lower status, he is still going to that school and people know him, even without being associated to Serena.
Serena was multi dimensional. She was nice, mean, jealous, empathetic and apathetic all at once. Definitely one of the best written female characters in recent decades.
One of my fave shows ever. Still watching it many years later I realize how toxic the characters were even though I still love the show. I do feel like the writing went horribly downhill. A major part of her not really doing much is because she was never able to really find that thing that she really wanted to do. Blair was always going to have a career somewhere in the fashion world but Serena never found her footing because the writers never allowed her to explore seriously other than minor things like working as a publicist. It was always dating storylines and had she found her place in the real world I feel like her character would have had so much more growth.
Most of us are living that rich, middleclass, or working class irony; a very few can own up to what we actually are but those are the extreme cases. Like Chuck and Blair. Even Vanessa sucked at being that ordinary down to earth girl
I don't care what anybody says. Serena and her mom are my spirit animals, and I love how both of them are so unapologetically free-spirited, rebellious and non-conformists in love. I never liked how much I resemble Blair - I always found her petty, closed-minded, mean, envious, jealous, insecure, and low on self-confidence. I know she was very relatable, but never saw her traits as aspiring, even though she was an extremely loyal person. Serena, on the other hand, was a nice person with a good heart, whose only errors were her recklessness and selfishness. Will forever love her natural magnetism and courage to follow her heart at any given moment with no care of what people will think of her!
Blair is just a real rich girl person with real problems, but Serena she is the status quo, beauty, white beauty is her image in the dictionary, she is always getting validated. My mother language is not english, I''m sorry if it's hard to understand me.
@@soapoperaz Seriously? What about her anorexia? What about her parents neglect? What about the divorce of her parents because her dad ran off with another man?
@@Random_Wierdo. well yes but all that stuff was in season 1. Her dad leaving her and her mother for a model, her childhood best friend leaving her without saying goodbye, finding out her childhood boyfriend has always loved her childhood best friend way more than her, her eating disorder, her mom being cold to her. In season 1 I could understand why blair was so mean and cold to everyone. After season 1 though all that stuff was gone and in the past and they made her an irredeemable highschool mean girl bully.
I liked her in season one, and I got frustrated with her a few times in the frustrating in the 2nd season but she was absolutely unbearable season 3 and beyond. Her character development kept regressing.
I am new to Gossip Girl series because I have only been binge-watching this since July and still on season 5. At first, I thought that Serena was the heart of this series because she always got the spotlight more often than anyone else. Come to think of it, I was wrong. It was Blair and Chuck that seem to me more realistic and not to mention that their characters had improved from one episode to the whole next episodes.
You not realise that Blair and Chuck "improving" was by design, because they wanted to put Dan and Chuck at the same level, even that Chuck was way worse offender literally, having sex with the hotel staff of father hotel and sexually assaulting any one in his sight, and even give him a "redemption" arc..
Being "nice" is not the same as not being actively mean. I wasn't as engrossed in the show, but I don't recall any of the characters doing actual nice things, much less Serena. She never volunteered, or donated to organisations. Maybe some of the older women ran charities? But Serena never did. She was merely pleasant to people, not saying mean and snide remarks that some of the other characters were renown for. She never tried to make the world better for other people.
What we need is a video on how hypocritical Dan Humphrey was. Wants to act like he hates privileged when he was obsessed with it from Serena, the gossip girl page to moving into Blair’s building. Serena would have been her free spirit self regardless - she’s spoiled but not a spoiled brat - Humphrey defines people who hate privileged bc they are not part of the society. He wasn’t spoiled but he was a brat. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk & for making it this far 😂
I truly believe that she's nice, even kind, to everyone she comes across (she doesn't discriminate) BUT she's a free spirit, and i think subconsciously, she will find anyone that will enable that (even if it means marrying rich). But with Dan, i felt like he was able to expanded her life, even intelligently, and of course, Dan was affectionate towards her which, who wouldn't like that. However I feel like she wouldn't have dated anyone out of her school tho (or at least the rich privileged school type. Serena might have that Dan was an except to be rich somehow). I loved Serena in season 1 bc girl could flirt and was smart, and i feel like they dumber her for the show. Serenagas Social Intelligence which people look over, and under value bc, again she is genuinely a nice person (but i don't think she will be anyones friend... unless their crazy fun like her).
People can say what they want but at least the other characters kept it real and true to who they were unlike Serena. She was honestly the most toxic one to me because she was the one not honest to herself
Oh absolutely she is. I didnt care for the charcter. Well that scene where her Queen B persona happened after the nair hair incident. I loved Blair because she didnt try and pretend
Exactly Blair had her flaws, but she actually worked literally all Serena did was complain about how hard her life was when she was the one that added to most of her problems.
@@soapoperaz I never said bully was okay hun. I said Blair is more likable. You might not like that but it is what is. I'm sorry if you've been bully it's not okay, but you attacking someone for an opinion is hypocritical.
I think the show just didn’t wanna get rid of her wealth. It’s like half her personality and lure. What’s every girls wants to obtain. The storyline wanted to explore these avenues of her life so they used her love interest as a device for the viewers. Smart. Also shows back in the 2000s had at least 20 episodes so yeah….there’s that. She’s a flawed character and she doesn’t want to escape riches just scrutiny. She’s having false info spread about her. All the while she’s doesn’t even know who she is yet.
Me and my friends, now in our mid 20s were binge watching GG and there was a Sunday brunch scene we were discussing on how in this 30-60min time fame, the characters had sex 3ce, broke up 2ce, conspired against another and ruined another's reputation. Lol all in the duration of a brunch! Ahh, rich ppl's on screen lives.
serena was never meant to be the “nice” girl in the show, before serena left for boarding school it was said that serena was the “queen” of the school and she was the one with the minions that’s why they were so quick to go back to her in season 2, she hung out with georgina who was anything but nice (and all of serena’s friends hated her) and that should really speak volumes about what kind of person she was before coming back. i don’t think her character did a 180 i think they just wanted to show the other toxic side of serena that she tried so hard to mask because there wasn’t really any reason to bring her out in earlier seasons since the spotlight was always on her and not blair. i’d also like to say that people complain about how they ruined her character but they did the same to blair in season six and i hate it, it was like they switched their personalities back, serena almost getting engaged, hosting galas, being on the committee, made her look like she finally was growing up like blair did in season 4-5 vs blair ruining her friendship with dan and serena, waiting around for chuck to be over with his war against his father, going back to sabotaging serena like she did in highschool, all while she was destroying her mothers fashion brand it was like the writers gave blair the spotlight for two seasons until they got bored and returned it back to serena all while ruining blair’s character just to uplift serena’s
The s6 and end of s5 did them all terribly, Serena included. During s5 she finds some job, starts working and doesn't date anyone, but by the end she becomes crazy possesive and uses Dan for revenge on her best friend after publishing Blair's diaries to try to break them up. In s6 she goes back to her earlier self, doing nothing and being still defined by a guy she is with although knowing very little about him (there was a pattern throughout the show with her guys, they meet, they sneak arround, she goes crazy for him, they wanna run away from everybody and after 4-5 episodes, everything crashes down). In the end, she stays the party girl with not much more to offer, Blair goes back to her abuser and still tries to go through life as a high school mean girl incapable of succeeding in real world (even her designs are school uniforms!!!), Chuck is still a bad buisnessman trying to prove his father wrong and Dan becomes vindictive and hurts even people who didn't do anything wrong to him while Nate does what his family wanted although he didn't show much interest in it previously. Too bad because the series really could show them maturing and becoming real people, instead, they showed two girls who peaked in high school and guys chasing after them who are not much better. The worst part to me is that the viewer is supposed to feel good about it all in the end.
