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remindmeofthe) wrote2011-10-21 08:31 pm
remindmeofthe) wrote2011-10-21 08:31 pm
Entry tags:
META: "Gossip Girl," Jenny Humphrey, and rape culture
Because apparently the best way to recover from writing three papers in a week is to write approximately 9300 words of meta. Thanks and hearts to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lienne for doing a typo beta for me!
I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I'd gotten back into Gossip Girl; I rewatched everything I'd seen before I drifted away, then proceeded to catch up from there. Now I'm stuck back on the show again and it's all Dan and Blair's fault, but anyway. This post is not about that. This post is inspired by the fact that, since I dropped the show in 2009, I've learned a hell of a lot about feminism and how it works, and about rape culture and how that works. So when I started watching again last month, my perception of quite a few events on the show had shifted considerably. I could make an entire post listing storylines that unsettle me now when they didn't before (like, say, the immeasurably creepy Serena storyline in the last two eps of season one), or talk about stuff I hadn't seen that upset me when I would have read it differently had I watched it when it aired (the S3 hotel storyline, goddamn; actually, I will be talking about that).
But I'm going to narrow my focus even further to talk about Jenny Humphrey's story arc and how the show handled it (spoiler alert: badly).
Consent
Let's start right off by being clear about the definition of consent I am working with.
Fully informed, enthusiastic consent is not a concept that is generally well-understood in our culture. It's exactly what it says on the tin: A consenting person is a person who is clear about what they are agreeing to and actively wants to do it.
A consenting person cannot be: intoxicated; deeply emotionally distraught; too young; on the wrong side of a major power imbalance; other stuff I am probably forgetting. A person who is intoxicated or otherwise unable to think clearly cannot make healthy decisions. (Example from the show: Serena at the wedding where she had sex with Nate. It is made clear over and over that she would never, ever have done it sober, but the event is so intensely romanticized and eroticized that it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Nate had raped her. He may also have been intoxicated, but he's the one with male privilege, which gives him power that Serena does not have.) A person who is too young cannot be relied upon to make healthy decisions; this is why we have age of consent laws. A person on the wrong side of a power imbalance may feel that they cannot say no, or be afraid to say no, which takes away their ability to choose to say yes and means they cannot meaningfully consent.
In short: rape is not just an act of violence. It's not just the rapist forcing themselves on their victim. Rape and consent are far more complex than the black-and-white scenario society gives us. A person can be raped without ever fighting back or saying no, and a person can commit rape without ever realizing they're doing it. Intent does not erase an act or its effects. To go back to my above example, I don't believe for a second that Nate would deliberately rape Serena; if he were made to understand that he did, he would be overwhelmed with guilt and shame. But he will never be made to understand it, and Serena will never be allowed to realize that none of it was her fault, because Gossip Girl perpetuates the living shit out of rape culture. The top paragraph in the Wiki article will give you an idea of what that is if you're not already familiar.
So when I talk about consent, that is what I mean. And by that definition, the sex between Jenny and Chuck in the third season finale was not consensual. (Believe me, I will get into this. At length.) It took a few years, but in the end, Chuck got to rape Jenny after all.
"This begins and ends with Chuck."
Okay, so I feel a little gross talking about Jenny's rapist first, but I don't want to have to interrupt myself to do it later, plus it makes the most sense to do it right after the part about consent. So: Chuck Bass.
At no point in the show, even when he was supposedly rehabilitated by his relationships with Blair or with Eva, has Chuck demonstrated an understanding of what consent is or how it works. Moreover, he does not care. Even aside from the direct assaults on Serena and Jenny in the pilot, Chuck repeatedly commits rape or otherwise violates women's right to consent. In the first season, we see him sleeping with employees of his father's hotel, which is problematic in terms of power balance: these women have to be aware of how easily Chuck could have them fired if he wanted to, and that he is totally enough of an asshole to do it if they turn him down. Later, he has sex with an intoxicated and heartbroken Blair, who would certainly not, at this point in the show, have slept with him sober. (Blair herself is quite the study in internalized misogyny, viciously slut-shaming Serena and later Jenny and accepting slut-shaming when it's aimed at her. That the show repeatedly makes her feel and look like a slut when she dares to express sexual desire does not help.)
There is probably also stuff in the second season, but I won't lie: I don't remember individual episodes all that well, and while this post may be longer than some academic papers I've written, it is not academic, so I don't have to go back and triple-check every season for evidence if I don't wanna. There are a few eps I'll be taking another look at, but that's it.
The third season is, in retrospect, bewildering on a meta level. In the premiere, Chuck and Blair involve uninformed and thus unconsenting women in their sex life, with the distinct implication that Chuck is far more into it than Blair is; the show goes out of its way to remind us about Chuck's previous disturbing behavior toward Bass employees with a story about sexual harassment lawsuits; there's the infamous "Indecent Proposal" episode; and it all culminates in the finale with Chuck taking advantage of Jenny. I was convinced, after I had finished watching the season, that the writers had done it all on purpose, showing us repeatedly that Chuck does not understand consent to help get across the idea that he rapes Jenny in the finale without actually having to say the word, maybe because of fear of backlash or the CW balking at such a storyline. I really and sincerely thought the writers were that smart, because I had always believed Gossip Girl to be a smarter show than it has any right to be.
Then I watched the fourth season and read Josh Safran's disgusting 4x20 interview (here, have this awesome article about it as a palate cleanser) and didn't even know what the fuck. I am about five thousand percent certain at this point that I was giving the writers way too much credit as far as season three goes. Happily, I can still read the show any damn way I want. I think it will be least confusing if I talk about some episodes from the perspective I was watching them from at the time without constantly interrupting myself to say "but clearly I was wrong," so I'll just say it right now: BUT CLEARLY I WAS WRONG.
So anyway. Let's talk a little about the Indecent Proposal storyline as a demonstration of how much Chuck does not understand/care about consent. I've seen a lot of condemnation of this episode in the obsessive reading of old fandom reaction posts I've been doing for the last week (and it was really interesting to see how much angrier people got about it in retrospect as the horrors of season four unfolded), but I haven't seen anyone say straight out what Chuck did to Blair here: he set her up to get raped. This is not to say that I blame or look down on people for not getting it. This storyline is insidious in the ways it feeds into the rape culture we're all steeped in. I didn't see this episode until after my return to the show last month, and I am really glad about that, because I know I wouldn't have seen what was going on there at the time it aired. As it was, watching it unfold was very difficult for me because I was so sickened by what was happening. It is a perfect example of how consent is about more than just saying yes. Blair does not want to have sex with Jack. That fact does not go away because she agrees to do it. (It also doesn't go away because she had slept with him before, which, by the way, I would be surprised if that incident was consensual.) This again is a power imbalance problem - Jack holds the power to take the Empire away from Chuck, and he wields this power over Blair so effectively that she does not feel she can say no. That's bad enough. Then we find out that Chuck made a deal with Jack to manipulate Blair into accepting Jack's bargain.
