GOSSIP GIRL: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

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GOSSIP GIRL: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

July 24th 2011 04:20

Category: Manga

Based on the GOSSIP GIRL novels by Cecily von Ziegesar
Art & Adaptation by: HyeKyung Baek
Publisher: Yen Press – Hachette Book Group
Cost: AU$18.98/US$12.99

Apparently the Gossip Girl novels and the television series of the same name are something of a runaway hit, a phenomenon that in my usual daily life I had not encountered until now. Let’s face novels and TV shows about the bright young things of Upper East Side Manhattan is not my typical oeuvre, usually I’m someone who has his head in a volume of Bleach or Planetary or even dare I say it the works of Niall Fergusson and Socrates. So delving into the social scene of the ‘chosen ones’ of the city that never sleeps is like delving into a text filled with secrets that man was not meant to know or visiting a new world for me in a sense. Still it has to be said, regardless of the genre the key thing in any work is the story; does it tell a compelling story…

Strangely enough it does have a rather compelling story to it…which even managed to draw someone like myself into its world of bright lights, glitz, glamour and endless partying. And let’s not forget the exclusive schools, the self absorbed parents, the elitism and the whole Ivory Tower vibe of the affair. As far as I could tell most of the key characters in this work have never done it hard in their life or will ever really do it hard…in fact hard is probably having the credit limit on their Amex dropped by half or getting pigeon poop on their Versace or Armani. The horror, the horror…
It should come as no surprise that such a story would be targeted for a manga adaptation, after the manga medium has for the last forty plus years leant itself so well to portraying all manner of genres in Japan so there isn’t any reason why the same can’t be achieved stateside. And in this regard Yen Press has pulled it off they’ve taken an obviously popular, contemporary American work and given it the manga treatment. Let’s face it high school slice of life style drama is a mainstay of the manga medium s much as gigantic robots, demons, ninja and bad ass shinigami, so this is pretty much standard stuff for manga.

So just what exactly is this manga all about? What is the driving force behind the story that propels events and characters along like some kind of perpetual motion? It would be relatively easy for me to cop out of things and say it’s all just some kind of elitist experiment in social Darwinianism, the survival of the fittest in a world which albeit is perceived to be at the peak of modern society but in essence conforms very much to the law of the jungle so to speak. It could be seen to be something along those lines but somehow after the dust had settled it seemed to me that there was a little bit more going on. I like to think that being outside of the target audience for this work, and the works that is based on, I’m looking at things from a decidedly different perspective.
Over the years when doing these reviews on this site I’ve often said it countless times, I like a good story and this work did have an interesting story. But is it really the story that is immediately apparent on the surface or is there really something deeper going on. Hollywood and the book shelves of countless book stores scattered across the length and breadth of the world are littered with works depicting struggles between competing alpha males and females. In this case the two alpha females of Gossip Girl are Serena van der Woodsen aka S and Blair Waldorf aka B. At one stage the two were good friends, but there relationship soured when a guy became involved in proceedings, Nate aka N.
The trials and tribulations that both S and B suffer as B attempts to get back at S are intricately detailed for us through the narration of the mysterious Gossip Girl, a blogger somewhere in the deeps of urban Manhattan who seems to have a very good insight into events. But just who is this mysterious person? Is she one of the peripheral characters such as a friend of B or the tortured film artist Vanessa aka V or even more mysterious someone we don’t quite see? Allegedly one of the ‘chosen ones’ Gossip Girl is the narrator of this story who give her audience an inside glimpse into what the life of these elite individuals are like…but is she really doing that or is she just showing us that despite all the glitz and glamour life for these people is very much ephemeral and hinging on unreality. That it is all very much a case of a class of individuals locked away in an Ivory Tower with no real idea that it can all so horribly come crashing down?
If I had to say if there was a character that I really liked within this work it would have to be Vanessa, she seems to be fairly grounded in the realities of life as well as someone who isn’t interested in playing the games that the so called ‘chosen ones’ indulge in. But then again I have a soft spot for artistic types who are seeking to bring their dreams and ambitions to fruition and that’s a fairly accurate description of V. And then there is our mysterious narrator, Gossip Girl, one wonders just who exactly is she and what is her rationale for informing us the audience about her lifestyle and that of her friends? At the end of the day this particular manga adaptation, which is an original story by the way, of the novels is fairly decent reading. If the intrigues and high living life style of the rich and famous is your oeuvre then you can’t go past Gossip Girl, it will keep you turning pages and no doubt looking for more…

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