@@BellesView yeah, real missed opportunity for shosw that popular and influential to show teenage viewers some character growth and development instead of just endless drama which by the end was so messed up that nothing made sense anymore.
Shes not perfect..she can be vengefull, mean and blunt but shes a teen trying to find herself in a messed up side of rich and fame.. shes not the worst.
I love Serena and I loved Blair, I enjoy their faults and love their qualities. I just hate the way the fans feel like they have to put down one character to enjoy the other. I don't get the need to attack women, what is wrong with people?
Serena brutally destroyed her relationship with the French prince and tipped off his mother. She had no reason to hate Blair for liking Dan. She should’ve wondered why Blair wanted keep this from her. Jealous much? She is suchhh a
Serena Vander Woodsen is a very complex character to play in hindsight . The show started with her coming back for her brother who tried to commit suicide. her mother was always neglectful of both of them and her unstable home life was the reason her style was different then Blair's . A little less put together and more spontaneous. Not to mention Blair had so much support from her mother, Dorota, her dad , Cyrus , her step dad and Serena. Serena didn't have that support. Her mother was never appreciated or understood her and Never took a stand for her . her brother was suicidal and her father was absent and was never there to be the father figure she and Eric needed. The only person who understood her was her best friend Blair. the people who stood up for her were Nate , Chuck and Blair who were also victims of defamatory articles published by the gossip girl and the unwanted fame and attention. The only person who saw her past the 'it Girl' persona was Blair and she admired it while looking down it. In season 1 Serena does try to change her lifestyle of the excessive partying and using the rich girl privilege but fails because of Dan. Dan is the most pretentious person. a who person could do no wrong. After Serena confesses that she messed up he breaks up with her . Serena rightfully so tells that she cheated on him rather than tell him the truth . Serena cared about only Dan's opinion and he lacked understanding and forgiveness. She desperately wanted him back because Dan was the only one who saw her for herself or who she aspired to be . Serena's character development went down the drain after since she lost reason as to why it happened. Blair was an other reason of why she was closed of to the opportunities in her way . Blair loved projecting her insecurities on her. She turned down every opportunity to change because of her . The fear of outshining Blair was deep rooted that way she would much rather prefer not try than to try and win against Blair. The only person who sees as a person. The fear of losing her had been there. That's why she went somewhere she didn't have face Blair and fall from grace in her eyes.The more Messier part of her life was her love life. Every guy who treated like a normal person she started dating them in order to get love and attention and affection she deserved . She was nice to everyone who appeared on show because she knew how being unappreciated and overlooked feels like. She tried to help everyone but herself.
Her character and all the trusted found babies changed because the 2008 crisis, the show runners had the options of doing the satire of rich people but they chose to bend the knee to the status quo and frame the rich people like "everyone else" and poor characters at the same level of careless, cruelty as the trust found babies, only that the poor characters suffer the consequences greatly at difference from the trust found babies.
I loved this show i love shows about elite society always have. I also liked little moments in the show like Blair and Chuck watching Roman Holiday together on her laptop. Why should Serena apologize for her privelage we all would love that have it thats why we watched.
I think it would be interesting to explore why Serena and Blair worked were Jordan and Zoyla failed. This new characters ate not only unappealing but boring.
The fact that most of main cast barely stays in touch with each other except for Penn and Chace (not like best buddies or whatever) goes to show the producers ruining the vibes and bond of the actors off shoot.
I always hated Serena. Never sympathized or loved her. She repeatedly made selfish choices, broke friendships, and would treat everyone below her. Hated when others getting her spotlight
Hate to admit it but GG was my guilty pleasure, n Serena was a Big part of it... Wow the wardrobe department really went all the way with Blake Lively!!!
I can feel that Serena will be like those celebrity NEPO babies that will do anything to hide their privilege 😅 Blaire will be like "Yeah I'm rich and nepo baby ! 💅" HAHAHAHA
Serena is so unbearable! And such a hypocrite. I think she is really annoying, playing the victim and pretending to hate the attention, but hating it when she’s not the center of attention. Blair tells her this in one episode: it’s who you are I always found her really annoying
Serena is basically Rory Gilmor, but we see her trough her small town's lens instead of the realistic one if we watch Gossip Girl.😂😂😂 P.S Eventhough Blair is deemed more toxic, I liked her more because I had similar upbringing and I guess all the percieved terrible things she did would be done by every teenager with her wealth, living in a state like USA who always glorified teens acting mean and reckless, because the clarity comes in in many people only in young adulthood, all the stuff she did would be done by someone who could afford to not face consequences, knowing the teens do not outgrow the me me me phase from the childhood and therefore fail to see a bigger picture, that what they do doesen't affect only them but the other people too.
Serena was a great character but a terrible person. She skirted personal responsibility all the time, had no real sense of how her behavior effected others and she didn't seem to care. She seemed willfully blind to her privilege, though she was clearly comfortable enjoying it.
@@thegirlabides6851 still a terrible person whether she was lacking self awareness or not. I’d rather be friends w someone like serena than blair, I think any normal person would.
@@soapoperaz cool, I didn't disagree with you. My point was that Serena acts innocent and she's oblivious to her privilege and receives fewer consequences. Blair on the other hand does suffer consequences more often (though not nearly enough) and she's aware she's a bad person. I don't want to be friends with either of them.
Yes, you're right. Serena can turn on her charm off and on like a faucet, she acts sunny and bubbly if its beneficial to her- Not to mention, Serena is so quick to criticize the actions of other people while overlooking the same in herself. She is also a far more jealous person than Blair.
When it comes to the show portrayal, I truly don't believe Serena is fake, more obliviously self-centred and entitled. Which is damaging and hard to deal with in its own right. She can be wrong and be a privileged asshole without being outright malicious or villainous at the same time. The book version of S. could fairly be described as having malicious intentions, though.
the answer is yes. she wants to pretend to hate being the it girl but once the spotlights off her she gets jealous.
AMEN
I don’t think she gets jealous, more like she has to actively work on not being herself, because being herself naturally attracts people to her and she’s a natural queen bee, whereas Blair actually has to work hard to be at the top, and has to use threats of social destruction for people to obey her, while people naturally flock to Serena and dote on her.
Like season 1 where Blair’s mom chooses Serena for the fashion show because of the natural glow she has while Blair was rigid and awkward. Serena naturally works the camera and charms everyone, and tries her best to tell Blair that she really didn’t mean for it to happen, and Blair is insecure (but rightly so since S slept with Nate).
Then in the beginning of season 2 when Chuck manipulates the situation and has S on top again. It’s just so natural for Serena.
@@jasonvargas7564 No she got jealous in later seasons, not first seasons.
Look how she did Lola!
@@ozlenergen3289 oh, I don’t remember. I blocked out everything after season 2 because it just got so terrible. Show writers for some reason can’t make teen shows interesting after the characters graduate high school. Season 3 NYU was cringe, and season 4 onward was terrible storylines. Season 5 was cringe with Louis and season 6 with whatshisname from 7th Heaven and Nate dating his teenage daughter was cringe af. For me the show ended with the perfect s2 finale
What’s annoying about Serena is that she’s clearly the definition of privilege, but she wanna act like she doesn’t see it most of the time while receiving the benefits.