I'll say it again: Chuck set Blair up to get raped. This is when I officially started to hate Chuck. My previous reluctant liking of him had lingered in spite of everything, but after this, he was dead to me. He confirmed that I was right in the next episode, when, upon learning that Jack and Blair did not actually have sex, he demanded to know what the problem was, then. I was floored. He also declared that the whole thing was perfectly okay because Blair was the one who went to Jack. Not only does he very obviously not understand that Blair never had the chance to give genuine consent, and in fact actively did not want Jack to so much as touch her, but he doesn't care. He blithely handed her over to a man who, BY THE WAY, he had just last year prevented from raping someone else, and he didn't know or care how wrong it was.
Hilariously (in a gross, unhilarious kind of way), the only character on the show who has ever demonstrated understanding of how fucked up the entire thing was is Jack himself. He doesn't have sex with Blair because, as he puts it, "I prefer my women willing." This from the guy who tried to rape Lily the year before. When Jack frigging Bass has a better grasp of consent than you do, then you have a serious problem.
"I know who I am."
Guess what? I'm finally gonna talk about Jenny in this post about Jenny!
On the surface, Jenny is all about seeking acceptance, accolades, and status. She fights to become part of the social elite; once she's there, she fights to stay there; once she's lost it, she shifts her fight to her ambition to become a designer, trying to take the fast track and become famous at fifteen; she fights to get and keep Nate. In the end, she stops fighting. In the end, the things she wants stop making sense. In the end, she accepts that she has fallen to pieces and that she needs to retreat and learn how to pick them up and put herself back together into a Jenny she can live with being.
Until the third season finale, I accepted that narrative. I didn't look very closely at how angry Jenny was, at how she lashed out at anyone who got in her way, including friends and family, at how willing she was to burn bridges instead of admitting to her mistakes. After that finale, I started thinking hard about those things, and then I got it. Jenny isn't just seeking acceptance, she is fighting desperately for control of her life, because when Chuck assaulted her in the pilot, he took that control away. The third season finale brings Jenny's story full circle in a particularly devastating way; as Dan says, and as I quoted above, "This begins and ends with Chuck."
Possibly the saddest thing about Jenny's assault in the pilot is how it's treated by other characters. It starts out well enough; when Dan and Serena rescue her, Serena embraces her in a gesture both comforting and protective while Dan punches Chuck. When they leave, Serena stops to shove Chuck and shout, "Don't you ever touch her again!" (You could argue that this is about Serena's assault as well, and I would, because god knows that Serena never gets a chance to deal with it otherwise.) In the taxi, Dan has his arm around Jenny; at home, he worries about her to the point where, in the second episode, Jenny affectionately expresses exasperation over his hovering and insists that she's okay ("I was okay when you asked me at the party, and in the cab, when we got home, before and after I brushed my teeth. I just feel really stupid. I mean, how could I have actually thought that Chuck Bass just wanted to talk to me?"). Dan apparently takes this at face value, because we never see him mention the assault again and his future conflicts with Chuck are cast as being about class warfare, not about Jenny. Serena likewise seems to forget the entire thing.
I'm not blaming Dan or Serena here. I could write another entire post about Serena's issues around rape and rape denial, and Dan, to be blunt, is a guy. He often demonstrates his lack of awareness of male privilege. He doesn't understand the far-reaching implications of Jenny's assault in part because he cannot experience the vulnerability of being a woman in rape culture. He was absolutely right to back off when she wanted him to; I'm also going to guess that she asked him not to tell their parents. That he apparently believes that she got over it all at once, and never thinks to connect it to her behavior later on, is frustrating but realistic. One of the ways Gossip Girl perpetuates rape culture is by showing how it influences the characters' responses to things without also establishing the wrongness of those responses. Dan loves Jenny and has strong protective instincts, and he does the best by her that he knows how to do. Unfortunately, the way he lets it all drop after the initial intensity of his reaction contributes to the idea that it really wasn't a big deal, an idea internalized not only by the audience but by Jenny herself.
In case you hadn't guessed, I don't believe Jenny was okay. I believe she thought at the time that she was okay. That's another thing about rape culture: it paints assault on girls at parties as okay. Jenny has begun to bury what happened to her before she's even finished processing it. She even blames herself ("I just feel really stupid"), because hey, like Chuck said himself, it was a party. Sexual assault happens. We all know the cultural meme about what girls who "allow" a guy to get them alone should expect. In reality, of course, Jenny didn't "allow" anything. (And even if she had, she still would not deserve to be assaulted.) The events leading up to the assault speak volumes. Jenny is nervous and uncomfortable about being isolated by Chuck, but this is her first big social event and Chuck is well-known and respected in the circle she wants to gain access to, and let's not forget the gender issues and Jenny's young age (fourteen). She knows the situation is unsafe, but she's afraid to say no because Chuck holds all the power. The best she can do is text Dan and hope for rescue. Yet again I am talking about Chuck leveraging a power imbalance to victimize someone, because that's what he does. And Jenny blames herself. Dan sure as shit doesn't help, either: he tells her that she's trusting and that's a good thing, but when Jenny says, "Yeah, except when it involves Chuck," Dan's answer is, "Pretty much." The upshot of the conversation is that Jenny is stupid for trusting Chuck, even though we saw clearly that she didn't trust him for a second. After this, Jenny deliberately deflects the conversation toward Dan.
The self-blame is hammered home by the scenes with Blair and Jenny later in the episode. At this early point in the show, Jenny idolizes Blair, treating her every word as law. Blair expertly courts and manipulates Jenny's worship in this episode, gifting her with a dress and spending time alone with her. The subject of Jenny's assault comes up a couple of times, with the second providing footage that turned up often in the previouslies for the rest of the season.
Blair: "You wanna know what Chuck Bass is saying about you."
Jenny: "No." [Blair looks skeptical.] ". . . is he? Saying things? Is anyone?"
Blair: "No. Not yet anyway. Chuck likes to brag about his conquests, not his victims." [Jenny looks uncomfortable and unhappy. Blair lets her hang for a few seconds before continuing.] "Come on. You can help me get ready for brunch."
Jenny: "Wow, Blair, thank you! I mean, for the dress and for the other thing. About, uh, about Chuck."
Blair: "If you wanna be part of this world, Jenny, people will talk. Eventually. And you need to decide if all this is worth it."
