The Class-Conscious Reboots Hollywood Should Make After Gossip Girl

Gossip Girl is coming to HBO Max, with a new season from the show’s original creators that’s half reboot, half sequel. The new Gossip Girl is still about the trials and tribulations of a group of extremely wealthy Manhattan high schoolers, but this time, it’s a different group of extremely wealthy Manhattan high schoolers. “In light of, in light of a lot of things, even going back to Occupy Wall Street, things have shifted.” Safran went on to say that the original Gossip Girl leaned too hard on “wealth porn,” which he described as “Look at these cars, or here’s a montage of the best plated food you’ve ever seen,” suggesting that the new Gossip Girl will rely less on that kind of aspirational vision of extreme wealth. It’s quite possible Safran and co-showrunner Stephanie Savage have made a version of Gossip Girl that lets the audience vicariously enjoy the pleasures of wealth while also acknowledging that rich people are destroying the planet. If the only way that happens is by making Mads Mikkelsen look directly into the camera and say, “I am deeply concerned about income inequality” once per episode, then Mads Mikkelsen had better get ready to look directly into the camera and say, “I am deeply concerned about income inequality.” American Psycho Mary Harron’s adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel is now old enough to drink, but the first installment of the beloved franchise was so well-made that it’s probably the only vintage piece of intellectual property about the wealthy that’s more suitable for a shot-for-shot remake than a reimagining.