Like marissa from oc
Privilege isn't a real thing. You people are just jealous.
So she exemplifies the average western feminist woman. Fair enough.
💯
@@lilacdreams5966
"is she rich because she's nice? or, is she nice because she's rich?"
I've noticed that in the corporate world the "Serenas" are beloved and always get ahead. They have this sunny optimistic (almost fake naive) personality that I see in a lot of privileged and sheltered people.
I think that’s also a line from the movie Parasite.
This, my ex was like this, and at first I really liked it, it's very flattering to be the object of affection for a personality like Serena's but I revealed some of my true interests such as the show Euphoria and boy did things change. A lot of the Euphoria characters I can relate to, I've dealt with alcohol addiction, I've had to deal with both emotional and sexual abuse. But because of how sheltered and privileged my ex was, he had zero ability to relate to any of the cast and characters in Euphoria, and boy did the judgement and ignorance pour out of him.
And yet the people behind the reality show we met on, absolutely adore him. Hell, he's even got my mum wrapped around his little finger. I just don't get what is so appealing and attractive about someone that ignorant and naive.
I would guess your observation is correct, but you are attributing that "getting ahead" to their niceness. I believe that is way off.
Nice+Rich are not related and you can tell how brainwashed/stupid/naive people are when thinking wealth and politeness are connected. these two have in 90% or more of cases *no* connection whatsoever.
Richness and especially "sheltered rich" can produce very nice people. But they don't get very far - except if they fail upwards. Corporate speech for promoting someone after they mess up and need to be exchanged by competent replacements. happens a lot with nepotism-hires.
No one gets rich by being nice. A nice person would be ridiculously blind and ignorant to get rich - let alone stay that way. a nice person wouldn't hoard their money. a nice person does not patent antibiotica or x-rays. the zar peter was nice to his children - but a warlord so heinous that the Soviets were seen as an improvement.
Do. Not. Fall. For. Niceness.
Sorry for the rant. something in that comment must have triggered a nerve in me...
@@trillionbones89 Similarly, niceness isn't kindness, and you can be simaltaneously nice and cruel(think no outward aggression, smiles and politeness, but the real impact is behavior that causes catastrophic consequences for others) vs. Mean and kind (think tough love. Direct, abrasive, but beneficial to the recipient.)
The rich are usually the former.
Note, though, that one can be sheltered (with or without niceness, real or fake) without being priveleged. Probably most sheltered nice people aren't rich. And most rich people are neither sheltered or (genuinely) nice (although yeah yeah, there are exceptions, and nobody's attacking *you* o random reader who is reading this comment and taking it personally)
They did the right thing to cast Blake as Serena. She has that magnetic charm which is very important to Serena's character. Serena could've been one of the best character on GG but she became a victim of terrible writing. There's no development for her character since Season 1 until the series ended. Blair was much better written hence she's more popular among the fans.
Exactly! It started off so well and then she just became this one dimensional character whose only plot is centered around the guy she's dating. I wish they did something more with her character. However Blake Lively really emulated that It girl persona when playing Serena.
And people are always after her
They practically wrote the role for Blake. She was offered the part, not through audition process.
@@AmyJLiang I remember reading something about it, however she did audition for it as well, before being offered the role I found. Even Jennifer Lawrence reportedly auditioned, can you imagine!
When I was reading the books - before the show came out. I imagined Blake as Serena. I had seen her in the Sisterhood of Traveling pants. She did a great job
Considering we talk a lot about the “nice” guy, we rarely talk about the “nice” girl.
Serena is an example of getting her hopes up and seeing a partner or experience as the ideal and than gives it up when it does not meet her expectations.
Also, you’re right. She acts nice and bubbly to get job opportunities as well as connections, but never puts in the work.
That is why more gravitate towards Blair. She works her butt off for things. She can manipulative and vindictive to get what she wants, but for the jobs she really wanted, she put in the time and effort.
Does Blair really put in work or just get her minions , doroda, or someone else to slave away for her?
@@stutisingh7205 both. I felt for her internship and working for her mom, she did.
For college, it was a little wishy washy.
While her “minions” did a lot, I felt she put in work behind the scenes to get the schemes going. She did the research and making the vision boards, etc. and than let everyone do the rest.
So now thinking about it, my final answer is both. I do stand by if Blair really wants something, she will put the effort into it whereas Serena will only use her charm to do anything and give up if something is too hard. Even the show points that out.
@@gabrielleduplessis7388 sure, Blair may put in work than Serena but it's hard for me to admire her too much as she is extremely privileged to be able to put together a high level plan and then have others grind away on the actual execution. she may be seen as a good leader but she was set up her whole life to be that way. But yeah, compared to Serena she does have more skills and drive.
@@stutisingh7205 i do agree with you on that.
@@stutisingh7205 Exactly! If anything, Jenny had the strongest work ethic among the three of them.
Serena comes off as the manic pixie dream girl in the beginning of the show. The only person that sees past her persona is blair
Yes Blair totally sees right through it
blair is a bully
@@soapoperaz People love to ignore that. Serena has done bad things, but Blair's bad actions were basically a constant: Blackmail and destruction were her ways of getting ahead, but since she's entertaining she gets a pass like Chuck the r@pist
Which is funny because Blair is way worse. So of course she see's right through Serena.
@@AlexClementine No one in this show is a good person (maybe only Nate). But! Blair actually faces some consequences for her bad actions, while Serena's problems mostly fade away. Serena chose to ignore everything bad around her and see the world as a happy fun place, while Blair faced reality and understood the people that are surrounding her.
Yes, Blair actively did many bad things, but Serena witnessing those bad things and not doing anything to stop or prevent them is almost as bad.
Also, Serena always relied on her family's name or money to solve her problems (the teacher, the guy that overdosed) while Blair mostly fixed her own problems (by blackmail, schemes, plans, etc, but still, she was mostly responsible for fixing her own problems).
I would love an analysis on Jenny Humphery and the girl that dethrones the Queen Bee trope.
This!!
Me too
You mean the girl that puts up a good fight…for a freshman?
they did jenny so wrong..she was a confused teenager..but then she turned into a hustler with real talent for fashion but no one ever truly supported her...
Yes, and connect it with Mean Girls.
I am still shook how she just brushed off the fact that she had slept with her best friend's boyfriend, lied and got offended that Blair ignored her. All GG characters were toxic af but this girl was another level.
Oh please Serena was no saint but at least she wasn’t a stuck up snob like Blair. It’s also funny how you blame Serena for sleeping with Nate but don’t blame Nate who was also involved but maybe your just a misogynistic Blair twerp
she literally slept with any and every guy she met.... and shes not the only one, the whole cast of gg females did that, she did dan, nate, and his nephew then blair did nate, dan, chuck, then vanessa also did dan, nate, chuck
even some of the females comming in for dating roles switched from guy to guy... way to set an example, also how are they not disguisted with eachother sleeping with every friend/ex/boyfriend etc....
The best thing about GG is Chuck and Blair.
@@LUIZBSANTOSLbchuck is a creep who assaults women
U forgot about Carter/cosine of Nate.