Blair acknowledges directly that Chuck victimized Jenny, then later goes on to imply that such a thing is part of the price of being among the elite. I mean, let's face it, Jenny isn't worried about people talking about her because she thinks they're going to blame Chuck. Blair's own handling of it cements Jenny's self-blame and the idea that her assault doesn't matter, and because Jenny ascribes such importance to Blair's declarations, it carries extra weight. There's only one conclusion for her to reach: Get over it or forget the social advancement she craves.
So that's what she tries to do. She takes revenge on Chuck at the masquerade, and that, the show tells us, is the end of that. Jenny is totally fine.
Except that she isn't. We don't see much of Jenny before her assault, but it's clear from her family's reaction that the rebellious, angry, backstabbing girl she becomes over the next three years came (from their perspective) out of nowhere. I'm not saying her transformation is entirely a result of her assault. People are more complex than that, and Gossip Girl, for its first couple of seasons at least, is remarkably adept at making its characters complex. But the consistency of Jenny's anger is striking, and I think a lot of it stems from the fact that she had a traumatizing experience, was made to believe both by people she looked up to and the world around her that it was her fault, and never got to deal with it and move on.
I am not going to examine the events of Jenny's arc in any detail, not least because this essay is already longer than all of the actual essays I have written for classes this semester and I still need to get to the episodes that support my assertion. I do want to make it clear, though, that I am not looking to paint Jenny solely as a victim or claim that she is defined entirely by Chuck's actions. But what Chuck does to her is part of her, and the show will never allow her to claim that fact and assert her power over it, so I'm doing it instead.
"Like I would ever live in the same house as you."
I remember being surprised and pleased when, late into the second season (2x21: "Seder Anything"), the show actually touched upon Jenny's assault, however briefly. I may not have had the understanding of feminism and rape culture that I do now, but I did realize that it was bullshit that it had happened and the show had apparently forgotten about it. I'm not sure why it came up after so long. I think it was meant as part of Chuck's (temporary) redemption in the name of getting him back with Blair, plus maybe the writers realized that they wouldn't be able to get away with having Chuck and Jenny share a home, because SERIOUSLY. Whatever, I almost don't even care, because I love the scenes dealing with it. They almost make up for the "lol Jewish people" Seder plot.
. . . anyway. In this episode, Jenny has brought a date to the penthouse for dinner and a quiet game of Monopoly when Chuck shows up with a woman he's picked up. Jenny is visibly uncomfortable as they make their way to Chuck's room, making out as they go. "If you hear screams," he assures Jenny and Wes, "don't worry. We're fine." The comment is not merely crude, it's gross, considering he's making it to a girl he assaulted and who did cry out when it was happening. The possibility of Rufus moving his family into the penthouse has recently arisen; the disgusted look on Jenny's face in response to Chuck's remark is perhaps the moment she realizes (or at least consciously acknowledges to herself) that such a move would mean living with Chuck.
Later, Chuck emerges from his room and promptly starts making obscene remarks to Jenny and Wes, including an entendre about Jenny herself disguised as commentary on their Monopoly game ("What a shock, the girl from Brooklyn's a renter."). Jenny interrupts him with an invitation to Wes to go out for a walk; when Wes goes to get their jackets, Jenny takes the opportunity to confront Chuck, which I am quoting in its entirety because GO JENNY GO:
Jenny: "You know, just because you're bored with your own life doesn't mean you have to make everyone around you miserable."
Chuck: "For your information, you don't live here yet."
Jenny: "Please. After what you did at the Kiss on the Lips party last year, like I would ever live in the same house as you." [She pauses and swallows nervously before continuing] "You know, you're lucky I didn't tell my dad, because if I did he'd make Lily choose, us or you, and I wonder who she'd pick."
Chuck: "You really think I care if Lily kicks me out?"
Jenny: "Yeah, I do. Because you lost Blair, and now she's dating your best friend, so therefore, the only human contact you have that you don't pay for is the people in this house. But knowing you, you'll screw that up, too."
Taylor Momsen's acting in this scene is incredibly expressive. Jenny is angry at Chuck and triumphant over the fact that she finally has power over him. Under that, though, she's also afraid. This is, after all, the guy who tried to rape her, and this is the first time she has directly confronted him about it. She's safer than she was at the party - she has the upper hand and they're not alone in the apartment - but it's still a scary moment. Momsen shows us that without undermining Jenny's moment of triumph.
Chuck's reaction is - uh, well, Ed Westwick appears to act primarily via squinting, so Chuck is a little harder to read in this scene. It's clear by the end of it that Jenny's remarks have hit home, but impossible to tell which parts hit the hardest or if he's feeling any remorse. This is in all likelihood the first time he's ever been confronted by one of his victims or seen that what he does to them hurts them, and that hurt doesn't just evaporate. Maybe it's a shock to his system that he needs time to absorb; maybe the only part he cares about is not letting Jenny endanger his relationship with Lily. (You can probably guess which answer I think is truer, especially in light of events to come in the next two seasons.) At any rate, after angsting manfully with Nate for a bit over Blair, Chuck encounters Jenny again. She greets him calmly, maybe feeling more secure now that the initial confrontation is done with (or at least trying to look like she feels more secure). Much to her surprise, Chuck apologizes to her and promises that if the Humphreys move in, he'll move out. Westwick's acting is a little clearer here; this is a rare awkward moment for Chuck, who can't bring himself to look Jenny in the eye until the apology is done with and he's moved on to making his promise.
Jenny, surprised, doesn't answer. Chuck exits the scene without trying to extract an expression of forgiveness from Jenny, which I like and will give him credit for because it is the only thing he does right in their entire storyline. (He will, of course, ruin it in season four by claiming to Rufus that Jenny forgave him when she did no such goddamn thing that we ever saw.) I don't think Jenny expected an apology from Chuck, or any kind of acknowledgment at all of the pain he caused her, and she definitely didn't expect him to offer to move out. The gesture means a great deal to her in terms of feeling less powerless and feeling safe. I think it gives her some sense of closure and allows her to believe that Chuck won't attack her again.
This is the only episode in which Jenny acknowledges her assault as something that Chuck did to her, and the only one in which her anger over being assaulted is explicitly shown and (sort of) addressed. Unfortunately, both Chuck and the show seem to think that this one instance is plenty good enough and that his apology should make it all better. Hell, by season four, Chuck probably does think Jenny forgave him. He does move out well before the Humphreys move in, but it's not because of Jenny; it's to present himself as an adult capable of handling business. That Jenny brings her assault up with him more than a year after the fact makes it clear that it's still an unresolved issue for her, but the show never touches that. Jenny puts it away again and keeps being angry, keeps fighting for control, and keeps hurting people in her quest to have power over her life.
"I don't know where I am."
