I Have A Theory Every Single ‘Gossip Girl’ Character Is Inspired By The Original Series
Gossip Girl is well and truly here, offering a 2021 update on the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite.
The rebooted TV show follows the original series that first aired in 2007, focusing on a new class of privileged teens navigating high school politics and relationships, while having to dodge becoming Gossip Girl’s latest victim. Yep, good ol’ GG is back but this time around, the blog is an Instagram page and the identity is no longer a mystery. We found out in episode one that the school’s teachers have revived Gossip Girl in order to bring their students back in line. Sounds extremely cooked, but OK!
In the place of Serena and Blair are besties Julien and Audrey, along with Zoya, Julien’s half-sister. Watching the rebooted show, it’s hard not to see original series parallels in not just the messy lives of our protagonists, but the characters themselves.
In fact, I would argue that every character has a spiritual doppelgänger from the original series.
Here’s who we reckon every Gossip Girl character is based on*:
(*This is, of course, just wild speculation because I can’t stop thinking about this damn show.)
Max = Chuck
This character is, perhaps, the most blatantly similar to their inspiration. Like… Max is Chuck! The actor, Thomas Doherty, channels Chuck in every line he delivers. Along with his classic Bass swagger and way of speaking like he’s a 55-year-old oil baron, Max also shares a few similarities with Chuck. First up, he starts the season in a love triangle – in Chuck’s case it was between himself, Blair and Nate – while Max is simultaneously hooking up with Audrey and Aki.
Add to this, they both have fractured relationships with their fathers, they’re both sexually promiscuous, notorious for their playboy personas, and basically try to bang every person who comes in their path.
Audrey = Blair
Another truly obvious inspiration source — Audrey is clearly Blair 2.0. They each consider themselves high society princesses, they both have fashion designer mums and absent fathers, their boyfriends cheated on them, they’re attracted to bad boys, and of course, they both can be absolutely ruthless.
Audrey is played by Emily Alyn Lind, and when speaking about her character to Harper’s Bazaar she sounded like she was actually describing Blair. “She’s very into classic, old-fashion type things… she loves Betty Davis, she loves Lauren Bacall, she loves Audrey Hepburn, she’s very into the finer things in life,” Lind said. As any OG Gossip Girl fan will know, Blair was all about that affluent life and was a huge fan of classic Hepburn films like Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Roman Holiday.
Audrey and Blair also both foster resentment (or at the very least annoyance so far in Audrey’s case) towards their best friends — Serena and Julien, respectively — for being more popular, which leads me to my next point…
Julien = Serena
Julien already infuriates me on Gossip Girl, so she must be inspired by Serena. She is introduced as Constance’s resident It Girl: she’s beautiful, popular, and while Serena’s reputation was built by word-of-mouth, Julien has taken this concept into the modern age by being a fully-fledged Instagram influencer.
The show’s makeup artist Amy Tagliamonti worked on both the original series and 2021 reboot and told Allure that she even did Julien’s eye highlight like she would Serena’s. “It is a little throwback to Serena, but nobody knows I’m doing it,” she said.
Julien and Serena both struggle to maintain romantic relationships because of the burden of their family’s social status, but deep down, they each desperately want to be loved and accepted — even if they have a weird way of showing it. To be fair to Julien, she seems a lot more self-aware than Serena ever was, and at least Julien is upfront about her narcissism and privilege.
Zoya = Dan
With an angelic face like that and her naive nature, some might assume Zoya is inspired by Jenny, but if you look a little deeper, I reckon she’s Dan all over. She’s an outsider trying to penetrate the unknown world of Manhattan’s elite, which she does by starting to date the most popular student from one of the richest families. Sound familiar?
Like Dan, Zoya is a scholarship student, who could only afford to join Constance (or in Dan’s case St. Jude’s) based on academic merit — instead of wealth and privilege. Zoya plays innocent, but similar to Dan she’s a deep thinker, so I suspect she knows what she’s doing. If any character were to take the Gossip Girl reigns from the teachers, you just know the most unexpected (and therefore most likely) character would be Zoya… just like Dan was revealed to be Gossip Girl in the original series.
Obie = Nate
I don’t have any strong opinions about Obie — so he simply must be inspired by Nate. They’re both Manhattan’s most eligible Bachelors, they are both rich (well, in Nate’s case, rich in the early seasons), they are both from respected New York families with long legacies, and they both have women fighting over them. As Nate was stuck in the middle of Blair and Serena at the start of Season 1, Obie is stuck between half-sisters Zoya and Julien.
The show’s official Instagram summarised the character of Obie in one word “Privilege” which fits with how Nate was first introduced. Will Obie’s excessive wealth be as short-lived as Nate’s? Stay tuned.
Kate = Jenny
I bet you didn’t see this one coming, but I can see a lot of Jenny in the teacher, Kate. Coming from Brooklyn (like Jenny), she is desperate to fit in and be liked by the popular girls in school and when a student makes fun of her outfit at the beginning of the premiere, she is humiliated. This sounds like a description of Little J, when she was first trying to get into Blair’s cliche — only, Kate is not just an adult, she’s a teacher, so this is another level of embarrassment.
Out for revenge, Kate and the other teachers have revived Gossip Girl to teach the teens a lesson in respecting the people they deem as beneath them. This petty vendetta is true to Jenny in the later seasons, as she went off the rails in a desperate attempt for any shred of popularity. I predict, like Jenny, Kate will go too far with her plotting, burn out, then drop off the face of the earth.
Following in Jenny’s footsteps, I doubt she’ll be in the show beyond one or two seasons. I just pray that next season, she goes goth!
Aki = Vanessa
Aki is the most underwritten main character on Gossip Girl — so he’s basically Vanessa 2.0. Who is he? What drives him? What are his opinions? No one knows. Sure, he adds style and edge to the cast, but not much substance.
Akeno is played by Evan Mock, who is relatively new to acting. He is more known as a menswear fashion model, famous skateboarder, and surfer — so he definitely adds some cool factor, but I don’t know if he’ll stick around long enough on this show to add much to the drama. I hope he doesn’t get the Vanessa edit (aka the character no one wants hanging around) but signs aren’t looking great so far.
Luna & Monet = Blair’s Mean Girls
While Blair had a team of three or five minions (depending on the Gossip Girl era), Julien has streamlined her gang into two absolute powerhouses. Blair had a rotating support group but the core members were Penelope, Jessica, Kati and Nelly, while Julien has stylist Luna and social media manager Monet.
So far, like Blair’s clique, Luna and Monet haven’t received any substantial storylines of their own, outside of scheming on the part of their Queen B.
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