One thing I've noticed about serena, at least in season 1, is that she's the definition of "a friend to all, is a friend to none". She keeps up her nice girl act by never involving herself in drama, but to a point where she is just a horrible friend to everyone. She maintains her friendship with Nate even after sleeping with him while he's with her BEST FRIEND and after he judges Blair for being with Chuck when they were broken up as if he didn't do worst, never defends Blair for anything, tells her she shouldn't have slept with Chuck and Nate, but also doesn't even react or defend Blair when Jenny purposefully overhears her conversation with her boyfriend and tells Nate that Blair slept with Chuck. She overall pretends to be super nice by never being a good friend and taking a stand in an issue unless it directly involves her and her ability to be the centre of attention.
As a teenager I used to love Serena and Blair but now, looking back I cringe remembering how much I adored them especially Blair. Teen me loved the glamorized and "sassy" characters but as I have grown out of it, I realise that neither Serena nor Blair were people that someone should try to emulate 'cause they are incredibly selfish and callous people.
Chuck was the bad boy favourite in the heydays of gossip girl and I can't wrap my head around it. He sexually assaulted Jenny and Serena and ruined so many lives but somehow that's forgiven 'cause he is hot and he fell in love? GG fandom still adores Blair and Serena when neither were good friends or people to each other or anyone else. Substitute them for someone not pretty and well dressed and no one will either sympathies or like them.
That’s what made the show so great to me. All of the characters were unlikable assholes, but they were also very human and relatable on an emotional level.
That's one part of my double thinking of GG
Well yeah. Most women will forgive a man as long as he attractive. Regular behavior
Make the characters lower class and you have its always sunny in philadelphia
@@Transformers217 I mean I get what you are saying but are they really relatable even on an emotion level? I get it that it's a show for fun but I can't help but analyze it.
The characters motives and their actions only made sense to me till season 1. Personally, I understood the insecurities and the terrible ways they acted in season 1 'cause they made sense. Serena wanting to be better after the whole overdose thing, Blair's bulimia and her need to fit into her dream life, Nate's frustrations with his parents, Chuck's asshole nature and Dan's desire to get in the elite club of UES but those things stop being reasons to justify terrible behaviour and crimes (like wtf were these people even doing?) and start being excuses after a while.
Blair, serena and chuck dismantling someone's life 'cause they are teens is something that is understandable but they still kept doing the same juvenile shit as grown ass adults. Don't even get me started on the level of weirdness that is Dan and Serena's relationship. Guy stalked girl and her friends for years even when they were dating, his dad married her mum and they share a half sibling(?), wrote a book about how a character based on him is in love with her best friend and bashed her and then somehow got the girl? To me, the only character who bore any semblance of growing up was Nate.
Describing yourself constantly as nice seems like a red flag to me.
The show does a very good job of clearly establishing that Serena is a product of her environment, arguably all the worse parts. The issue is that we are introduced to her through the eyes of Gossip Girl and Dan, both who idolize and worship her (yes he does end up being Gossip Girl but that's irrelevant). Their entire relationship is built on the fantasy of her, this idea that she is the "special snowflake" of the upper east side, different from all the rest, and the conflict comes with them both trying to reconcile the fantasy with the reality because they both believe it to be true. In fact their relationship fails and succeeds because of this- you guys should make a video about them, the perils of loving a fantasy and being loved as a fantasy.
Serena is reckless, selfish, entitled, manipulative, irresponsible, out of touch, zero sense of accountability, constantly handed things others have to work for and always managing to fail forward- and to top it all off she's ungrateful for all of it. But they are right about one thing; she is different from all the rest. Because as awful as everyone else around her is they all have to work for what they want. They all have responsibilities and face consequences for their actions, even pretty boy Nate, yet Serena floats through life free as a bird crashing in and out of people's lives, making a mess of things and never looking back or bothering to clean up. She is the summation of everything we hate about that world, every negative stereotype. And does it with a smile.
Couldn’t have put it better myself, she’s my least favorite character for those reasons
You said it, I couldn't have articulated it better
She’s terrible😭😭😭Her faux activism reeks of elitism. Dan was right in that respect but girl, she’s NEVER risked anything except her money. Elitism at its best/worst. 🥰🥰🥰😭
Is that why Juliet was after her and also Jenny and Vanessa ?
Imagine pretending to be “normal” by saying you’re marrying a CEO
I liked all the characters on Gossip Girl ( little J was probably my favorite). But I really felt that Serena shouldn't have ended up with Dan at the end. The little bit of growth her character had should have made her reject Dan for manipulating her, and insulting her in his novel. She should have stayed single and become more independent.
I just think that too, like how in hell could she go back to him after all. She sould've reached real independence at the final season.
Serena and Nate should have been the power couple ruling NYC, with Nate as Mayor. Dan should have gone to jail, but instead they allowed him to change his name to Joe Goldberg and he went to LA to harass another ditsy blonde, and resorted to murder.
Sydney Sweeney would have made an amazing Jenny Humphrey in my opinion. Starting in season 2 but especially season 3 and for what little she was on in season 4, and even her cameo in season 6 finale, Taylor Momsen’s rock persona was so prevalent when she portrayed Jenny Humphrey, it didn’t fit in with the WASP-y UES persona
Definetly being single would be the best for her.
I thought I was the only one who liked Jenny 😅 people always criticize her for being a “wannabe” and a “mean girl” but… she’s 14. Not excusing her behavior, but I think people forget that she’s the youngest character on the show. Of course she’s going to be naïve, insecure, desperate and a little mean. She’s no worse than Blair or Serena.
Serena was the character that we were supposed to love the most, but I think Blair is liked more because even though Selena was the "nice" girl she was a professional victim that couldn't help she was beautiful and if someone had a problem with her, they were the problem.
While Blair thanks to her mother had to prove herself and honestly, she didn't have the poor victim act to fall on when she messed up, she had to actually deal with the backlash and actually grew as character because of it. Yes, she was mean, but she worked for her success unlike Serena who was poster child just getting things handed to you even when you don't deserve it because of who you are and doesn't have to grew because their rewarded anways.
Blair was a blazing betch but she owned it
Blair was an annoying cry baby.
I never understood why people feel like you have to deserve things to get things. In a society where gaining resources is the primary way to gain access to safety, comfort, success and ease in life, getting resources is a good thing that most people want/need. So whether or not you "deserve" it or "earn" it, why does it matter? If people hand you resources, the smart thing to do is say thanks and accept it. It's weird to be annoyed when people are able to get resources and network without having to put blood, sweat and tears into it. Humanity acknowledges that everyone needs certain things but hate people who get those things easily. I mean that's the whole goal isn't it? Find a way to get your wants and needs met with the least possible resistance. I don't get the bitterness behind it.
@@ZariDV thank u for that. I watched like 3 contents from this channel and my take on the Take is the same as you. I think this channel is resentful and full of anachronistic proletariat-like victim mentality as the contents whine and shit on "rich" people and "nepotism" while glorifying some crazy conartartists for cheating the riches, as if they are Robin Hood of our era or something 🤔 What is infuriating is they do this in the name of feel good and sound good ideologies like feminism, equality and what nots.
While I do think ths character Blair Waldorf still is an aggressive immature heroine, and i don't think the original comment wasn't necessarily along the same lines as you were making as Blair is just as privileged if not more than Serena as that girl married some European prince then the supposed the wealthiest man of the UES, the overall connotation of this channel and its supporters would fall into some crazy victim mentality.