In the third season, just as Jenny has managed to start pulling herself up out of a spiral that included her becoming a drug dealer, she is almost assaulted again when she is roofied by a supposed friend during an event that should be an unadulterated success in Jenny's restarting her life. Agnes then drops her off at a bar, tells its customers that Jenny is looking for a good time, and leaves her there to be raped. This time it's Nate who saves her; Jenny is just able to answer a phonecall from him and tell him that she doesn't know where she is. Nate tracks her down, arriving just in time to prevent a would-be rapist from taking her away himself. One can only imagine (because the show certainly never addresses it) what a terrifying experience it must have been for Jenny, betrayed in such a horrifying fashion and in danger of being attacked again. The timing of it, just as she had begun to regain control and acceptance, is one of the cruel twists the show likes to visit upon her (and Blair, whose story also becomes intimately tied to Chuck). It's worth noting that this incident occurs in episode 3x16, the episode before Chuck makes his deal with Jack, adding to the themes of betrayal and issues of consent the show seemed to be building up in this season. It is after this incident that Jenny's interest in Nate is rekindled and she goes completely off the rails.
At this point, you can't blame Jenny for believing that she will never be safe, that her life will never be okay, that everything will always be horrible and the only thing she can do is be horrible right back. Nate, who came to her rescue when she needed help, represents safety and security, and Jenny clings to that with everything she's got. Thing to add to the list of things I am not doing: Excusing Jenny's behavior. She is cruel and hurtful throughout her three seasons as a regular on the show, and that's not okay. She is arguably at her nastiest in these episodes as she targets Serena, who has generally been her friend and ally, in her efforts to get Nate as a boyfriend. When those efforts inevitably backfire, Jenny turns on her family.
Jenny's involvement in Lily's fake cancer storyline is initially a protective one. Her reaction when she realizes that Lily's medication is worryingly screwed up is to get to the bottom of things and save her stepmother. She calls Chuck, with whom she has been interacting on more positive terms since his apology, who has reason to want to protect Lily himself, and who really is the best candidate out of the people Jenny knows for pulling the rug out from under Lily's creepy ex. (Which, seriously, speaking of betrayal and violation of consent, how about that entire storyline, holy shit.)
In the penultimate episode of the season, though, Jenny, having failed with Nate, decides that her entire situation can be blamed on the Upper East Side and everything would be better if she, Dan, and Rufus went back to Brooklyn and life was like it was before. In first watching this episode, I found this motivation inexplicable and bizarre for about eight thousand reasons, not least of which is that Jenny's overall situation began well before the move to the penthouse. I also found it difficult to swallow the idea that Jenny is foolish enough to think this could possibly work. Now, though, I think that Jenny had simply stopped making any kind of sense at all. By this episode, she's overwhelmed by the misery of her life and grasping desperately at any way out. Being mean hasn't worked for her, and trying to be good didn't work either. This is where Jenny breaks and demonstrates clearly that her capacity for decision-making has, for the time being, deserted her. The fact that the smoking rubble of her life is largely the result of her own actions is of course noteworthy, but it's barely relevant to my argument here, and honestly I'm not even comfortable with linking the one with the other. The implication would be that the events of the finale are Jenny's just desserts for all the hurt she's dealt out, and that is not true and flies in the face of everything I'm trying to say here. So, focusing on Jenny's state of mind: Jenny isn't operating on a basis of logic or out of any kind of comprehension that actions equal consequences. Right now, she's in a bad place emotionally, and all she can see is that she is there alone.
"Everybody hates me."
So. Midway through the finale episode, Jenny has completely isolated herself. Even Rufus has finally reached the end of his rope, arranging to send Jenny to live with her mother and finish out her schooling there. With (to her mind) nowhere else to go, Jenny goes to Nate and Chuck's home, because she still associates Nate with security.
I'd like to pause and emphasize that: Jenny believes that she has nowhere else to go. She has taken her behavior and agendas so far that everyone she knows is angry at her; her father has, for the first time, explicitly rejected her. We in the audience realize that she can always go back to Brooklyn, that Rufus isn't going to slam the door in her face, that technically she's the one who walked out anyway. We also know that, regardless of what Jenny has done, Lily would let her into the penthouse rather than make her sit out on the street. But Jenny can't recognize these things. She can't process them on an emotional level, and she is so shattered now that it's arguable whether she can even understand them intellectually. There may also still be in here somewhere one last flicker of Jenny's fight for control - going home is giving in, and she can't give in.
So when she arrives at the Empire and finds Chuck alone in his and Nate's suite, she doesn't have many choices that she is able to see. She says as much: "I guess if Nate's not here, I'll go. Not that I really have anywhere to go, but . . ." They discuss briefly that Jenny has stayed in the suite before, but always with Nate around; Jenny spends time with Nate, not with Chuck, and she doesn't spend time alone in the suite with Chuck. She's very awkward during this part of the conversation, aware that her presence might be an unwelcome intrusion. Rather than assure her that he doesn't object, Chuck takes the opportunity to make a rule: "I don't play video games, so if you wanna hang with me, you do what I do." He then offers her his drink.
I don't think, in this episode, that he manipulates Jenny with malicious intent, and I do think he believes that his apology wiped the slate clean, but as I said in my discussion of consent, intent is not magical. He still manipulates her. He still, yet again, sees a power imbalance and leverages it to get what he wants. Jenny has told him that she has nowhere else to go and she is clearly uneasy about imposing on his hospitality. Chuck, as we will see, wants the company; Jenny needs the roof over her head. There is no reason for him to emphasize the power he holds in this situation and then add to it by making a rule for her to obey. He just does it anyway, and I doubt he even thinks about it. Oh, and his rule also involves getting Jenny drunk, which I also don't think is deliberate (alcohol is to Chuck as water is to other people) and doesn't actually happen, but still needs to be noted. Gossip Girl does like its parallels - he also plied her with alcohol in the pilot.
Of course Jenny sits down and accepts Chuck's drink. What else can she do? And because she is Jenny, she tries to reframe the situation to give herself a little more leverage and convince them both that she wants to be here, drinking with Chuck: "I'm trying to forget some things too," she says.
They discuss how the world Jenny was seeking entry into doesn't really exist. Chuck says that he's always known it was empty, to which Jenny replies, "Yeah, well, now I know that, too. I found out the hard way." This is her acknowledgment that she's burned the life she had down to the ground for nothing. (Technically, it's like her umpteenth acknowledgment of this, with number umpteen and one coming in season four before she finally escapes the show for good, but we've got bigger fish to fry here.) She has nothing. She gave away her friends, her self, and her family for nothing. She is alone. But, here is Chuck, who is also alone. He understands.
Then, of course, their hands touch when she goes to give Chuck's glass back to him, and there is a lengthy pause in which a lot of things happen very quickly. The atmosphere in the room changes and becomes charged; Jenny is painfully aware of both her loneliness and Chuck's; the last time they had any kind of contact like this, Chuck took Jenny's control away from her and she has spent almost three years trying to get it back. And let's not forget Chuck's rule: "You wanna hang with me, you do what I do." She doesn't want to be alone, and Chuck has, ironically enough, quite suddenly become the "only human contact" she has. Both emotionally and literally, Jenny has nowhere else to go. So she kisses him, and then she goes to bed with him.
Supposedly, Chuck gives her an out ("If you wanna leave, now would be the time.") but Jenny's answer is very revealing. She hesitates, not looking at Chuck, and says, "I don't wanna be alone." That is not how we do consent okay. Jenny doesn't want to have sex with Chuck. She wants not to be alone and having sex with Chuck is the only way she has to not be alone. This is not dissimilar to the Indecent Proposal story - saying yes to sex is the only way for Jenny/Blair to get what she wants, so that's what she does.
There was of course also this whole fixation on Jenny's virginity throughout the season. Again, I won't lie. When I watched this season, I ignored all that crap as much as I could, because I have just about had my damn fill of the cultural fixation on female sexual purity. So while I do realize it's been a big deal to Jenny all season, there has been plenty said about how horrible and sad and creepy it is that she ends up losing it to a guy who tried to rape her and I just don't have much to add to that conversation. Acknowledging it, moving on.
The "after" scene in Chuck's bedroom is heartbreaking, and just from the dialogue alone I don't see how anyone could think that Jenny wanted what just happened.
Chuck: "Are you okay?"
[Jenny doesn't answer.]
Chuck: "You're welcome to stay the night."
Jenny: "You're not kicking me out into the street? Lucky me."
Chuck: "Hey. Some people don't get the offer."
Then the elevator dings, but Blair can wait, I'm not done here.
Jenny is not okay. She is not even a little okay and unlike in the pilot, she can't even fake it, so she doesn't try. She keeps her back turned to Chuck until they hear the elevator, and she is so listless that even Chuck - Chuck - has noticed that there is something wrong. Plus, watch her face when she makes the comment about getting kicked out into the street. She tries to make it into a joke, but it isn't, and Chuck's answer confirms that she was right to think it a legitimate concern. How anyone can watch this scene and think that anything consensual has happened here is fucking beyond me. I didn't even need to write this entire meta, I just needed to analyze this scene.
ANYWAY. Blair shows up, Chuck hastens to intercept her, yadda blah. Jenny, however, is still clinging to the hope that Chuck is her human contact. In her mind, Chuck, the guy who assaulted her three years ago and cornered her into having sex with him tonight, is the only person left willing to validate her. I don't think I even need to tell you how horribly sad and fucked up that is.
It doesn't take long for Chuck to torpedo that hope. When Blair asks if someone is in his room, he says, "No, nobody." And that's when Jenny is done. She's done fighting. Why should she fight? Even Chuck thinks she's nobody. Even so, though, she still does him one last favor, no doubt to avoid incurring his wrath; when she finds the bag holding the engagement ring Chuck bought for Blair, she puts out the candle, gets dressed, and flees the suite. She could stay and ruin his moment out of spite, as one would have expected of the Jenny we've seen for most of her arc, but she doesn't. Her fight is gone. She is nobody.
Having heard Blair say that everyone is at the hospital for Dorota, Jenny goes to the hospital. She doesn't go to find her family, though. She doesn't believe she'll be accepted. Instead, she goes to the hospital chapel, which must seem like the last place in the city she can go. Anyone can go to a chapel, and if a stranger sees her upset there, they'll just assume she has a sick loved one. It isn't a stranger who finds her, though. It's Eric.
This is the scene that made me believe that the sex between Jenny and Chuck was being deliberately portrayed as rape. Jenny is in pieces here. She recoils when Eric tries to touch her. She is desperately ashamed. She asks him not to tell anyone. This is not a girl who has had consensual sex that she now realizes was a mistake. This is a girl who has been raped.
Okay, now I'm going to start talking a lot about Eric and then later Dan, two of the men in Jenny's life, and make no mistake. That bugs me. Jenny's rape should be about Jenny. Unfortunately, the way her next couple of scenes are framed, with a lot of male POV, it's largely the actions Eric and Dan take that convinced me that the show was purposely telling Jenny's story this way. Because god forbid a girl's story should be told from her perspective, right?
So. We will get back to Jenny and end with her, I promise.
Eric's reactions are wonderful here. Connor Paolo does a great job of taking him from concerned confusion to the realization that he is in over his head. We have since learned that by season four, Eric did know about Chuck assaulting Jenny, though we don't know when he found out. My guess would be that Jenny told him sometime after the apology, when she might have felt more comfortable talking about it. It's possible that she didn't tell him until after this, but I don't think so. Paolo's performance makes me think that the knowledge of the assault is informing Eric's reactions. Eric initially seems to think Jenny is experiencing post-coital regret ("Jenny, why would you do that?") and tries to reassure her ("It's not the worst thing."). He's uncertain as he speaks, though; he knows that Jenny's misery here is all out of proportion for simple regret. It's when Jenny admits that she was still a virgin and that she had wanted to wait that he starts to get it - you can see the horror starting to dawn on his face. He reaches out to comfort her and she snaps, "Don't touch me!" then asks him not to tell anyone. Eric definitely gets it then. He also gets that Jenny needs more than he can give her right now so, with one last worried look, he goes to find Dan.
Eric's perspective in this scene is clear: By the end of it, he believes, if not that Jenny has been raped, then certainly that something awful has happened. I didn't believe this was an accident or my own projection before I found out that the writers fail spectacularly at women's issues, and I don't believe it now. Maybe the director did it. Maybe Paolo himself did it. Whatever it is, by the end of this scene, we are definitely meant to see through Eric's eyes that Jenny did not want to have sex with Chuck.
Mostly I am not going to deal directly with season four episodes here, because at this point I am depressed and angry enough about Jenny's story without taking too close a look at how Chuck uses her in "Easy J," but I do want to bring up the scene in 4x03 where Eric tells Rufus about the assault in the pilot. (And where someone FINALLY fucking uses the dreaded R word to describe Chuck's actions, and to his face, no less. Thank you, Rufus. Problematic as it is that the episode deals with Jenny's assault via the men in her life, at least someone finally fucking called Chuck out for being an attempted rapist. Too bad it didn't go anywhere.) Eric has had plenty of time to think about the entire situation and emphatically confirms my reading of his reactions in the chapel scene: "You don't understand, it's not like what happened between Chuck and Jenny was an isolated incident. […] When Jenny was a freshman, Chuck tried to force himself on her at a party. So I don't care what Chuck says about being a changed man, what he did to Jenny this time makes it clear. He has always been that person and he always will be." Much as I hate the way Eric gets marginalized as a character because the writers don't know what the hell to do with a gay character, I love the way that marginalization allows him to occasionally step out of the narrative and call the others out on their shit.