@@casebycase_904 my comment was mostly in response to the original commenter's last line. I'm don't think there was any hero or heroine in Gossip Girl. There were people we rooted for because we liked them in spite of how awful they all were, but I don't think anyone was decent enough to be a hero(ine). Mind you, this isn't a bad thing to me. I think the allure of the show was watching messy people be messy. It was tooth rotting entertainment. We didn't come for the moral compass. We came to watch rich folks lie, cheat, backstab, fight, manipulate, steal, swindle, and do crimes. All while looking attractive, wearing clothes we wish we could wear, eating/drinking food we wish we could taste and hanging out in places we couldn't afford to as teenagers. It was even marketed as something parents would hate their teens watching which only made more teens curious. It was never a morally good series and that was the fun part when we were kids. Blair was a terrible person and Serena was also awful. Not because they were rich but because of how they behaved toward others.
I was pushing back against the idea that Serena was bad compared to Blair (who was openly villainous and I loved her for it back then). Blair and Serena were the children of people who were in similar tax brackets so both were equally privileged. The only reason Blair had to work hard to earn things later on while Serena didn't (as much) was because of their mindsets. Serena grew up with her mother who tended to marry into money. She saw her mom use her pretty privilege and networking to connect to people who already did the work and could marry and benefit from it. To the point where she got so much money from her divorces that she could live lavishly while single and do whatever she wanted for work as well. Serena adopted that and she'd use weaponized femininity and her pretty privilege and networking to connect with rich men while enjoying her trickle down family wealth too. It's smart. Why stress yourself out working for resources when people willingly throw them at you? Why? Just to say you worked for it? Then what? Blair on the other hand grew up with her mom who started a business and earned her wealth herself. She adopted that and made plans to go to an Ivy League university and work hard and be successful so she'd gain wealth like her mother. Admirable and wonderful, but also her choice. She never had a role model that showed her exactly how to use her charms to get her way. She only know how to use her charms to scare and manipulate people into doing what she wanted. Blair used her charms to command/control while Serena used her charms to coax/control. They're two sides of the same coin. Both manipulative, but in different ways. They were friends for a reason and that same reason is why they clashed so much. A lot of fans get tricked into thinking Serena never does anything and just get things, but she is very much using active tricks and tips to get everything she gains. She's just more subtle and sneaky about it. She's not naive, she's using weaponized helplessness that makes people rush to her aid. The show is aware of that when they show her snapping out of that and being perfectly competent when she wants to be.
Serena, Blair and Jenny make up the perfect trio- Blair is the vicious, calculating hardworking know-it-all who's ambition is on coke and Serena is the effortlessly pretty, reckless and selfish "it Girl" who everyone is obsessed with- and then there's Jenny, Lil J, who's a combination of the two. Jenny is as reckless and selfish as Serena and as vicious and manipulative and ambitious as Blair. That's why she's able to show them both up at times, because she has the "best of both girls".
Season 1 Serena, I loved. She was actually, genuinely, sweet and not just a fake nice person. Was she Uber privileged and completely ignorant of it?? Yes, but it was very endearing and her personality made up for it. But after that, everything goes downhill for her and she becomes one of the most unlikeable hypocrites of the main cast
I think this analysis could have gone deeper into her character. As a caricature of the rich white girl with all these problems, yes she is pretending to dislike the wealth and attention. But there are motivations and experiences through the show which fuel it. Those are worth exploring too
Absolutely! They barely scratched the surface with this one. It felt like they just glorified everything wrong with Serena because she’s beautiful and stylish.
Blair was my jam. I related more to her than Serena, she felt more human with her insecurities and hard work.
Blair always worked for what she wanted while Serena got everything handed to her
She could have done so much in her life. Instead, she stayed in her own bubble.
Such is reality when the wealthy just sit in their little bubbles but then have the audacity to tell the rest of us to donate to causes that they themselves could donate 0.063% of their wealth to accomplish the cause’s goal, or encourage us to live green while they fly in private jets, or shame Trump for being misogynistic in early 2017 awards season and then later that year when the Harvey situation came to light, and they all got cancelled for being sleezy and abusive themselves, then have the audacity to act like they didn’t know. The wealthy are hypocrites
Headmistress Queller said the same thing at the Constance-St Judes reunion in season 4
@@WolfeStirfry yeah....i remember
I liked Serena in LA. It seemed like a good fit. I was upset when she decided to stay in NYC with Dan.
@@BellesView Serena literally quintessential LA girl
This was such a cool video essay. I see it in my circle too: We all know a Serena. Maybe the silver lining is that Serena doesn’t discriminate. Well, atleast she doesn’t in a conscious way.
as someone who read all the GG books during my teenage years, i can't quite acknowledge the series because the two have little in common. serena, in the books, was also "perfect" and in theory, questioning the status quo by interacting with the brooklyn cast. but looking back, i don't think she was interested in dan because he was lower class, but because he was an artist and so is she, with the books ending with serena becoming a model and a actress. maybe that's why she didn't fully belong in the upper east side. and also, Gossip Girl was never revealed in the books - and i personally think she was serena. first, because serena was too flawless (lol) and second, because i always felt that GG was really easy on her and super mean to everyone else.
She got her knight in shining armor in the end, so that's all that matters.
I'm of course talking about Ryan Reynolds.
Serena seems very nice and her personality is charming, but her life as a general is a mess. She went from one boy to another instantly and dropped out of collage.
It’s because of her relationship with her mom and her dad wasn’t in the picture and she was looking for her dad but her dad didn’t want her
I agree the dating others instantly showed a cry for help, but her dropping out of college really wasn’t a big deal. Some people just don’t want to do college.
Queen B all the way! Blair, Georgina at least were not hiding their personalities and they haven’t acted like a victim ALL THE TIME.
Serena did so many terrible things but tried to make herself look as if it wasn’t her fault. She was more responsible in s01 than in s06.
Out of all the main characters she’s the one who played the victim most of the time. Blake is gorgeous(so is Leighton) but even when I started watching the show in 2007&was 13 years old, I disliked Serena(Blake L.) really quick.
Blair(Leighton M.) knows and isn’t trying to to hide the real Blair. But sure, neither of those two is a good role model anyway(well my inner child/teen still loves Blair😂❤
That's the thing people don't get about Serena. She isn't intentionaly mean for MOST of the show, she is just oblivious to damage she is doing because she never faced any consequences for doing something bad or any challenges to get what she wants. That of course isn't good but is probably meant to show how people like that behave, even though they might not be intentionally mean.
I don't care what anybody says. Serena and her mom are my spirit animals, and I love how both of them are so unapologetically free-spirited, rebellious and non-conformists in love. I never liked how much I resemble Blair - I always found her petty, closed-minded, mean, envious, jealous, insecure, and low on self-confidence. I know she was very relatable, but never saw her traits as aspiring, even though she was an extremely loyal person. Serena, on the other hand, was a nice person with a good heart, whose only errors were her recklessness and selfishness. Will forever love her natural magnetism and courage to follow her heart at any given moment with no care of what people will think of her!