Back to the finale. Eric goes to get Dan, whose dialogue here is like a distillation of Eric's reaction in the previous scene. First, still angry with Jenny, he cracks a snide joke, but when Eric tells him no, Jenny needs him, he turns instantly serious and goes to find her.
And then we . . . don't get that scene. Why, I don't know. It's important to the plot, to Jenny and Dan as characters, and to their relationship. That is some bad storytelling right there. Well, let's piece it together, shall we? Jenny tells Dan what happened; Dan comforts her and convinces her that she does indeed have somewhere to go; they leave the chapel to leave the hospital and presumably head home. We know that much must have happened, because they are on their way out when they encounter Chuck and Blair, and Dan knows that Chuck needs to be fucking punched. And so he obliges, creating another (and the most delicious) parallel to the pilot. (I would watch the Dan Punches Chuck show, I'm just saying.) This parallel emphasizes the connection between the assault in the pilot and the events of this episode in an aggressively overt manner that anyone who missed the subtleties of the chapel scene will definitely notice. You see why I thought the writers were doing it on purpose?
Now let's rewind to have a look at Jenny's perspective, and I swear I am going to finish this thing sometime before the show is cancelled. Her immediate response to Eric's entrance is to reject him before he can reject her. When he tells her firmly that he is not going to reject her - "We may get mad at each other sometimes, but if you're really hurting, I'm here for you" - she initially can't believe it. He persists in expressing concern, though, sitting down next to her to indicate that he's not going anywhere. At this point she opens up to him completely. Eric's failure to reject her is all she needs; it's a lifeline. Someone still cares. She is not nobody. When he leaves after she's done, she thinks he's deserting her, but when Dan arrives a few minutes later, she probably realizes he wasn't.
I would guess that the imaginary scene with Dan is something of a mirror to the one with Eric. Once Jenny has been assured that Dan still loves her, she tells him what happened. Maybe she goes into more detail than she did with Eric; maybe she lets him hug her. Maybe not. (I am so annoyed that I have to speculate about this. Note to self: missing scene fic. Write it.) One thing I can venture with confidence is that the fact that Dan is immediately and unquestioningly on her side and wanting to help means the world to her. She hasn't burned the bridge between them forever as she believed she had. He is the second person in ten minutes to prove that to her. Moreover, he is her brother and will always love her (and no doubt tells her this, because this is Dan and he does have a gift for knowing what a distraught person needs to hear). Jenny is not alone.
Then they go out to the hospital foyer, where a furious Dan marches right over to Chuck and hits him hard enough to send him to the floor. This part of the scene is framed to be more about Blair, so we don't see much of a reaction from Jenny. Well, most of this scene is about Blair, but Jenny is in the background for the punch in particular, her expression blank. She seems to have just about enough energy to let Dan take her home. She can't spare any for anything else.
Blair, unfortunately, does not pick up on this - if she notices that Jenny has been crying, she probably decides it's a show to gain sympathy - and creates another parallel to the assault story when she explicitly blames Jenny. As I mentioned several thousand words ago, Blair has a serious problem with internalized misogyny. This scene is one of her most flagrant displays, second only to the campaign against Serena in season one. She orders Jenny out of the hospital and off Manhattan Island, viciously confirming the self-blame Jenny has already expressed. Jenny is too beaten down to do anything but obey - watch the reflexive way she moves toward the entrance when Blair first says "Get out" - and even apologizes to Blair.
Far from inadvertently placing blame on Jenny this time, though, Dan is having none of it. He touches her shoulder to stop her when she starts to leave (Jenny doesn't so much as flinch), and when she apologizes after Blair's rant, Dan says, "You have no reason to be sorry."
Then to Blair, emphatically: "This begins and ends with Chuck."
Dan is talking about Chuck's responsibility for the situation. He recognizes clearly that Chuck has victimized Jenny and wants Chuck held responsible for his actions. More than that, though, he has just described Jenny's story arc, which has now come horribly full circle. This is the line that made it all click together in my head, that brought Jenny's behavior for the last three seasons into focus for me. The spiral Jenny falls into, especially in season two, was something I'd never quite understood when I was watching the first time around. How did the adorable, naive girl from the first few episodes become someone who didn't hesitate to hurt whoever she had to however she had to? "Because the Upper East Side is poison" was not a satisfactory answer. But after I saw this episode, Jenny made sense to me. She was acting out her anger at what happened to her in an incredibly unhealthy way, because she never got to deal with it. At some point she got trapped in the spiral and all her efforts to escape just entangled her further.
Again: I am not looking to define Jenny by Chuck's actions. All I want to is claim that part of her story on her behalf (since, being fictional, she can't do it for herself) and hold Gossip Girl accountable, even if it's just in a post on LiveJournal, for trying to sweep it under the rug. In the fourth season episodes that I am not talking about, the show tries to put blame for Jenny's rape on Jenny, in much the same way as it tries to blame Blair for going to Jack or tell us that Chuck is a lost hero when he's an abusive rapist. That's all bullshit. All of it. Blair's fans have rallied around her and lots of digital ink has been spilled decrying Chuck, which is awesome, but Jenny needed someone on her side, too.
But let's end on an up note. When Rufus and Lily appear on the scene, Jenny goes to her father for support. He responds without hesitation, as does Lily. They walk her out of the scene together, arms around her, symbolic of the support Jenny can always find from her family.
In her last scene in season three, Jenny is happy. It's a week later and she's heading off to Hudson to live with her mother as planned, but the circumstances are different. "It's my idea this time," she says. She wants to leave now; it's her choice. Finally, Jenny has found a measure of control over her life. She hasn't had to hurt or fight anyone to get it, and she needn't fear having it taken from her. She is surrounded by the four people who showed her love and support in the hospital - Eric, Dan, Rufus, and Lily - and they're showing her love and support now as they have no doubt been doing all week. They don't want her to go, but they understand that she needs to. Rufus is also sure to remind Jenny that her mother is glad to have Jenny come live with her. The episode gives us one last parallel, showing Jenny gazing out the train window in a shot similar to one of Serena in the pilot, evoking the last member of the Humphrey-van der Woodsen clan. Like Serena, Jenny is going to have a long, hard slog on the road to becoming who she wants to be, but you know what?
Jenny is going to be okay.
lienne for doing a typo beta for me!I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I'd gotten back into Gossip Girl; I rewatched everything I'd seen before I drifted away, then proceeded to catch up from there. Now I'm stuck back on the show again and it's all Dan and Blair's fault, but anyway. This post is not about that. This post is inspired by the fact that, since I dropped the show in 2009, I've learned a hell of a lot about feminism and how it works, and about rape culture and how that works. So when I started watching again last month, my perception of quite a few events on the show had shifted considerably. I could make an entire post listing storylines that unsettle me now when they didn't before (like, say, the immeasurably creepy Serena storyline in the last two eps of season one), or talk about stuff I hadn't seen that upset me when I would have read it differently had I watched it when it aired (the S3 hotel storyline, goddamn; actually, I will be talking about that).
But I'm going to narrow my focus even further to talk about Jenny Humphrey's story arc and how the show handled it (spoiler alert: badly).
Let's start right off by being clear about the definition of consent I am working with.
Fully informed, enthusiastic consent is not a concept that is generally well-understood in our culture. It's exactly what it says on the tin: A consenting person is a person who is clear about what they are agreeing to and actively wants to do it.
A consenting person cannot be: intoxicated; deeply emotionally distraught; too young; on the wrong side of a major power imbalance; other stuff I am probably forgetting. A person who is intoxicated or otherwise unable to think clearly cannot make healthy decisions. (Example from the show: Serena at the wedding where she had sex with Nate. It is made clear over and over that she would never, ever have done it sober, but the event is so intensely romanticized and eroticized that it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Nate had raped her. He may also have been intoxicated, but he's the one with male privilege, which gives him power that Serena does not have.) A person who is too young cannot be relied upon to make healthy decisions; this is why we have age of consent laws. A person on the wrong side of a power imbalance may feel that they cannot say no, or be afraid to say no, which takes away their ability to choose to say yes and means they cannot meaningfully consent.
In short: rape is not just an act of violence. It's not just the rapist forcing themselves on their victim. Rape and consent are far more complex than the black-and-white scenario society gives us. A person can be raped without ever fighting back or saying no, and a person can commit rape without ever realizing they're doing it. Intent does not erase an act or its effects. To go back to my above example, I don't believe for a second that Nate would deliberately rape Serena; if he were made to understand that he did, he would be overwhelmed with guilt and shame. But he will never be made to understand it, and Serena will never be allowed to realize that none of it was her fault, because Gossip Girl perpetuates the living shit out of rape culture. The top paragraph in the Wiki article will give you an idea of what that is if you're not already familiar.
So when I talk about consent, that is what I mean. And by that definition, the sex between Jenny and Chuck in the third season finale was not consensual. (Believe me, I will get into this. At length.) It took a few years, but in the end, Chuck got to rape Jenny after all.
Okay, so I feel a little gross talking about Jenny's rapist first, but I don't want to have to interrupt myself to do it later, plus it makes the most sense to do it right after the part about consent. So: Chuck Bass.
At no point in the show, even when he was supposedly rehabilitated by his relationships with Blair or with Eva, has Chuck demonstrated an understanding of what consent is or how it works. Moreover, he does not care. Even aside from the direct assaults on Serena and Jenny in the pilot, Chuck repeatedly commits rape or otherwise violates women's right to consent. In the first season, we see him sleeping with employees of his father's hotel, which is problematic in terms of power balance: these women have to be aware of how easily Chuck could have them fired if he wanted to, and that he is totally enough of an asshole to do it if they turn him down. Later, he has sex with an intoxicated and heartbroken Blair, who would certainly not, at this point in the show, have slept with him sober. (Blair herself is quite the study in internalized misogyny, viciously slut-shaming Serena and later Jenny and accepting slut-shaming when it's aimed at her. That the show repeatedly makes her feel and look like a slut when she dares to express sexual desire does not help.)
There is probably also stuff in the second season, but I won't lie: I don't remember individual episodes all that well, and while this post may be longer than some academic papers I've written, it is not academic, so I don't have to go back and triple-check every season for evidence if I don't wanna. There are a few eps I'll be taking another look at, but that's it.
The third season is, in retrospect, bewildering on a meta level. In the premiere, Chuck and Blair involve uninformed and thus unconsenting women in their sex life, with the distinct implication that Chuck is far more into it than Blair is; the show goes out of its way to remind us about Chuck's previous disturbing behavior toward Bass employees with a story about sexual harassment lawsuits; there's the infamous "Indecent Proposal" episode; and it all culminates in the finale with Chuck taking advantage of Jenny. I was convinced, after I had finished watching the season, that the writers had done it all on purpose, showing us repeatedly that Chuck does not understand consent to help get across the idea that he rapes Jenny in the finale without actually having to say the word, maybe because of fear of backlash or the CW balking at such a storyline. I really and sincerely thought the writers were that smart, because I had always believed Gossip Girl to be a smarter show than it has any right to be.
Then I watched the fourth season and read Josh Safran's disgusting 4x20 interview (here, have this awesome article about it as a palate cleanser) and didn't even know what the fuck. I am about five thousand percent certain at this point that I was giving the writers way too much credit as far as season three goes. Happily, I can still read the show any damn way I want. I think it will be least confusing if I talk about some episodes from the perspective I was watching them from at the time without constantly interrupting myself to say "but clearly I was wrong," so I'll just say it right now: BUT CLEARLY I WAS WRONG.
So anyway. Let's talk a little about the Indecent Proposal storyline as a demonstration of how much Chuck does not understand/care about consent. I've seen a lot of condemnation of this episode in the obsessive reading of old fandom reaction posts I've been doing for the last week (and it was really interesting to see how much angrier people got about it in retrospect as the horrors of season four unfolded), but I haven't seen anyone say straight out what Chuck did to Blair here: he set her up to get raped. This is not to say that I blame or look down on people for not getting it. This storyline is insidious in the ways it feeds into the rape culture we're all steeped in. I didn't see this episode until after my return to the show last month, and I am really glad about that, because I know I wouldn't have seen what was going on there at the time it aired. As it was, watching it unfold was very difficult for me because I was so sickened by what was happening. It is a perfect example of how consent is about more than just saying yes. Blair does not want to have sex with Jack. That fact does not go away because she agrees to do it. (It also doesn't go away because she had slept with him before, which, by the way, I would be surprised if that incident was consensual.) This again is a power imbalance problem - Jack holds the power to take the Empire away from Chuck, and he wields this power over Blair so effectively that she does not feel she can say no. That's bad enough. Then we find out that Chuck made a deal with Jack to manipulate Blair into accepting Jack's bargain.