I wanted to be Serena in season one and then wanted to be Blair in the second half of season one.
blair is always act like a victim )) she never had gratitude for anything she was jealous of everything and everyone , that`s victim mentality
Make a video about the one known as "Lonely Boy." I'd love to watch the dissection on one Dan Humphrey at some point. And yes, no one has forgotten that infamous twist during GG's series finale, either. 😉
Serena acts like she has substance and that she deserves more "crave more than this provincial life" but she just wants to go off on adventures and when they don't work out for her, she goes back to her safety net of being Serena VDW, having everything and being loved by everyone. Her default is something most people dream of, and she chafes at it. She is the furthest anybody can get from being an underdog.
In my opinion, Serena was the least honest about who she was and what she wanted. Blair, Chuck etc behaved atrociously but they were always straight down the line in terms of their personalities and goals.
This is the best commentary from this channel in quite some time. Congrats for your Return to Form!
Serena also wanted to ruin Blair and dans relationship to seek revenge from Blair from a fight that she started I HATE her
Without watching a second of this video, the answer is no...Serena is most certainly NOT nice. Not only is nobody on Gossip Girl nice, literally every single character is aggressively toxic. The only thing that separates them is the degree of how terrible they are. But Serena being slightly less terrible than somebody who is objectively awful doesn't make her nice.
This articulated my dislike or Serena so well. I couldn’t finish the series because she irked me so much with her holier than thou ‘I’m a nice girl, everything will be alright’ optimism. When she was blind to the good fortune and insane privilege that was the main cause of Serena being all right.
People aren’t rich because they are nice, they are nice because they are rich.
Terry prachet said the rich can afford to be poor. I think we see that here, she can afford to do certain things and act a certain way because she’s rich
I wacthed Gossip Girl recently, in my twenties, the only characters I really rooted for were Jenny and Vanessa, ironically they are the most hated in the fandom. You trully understand their struggles and motivations, sure they made mistakes but most of them were understandable given the context.
If you are mature enough to see through the rottness of the Upper East Side and everyone envolved in that life the only likable characters are Jenny, Vanessa and Eva.
This right here. I never understood the hate Jenny and Vanessa got. Especially Vanessa
Chuck tried to rape 2 girls but Jenny and Vanessa get more hate than him
I also started watching gossip girl and I love Jenny especially when she managed to talk her way out of a B&E charge.
Dan captured the perfect real personality of Serena in the book “Inside”
This is the type of content I love seeing from this channel! Complex and nuanced take that’s universally interesting.
I liked her in the first two seasons where I really felt she was trying to change. I liked that about her but then she became someone going from guy to guy. I never hated her but the writers gave up on her character. Like they did on everybody else. She is nice compared to Blair. I love Blair but she wouldn’t like me lol
"I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
The Great Gatsby.
I knew her ass was Daisy. Dan is Nick Calloway.
GG portrayed the difference between even though the side characters were from rich families, they didn't have power as much as the main ones. Serena was Charming and beautiful, the reason many people prefer Blair over her is because she doesn't own her privilege. Blair was so vicious and if you assess her, she was a bad person, she would ruin people's life but she owned it and didn't run away. Serena also ruined people's lives but she wasn't the person you can blame because she was so charismatic and innocent. But there was a season in which she was jealous of Lola and she did her best ti ruin her life just because she wanted the spotlight back to her which she herself gave away acting how much she hated it. They didn't put efforts in Serena's character at all. All the characters in the end would do the same things over and over again without any good reason. When I started watching the series, I was so enchanted by Serena and as the series progressed, I liked Blair more.
I think this video is really unfair. I don’t think she is a “fake nice girl”, I think she tries. I mean, try to put yourself in her shoes, she was born with everything and everyone loving her and getting away with everything. Her mother, her family and all of her friends aways say she doesn’t need to be good or try hard because she is who she is and doesn’t need to be a good person. However, she TRIES to understand the world out of her bubble and TRIES to be a good person. Maybe she is not all the time, because it is easier to be shallow and elite (like Blair and all her friends and family), but she wants to.
Everything she knows since she was born, its how to be shallow, being the center of attention, the comfort… So even if she doesn’t successfully manage to be the nice person all the time, she tried to become even though EVERYONE around her doesn’t want her to get out of her privileged world.
I think wanting to be good and wanting to be a better person even thought she doesn’t need to, is a really huge and amazing thing in the toxic world they live in.
Dan isn't even poor, his father was an old rock star
I gotta say, I still love Serena’s hair lol 😂
Picking Blair is why this works. She has that thing that is just naturally Charismatic.
serena is way more charismatic than blair could ever be lmao
@@soapoperaz what? Blair literally CARRIED the show and everyone knows that. No one would watch without Blair.
@@Ambereigh yes she carried the show cause she was mean but serena was charismatic
@@Ambereigh she carried the show because she is relatable , she is jealous and insecure as most these female viewers of the show
a few years ago a bunch of my friends binge watched Gossip Girls and it still cracks me up how they all ended the show completely hating nonstop on Serena lmao
i never liked her at all tbh
Serena is one of the faces of nepotism presented in the show. She doesn't have to work to be succesfull, things just happens to her (like her job on the production of the movie in season 5, i belive). She tries to engage in college and work but ultimatly everything bores her. In the end she became this afluently rich women married to a big writer, showcasing the end of many rich girls. She doesn't have to work, and we know she's not dumb. She has connections, knowledge and access to things since she was very young (and we can see that in Lily, in the begging we are led to belive she's just a silly beautiful woman marrying rich and by the middle of the series she's commanding Barth enterprise, and very well!) . She can have everything she wants but she doesn't ~really~ want them, and that's shown in the series. the contrast between her and blair is that while blair was the "try hard" serena knew that in the end not much matters when you know the right people. it's also funny how the show plays with the marylin x jackie (in blair's case, audrey) persona of the girls.
blair didn`t try hard xx she has same connections and opportunities , she is just jealous buller and women understand her , because they are the same
I hated Blair and loved Serena in the books. Had the absolute opposite feeling when the show came out.
Am I the only one that don't see it? We introduced to Serena as the party girl who ran away after sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend. Was she the nice girl? I don't remember her like that at all. She wasn't the most awful character on the show, she was a main character that we were suppose to root for, but I don't remember ever thinking that she is "nice" or "good".
Also, even if Dan is lower status, he is still going to that school and people know him, even without being associated to Serena.
Lmao I just realised that the actors playing Serena’s love interests are hot. Exhibit A: Sebastian Stan.
@@somewheresilverlake apparently Blake had him fired off of GG because he was sleezy and inappropriate with her. Even back in 09 he was bad news
Serena was multi dimensional. She was nice, mean, jealous, empathetic and apathetic all at once. Definitely one of the best written female characters in recent decades.
One of my fave shows ever. Still watching it many years later I realize how toxic the characters were even though I still love the show. I do feel like the writing went horribly downhill. A major part of her not really doing much is because she was never able to really find that thing that she really wanted to do. Blair was always going to have a career somewhere in the fashion world but Serena never found her footing because the writers never allowed her to explore seriously other than minor things like working as a publicist. It was always dating storylines and had she found her place in the real world I feel like her character would have had so much more growth.
Most of us are living that rich, middleclass, or working class irony; a very few can own up to what we actually are but those are the extreme cases. Like Chuck and Blair. Even Vanessa sucked at being that ordinary down to earth girl
I don't care what anybody says. Serena and her mom are my spirit animals, and I love how both of them are so unapologetically free-spirited, rebellious and non-conformists in love. I never liked how much I resemble Blair - I always found her petty, closed-minded, mean, envious, jealous, insecure, and low on self-confidence. I know she was very relatable, but never saw her traits as aspiring, even though she was an extremely loyal person. Serena, on the other hand, was a nice person with a good heart, whose only errors were her recklessness and selfishness. Will forever love her natural magnetism and courage to follow her heart at any given moment with no care of what people will think of her!
Blair is just a real rich girl person with real problems, but Serena she is the status quo, beauty, white beauty is her image in the dictionary, she is always getting validated. My mother language is not english, I''m sorry if it's hard to understand me.
@@Annakarollina1202 blair has no real problems
@@soapoperaz Seriously? What about her anorexia? What about her parents neglect? What about the divorce of her parents because her dad ran off with another man?
@@Random_Wierdo. well yes but all that stuff was in season 1. Her dad leaving her and her mother for a model, her childhood best friend leaving her without saying goodbye, finding out her childhood boyfriend has always loved her childhood best friend way more than her, her eating disorder, her mom being cold to her. In season 1 I could understand why blair was so mean and cold to everyone. After season 1 though all that stuff was gone and in the past and they made her an irredeemable highschool mean girl bully.
i wish i could watch this show for the first time again
Please do a break down of Blair! I always felt better connected to Blair!
this hits different after the It Ends With Us thing...
I liked her in season one, and I got frustrated with her a few times in the frustrating in the 2nd season but she was absolutely unbearable season 3 and beyond. Her character development kept regressing.
I am new to Gossip Girl series because I have only been binge-watching this since July and still on season 5. At first, I thought that Serena was the heart of this series because she always got the spotlight more often than anyone else. Come to think of it, I was wrong. It was Blair and Chuck that seem to me more realistic and not to mention that their characters had improved from one episode to the whole next episodes.
You not realise that Blair and Chuck "improving" was by design, because they wanted to put Dan and Chuck at the same level, even that Chuck was way worse offender literally, having sex with the hotel staff of father hotel and sexually assaulting any one in his sight, and even give him a "redemption" arc..
Being "nice" is not the same as not being actively mean. I wasn't as engrossed in the show, but I don't recall any of the characters doing actual nice things, much less Serena. She never volunteered, or donated to organisations. Maybe some of the older women ran charities? But Serena never did. She was merely pleasant to people, not saying mean and snide remarks that some of the other characters were renown for. She never tried to make the world better for other people.
I always hated Serena on GG and the Serenas of the world, maybe because i grew up watching them have it easy and have things handed to them
What we need is a video on how hypocritical Dan Humphrey was. Wants to act like he hates privileged when he was obsessed with it from Serena, the gossip girl page to moving into Blair’s building. Serena would have been her free spirit self regardless - she’s spoiled but not a spoiled brat - Humphrey defines people who hate privileged bc they are not part of the society. He wasn’t spoiled but he was a brat.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk & for making it this far 😂
I truly believe that she's nice, even kind, to everyone she comes across (she doesn't discriminate) BUT she's a free spirit, and i think subconsciously, she will find anyone that will enable that (even if it means marrying rich).
But with Dan, i felt like he was able to expanded her life, even intelligently, and of course, Dan was affectionate towards her which, who wouldn't like that. However I feel like she wouldn't have dated anyone out of her school tho (or at least the rich privileged school type. Serena might have that Dan was an except to be rich somehow). I loved Serena in season 1 bc girl could flirt and was smart, and i feel like they dumber her for the show. Serenagas Social Intelligence which people look over, and under value bc, again she is genuinely a nice person (but i don't think she will be anyones friend... unless their crazy fun like her).
People can say what they want but at least the other characters kept it real and true to who they were unlike Serena. She was honestly the most toxic one to me because she was the one not honest to herself
Love for you guys to do an analysis on the girlfriends character or malcolm in the middle
Oh absolutely she is. I didnt care for the charcter. Well that scene where her Queen B persona happened after the nair hair incident. I loved Blair because she didnt try and pretend
Exactly Blair had her flaws, but she actually worked literally all Serena did was complain about how hard her life was when she was the one that added to most of her problems.
@@lstarsabb being a bully is a flaw?? blair was a terrible person she wasn’t “flawed”
@@soapoperaz she was flawed just because you don't like her flaws doesn't change the fact that people liked he flaws more than Serena's.
@@lstarsabb I hope you meet someone like blair in real life tbh
@@soapoperaz I never said bully was okay hun. I said Blair is more likable. You might not like that but it is what is. I'm sorry if you've been bully it's not okay, but you attacking someone for an opinion is hypocritical.
Started with everyone being obsessed with Serena.. ended with Everyone being in love with Blair.. LOL.. Including Dan ( Serena's Man)...
FINALLY A GOSSIP GIRL VIDEO
I think the show just didn’t wanna get rid of her wealth. It’s like half her personality and lure. What’s every girls wants to obtain. The storyline wanted to explore these avenues of her life so they used her love interest as a device for the viewers. Smart. Also shows back in the 2000s had at least 20 episodes so yeah….there’s that. She’s a flawed character and she doesn’t want to escape riches just scrutiny. She’s having false info spread about her. All the while she’s doesn’t even know who she is yet.
I was a die hard fan and I literally just remembered she had a brother
The fact that now her style is coming back in stores have so exited
Me and my friends, now in our mid 20s were binge watching GG and there was a Sunday brunch scene we were discussing on how in this 30-60min time fame, the characters had sex 3ce, broke up 2ce, conspired against another and ruined another's reputation. Lol all in the duration of a brunch! Ahh, rich ppl's on screen lives.
serena was never meant to be the “nice” girl in the show, before serena left for boarding school it was said that serena was the “queen” of the school and she was the one with the minions that’s why they were so quick to go back to her in season 2, she hung out with georgina who was anything but nice (and all of serena’s friends hated her) and that should really speak volumes about what kind of person she was before coming back. i don’t think her character did a 180 i think they just wanted to show the other toxic side of serena that she tried so hard to mask because there wasn’t really any reason to bring her out in earlier seasons since the spotlight was always on her and not blair. i’d also like to say that people complain about how they ruined her character but they did the same to blair in season six and i hate it, it was like they switched their personalities back, serena almost getting engaged, hosting galas, being on the committee, made her look like she finally was growing up like blair did in season 4-5 vs blair ruining her friendship with dan and serena, waiting around for chuck to be over with his war against his father, going back to sabotaging serena like she did in highschool, all while she was destroying her mothers fashion brand
it was like the writers gave blair the spotlight for two seasons until they got bored and returned it back to serena all while ruining blair’s character just to uplift serena’s
The s6 and end of s5 did them all terribly, Serena included. During s5 she finds some job, starts working and doesn't date anyone, but by the end she becomes crazy possesive and uses Dan for revenge on her best friend after publishing Blair's diaries to try to break them up. In s6 she goes back to her earlier self, doing nothing and being still defined by a guy she is with although knowing very little about him (there was a pattern throughout the show with her guys, they meet, they sneak arround, she goes crazy for him, they wanna run away from everybody and after 4-5 episodes, everything crashes down). In the end, she stays the party girl with not much more to offer, Blair goes back to her abuser and still tries to go through life as a high school mean girl incapable of succeeding in real world (even her designs are school uniforms!!!), Chuck is still a bad buisnessman trying to prove his father wrong and Dan becomes vindictive and hurts even people who didn't do anything wrong to him while Nate does what his family wanted although he didn't show much interest in it previously. Too bad because the series really could show them maturing and becoming real people, instead, they showed two girls who peaked in high school and guys chasing after them who are not much better. The worst part to me is that the viewer is supposed to feel good about it all in the end.
Well said! Blair didn’t deserve to inherit Waldorf Designs so quickly. Nobody’s ending was earned.
@@BellesView yeah, real missed opportunity for shosw that popular and influential to show teenage viewers some character growth and development instead of just endless drama which by the end was so messed up that nothing made sense anymore.
Great video, would love to see feminine archetypes, as portrayed by the different women on the show
Yes, that would be great!
people will never stop taking about S. and B. cause they dont just pretend, they are the it girls that we really love!
Blair resumed the whole thing in the beginning.
I love Serena. However I love her mom's top-tier elegance more.
Lily is more interesting than Serena.
Shes not perfect..she can be vengefull, mean and blunt but shes a teen trying to find herself in a messed up side of rich and fame.. shes not the worst.
Turns out blake is serena irl 😕
I love Serena and I loved Blair, I enjoy their faults and love their qualities. I just hate the way the fans feel like they have to put down one character to enjoy the other. I don't get the need to attack women, what is wrong with people?
Blake Lively is so pretty
Serena brutally destroyed her relationship with the French prince and tipped off his mother. She had no reason to hate Blair for liking Dan. She should’ve wondered why Blair wanted keep this from her. Jealous much? She is suchhh a
Please do a video about Prudence from the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina!
The answer is clear as day. Serena is NOT truly a nice girl, it’s an act. She lives for the attention and drama
Serena Vander Woodsen is a very complex character to play in hindsight . The show started with her coming back for her brother who tried to commit suicide. her mother was always neglectful of both of them and her unstable home life was the reason her style was different then Blair's . A little less put together and more spontaneous. Not to mention Blair had so much support from her mother, Dorota, her dad , Cyrus , her step dad and Serena.
Serena didn't have that support. Her mother was never appreciated or understood her and Never took a stand for her . her brother was suicidal and her father was absent and was never there to be the father figure she and Eric needed. The only person who understood her was her best friend Blair. the people who stood up for her were Nate , Chuck and Blair who were also victims of defamatory articles published by the gossip girl and the unwanted fame and attention. The only person who saw her past the 'it Girl' persona was Blair and she admired it while looking down it. In season 1 Serena does try to change her lifestyle of the excessive partying and using the rich girl privilege but fails because of Dan. Dan is the most pretentious person. a who person could do no wrong. After Serena confesses that she messed up he breaks up with her . Serena rightfully so tells that she cheated on him rather than tell him the truth . Serena cared about only Dan's opinion and he lacked understanding and forgiveness. She desperately wanted him back because Dan was the only one who saw her for herself or who she aspired to be . Serena's character development went down the drain after since she lost reason as to why it happened. Blair was an other reason of why she was closed of to the opportunities in her way . Blair loved projecting her insecurities on her. She turned down every opportunity to change because of her . The fear of outshining Blair was deep rooted that way she would much rather prefer not try than to try and win against Blair. The only person who sees as a person. The fear of losing her had been there. That's why she went somewhere she didn't have face Blair and fall from grace in her eyes.The more Messier part of her life was her love life. Every guy who treated like a normal person she started dating them in order to get love and attention and affection she deserved . She was nice to everyone who appeared on show because she knew how being unappreciated and overlooked feels like. She tried to help everyone but herself.
Her character and all the trusted found babies changed because the 2008 crisis, the show runners had the options of doing the satire of rich people but they chose to bend the knee to the status quo and frame the rich people like "everyone else" and poor characters at the same level of careless, cruelty as the trust found babies, only that the poor characters suffer the consequences greatly at difference from the trust found babies.
She’s THE OTHER WOMAN TWICE!! She’s only nice to ppl when they’re in the places her put them to.
I loved this show i love shows about elite society always have. I also liked little moments in the show like Blair and Chuck watching Roman Holiday together on her laptop. Why should Serena apologize for her privelage we all would love that have it thats why we watched.
Yes... Exactly... I thoroughly enjoyed the first few seasons solely for this reason.
Season 1 was the best, the rest was rubbish. Also the book characters were so much better written than on the show. At least more believable)
Season 2 was also good!
I think it would be interesting to explore why Serena and Blair worked were Jordan and Zoyla failed. This new characters ate not only unappealing but boring.
The fact that most of main cast barely stays in touch with each other except for Penn and Chace (not like best buddies or whatever) goes to show the producers ruining the vibes and bond of the actors off shoot.
I always hated Serena. Never sympathized or loved her. She repeatedly made selfish choices, broke friendships, and would treat everyone below her. Hated when others getting her spotlight
blair did the same exact thing??
Team Serena! All day, everyday. Blair was pitiful. "
Hate to admit it but GG was my guilty pleasure, n Serena was a Big part of it... Wow the wardrobe department really went all the way with Blake Lively!!!
I can feel that Serena will be like those celebrity NEPO babies that will do anything to hide their privilege 😅 Blaire will be like "Yeah I'm rich and nepo baby ! 💅" HAHAHAHA
Serena is so unbearable! And such a hypocrite.
I think she is really annoying, playing the victim and pretending to hate the attention, but hating it when she’s not the center of attention.
Blair tells her this in one episode: it’s who you are
I always found her really annoying
Serena is basically Rory Gilmor, but we see her trough her small town's lens instead of the realistic one if we watch Gossip Girl.😂😂😂
P.S
Eventhough Blair is deemed more toxic, I liked her more because I had similar upbringing and I guess all the percieved terrible things she did would be done by every teenager with her wealth, living in a state like USA who always glorified teens acting mean and reckless, because the clarity comes in in many people only in young adulthood, all the stuff she did would be done by someone who could afford to not face consequences, knowing the teens do not outgrow the me me me phase from the childhood and therefore fail to see a bigger picture, that what they do doesen't affect only them but the other people too.
Serena was a great character but a terrible person. She skirted personal responsibility all the time, had no real sense of how her behavior effected others and she didn't seem to care. She seemed willfully blind to her privilege, though she was clearly comfortable enjoying it.
blair was a terrible person too
@@soapoperaz Sure, but she wasn't lacking in self-awareness or ambition on the same level as Serena.
@@thegirlabides6851 still a terrible person whether she was lacking self awareness or not. I’d rather be friends w someone like serena than blair, I think any normal person would.
@@soapoperaz cool, I didn't disagree with you. My point was that Serena acts innocent and she's oblivious to her privilege and receives fewer consequences. Blair on the other hand does suffer consequences more often (though not nearly enough) and she's aware she's a bad person. I don't want to be friends with either of them.
Yes, you're right. Serena can turn on her charm off and on like a faucet, she acts sunny and bubbly if its beneficial to her- Not to mention, Serena is so quick to criticize the actions of other people while overlooking the same in herself. She is also a far more jealous person than Blair.
When it comes to the show portrayal, I truly don't believe Serena is fake, more obliviously self-centred and entitled. Which is damaging and hard to deal with in its own right. She can be wrong and be a privileged asshole without being outright malicious or villainous at the same time. The book version of S. could fairly be described as having malicious intentions, though.