I'll say it again: Chuck set Blair up to get raped. This is when I officially started to hate Chuck. My previous reluctant liking of him had lingered in spite of everything, but after this, he was dead to me. He confirmed that I was right in the next episode, when, upon learning that Jack and Blair did not actually have sex, he demanded to know what the problem was, then. I was floored. He also declared that the whole thing was perfectly okay because Blair was the one who went to Jack. Not only does he very obviously not understand that Blair never had the chance to give genuine consent, and in fact actively did not want Jack to so much as touch her, but he doesn't care. He blithely handed her over to a man who, BY THE WAY, he had just last year prevented from raping someone else, and he didn't know or care how wrong it was.
Hilariously (in a gross, unhilarious kind of way), the only character on the show who has ever demonstrated understanding of how fucked up the entire thing was is Jack himself. He doesn't have sex with Blair because, as he puts it, "I prefer my women willing." This from the guy who tried to rape Lily the year before. When Jack frigging Bass has a better grasp of consent than you do, then you have a serious problem.
Guess what? I'm finally gonna talk about Jenny in this post about Jenny!
On the surface, Jenny is all about seeking acceptance, accolades, and status. She fights to become part of the social elite; once she's there, she fights to stay there; once she's lost it, she shifts her fight to her ambition to become a designer, trying to take the fast track and become famous at fifteen; she fights to get and keep Nate. In the end, she stops fighting. In the end, the things she wants stop making sense. In the end, she accepts that she has fallen to pieces and that she needs to retreat and learn how to pick them up and put herself back together into a Jenny she can live with being.
Until the third season finale, I accepted that narrative. I didn't look very closely at how angry Jenny was, at how she lashed out at anyone who got in her way, including friends and family, at how willing she was to burn bridges instead of admitting to her mistakes. After that finale, I started thinking hard about those things, and then I got it. Jenny isn't just seeking acceptance, she is fighting desperately for control of her life, because when Chuck assaulted her in the pilot, he took that control away. The third season finale brings Jenny's story full circle in a particularly devastating way; as Dan says, and as I quoted above, "This begins and ends with Chuck."
Possibly the saddest thing about Jenny's assault in the pilot is how it's treated by other characters. It starts out well enough; when Dan and Serena rescue her, Serena embraces her in a gesture both comforting and protective while Dan punches Chuck. When they leave, Serena stops to shove Chuck and shout, "Don't you ever touch her again!" (You could argue that this is about Serena's assault as well, and I would, because god knows that Serena never gets a chance to deal with it otherwise.) In the taxi, Dan has his arm around Jenny; at home, he worries about her to the point where, in the second episode, Jenny affectionately expresses exasperation over his hovering and insists that she's okay ("I was okay when you asked me at the party, and in the cab, when we got home, before and after I brushed my teeth. I just feel really stupid. I mean, how could I have actually thought that Chuck Bass just wanted to talk to me?"). Dan apparently takes this at face value, because we never see him mention the assault again and his future conflicts with Chuck are cast as being about class warfare, not about Jenny. Serena likewise seems to forget the entire thing.
I'm not blaming Dan or Serena here. I could write another entire post about Serena's issues around rape and rape denial, and Dan, to be blunt, is a guy. He often demonstrates his lack of awareness of male privilege. He doesn't understand the far-reaching implications of Jenny's assault in part because he cannot experience the vulnerability of being a woman in rape culture. He was absolutely right to back off when she wanted him to; I'm also going to guess that she asked him not to tell their parents. That he apparently believes that she got over it all at once, and never thinks to connect it to her behavior later on, is frustrating but realistic. One of the ways Gossip Girl perpetuates rape culture is by showing how it influences the characters' responses to things without also establishing the wrongness of those responses. Dan loves Jenny and has strong protective instincts, and he does the best by her that he knows how to do. Unfortunately, the way he lets it all drop after the initial intensity of his reaction contributes to the idea that it really wasn't a big deal, an idea internalized not only by the audience but by Jenny herself.
In case you hadn't guessed, I don't believe Jenny was okay. I believe she thought at the time that she was okay. That's another thing about rape culture: it paints assault on girls at parties as okay. Jenny has begun to bury what happened to her before she's even finished processing it. She even blames herself ("I just feel really stupid"), because hey, like Chuck said himself, it was a party. Sexual assault happens. We all know the cultural meme about what girls who "allow" a guy to get them alone should expect. In reality, of course, Jenny didn't "allow" anything. (And even if she had, she still would not deserve to be assaulted.) The events leading up to the assault speak volumes. Jenny is nervous and uncomfortable about being isolated by Chuck, but this is her first big social event and Chuck is well-known and respected in the circle she wants to gain access to, and let's not forget the gender issues and Jenny's young age (fourteen). She knows the situation is unsafe, but she's afraid to say no because Chuck holds all the power. The best she can do is text Dan and hope for rescue. Yet again I am talking about Chuck leveraging a power imbalance to victimize someone, because that's what he does. And Jenny blames herself. Dan sure as shit doesn't help, either: he tells her that she's trusting and that's a good thing, but when Jenny says, "Yeah, except when it involves Chuck," Dan's answer is, "Pretty much." The upshot of the conversation is that Jenny is stupid for trusting Chuck, even though we saw clearly that she didn't trust him for a second. After this, Jenny deliberately deflects the conversation toward Dan.
The self-blame is hammered home by the scenes with Blair and Jenny later in the episode. At this early point in the show, Jenny idolizes Blair, treating her every word as law. Blair expertly courts and manipulates Jenny's worship in this episode, gifting her with a dress and spending time alone with her. The subject of Jenny's assault comes up a couple of times, with the second providing footage that turned up often in the previouslies for the rest of the season.
Blair: "You wanna know what Chuck Bass is saying about you."
Jenny: "No." [Blair looks skeptical.] ". . . is he? Saying things? Is anyone?"
Blair: "No. Not yet anyway. Chuck likes to brag about his conquests, not his victims." [Jenny looks uncomfortable and unhappy. Blair lets her hang for a few seconds before continuing.] "Come on. You can help me get ready for brunch."
Jenny: "Wow, Blair, thank you! I mean, for the dress and for the other thing. About, uh, about Chuck."
Blair: "If you wanna be part of this world, Jenny, people will talk. Eventually. And you need to decide if all this is worth it."
Blair acknowledges directly that Chuck victimized Jenny, then later goes on to imply that such a thing is part of the price of being among the elite. I mean, let's face it, Jenny isn't worried about people talking about her because she thinks they're going to blame Chuck. Blair's own handling of it cements Jenny's self-blame and the idea that her assault doesn't matter, and because Jenny ascribes such importance to Blair's declarations, it carries extra weight. There's only one conclusion for her to reach: Get over it or forget the social advancement she craves.
So that's what she tries to do. She takes revenge on Chuck at the masquerade, and that, the show tells us, is the end of that. Jenny is totally fine.
Except that she isn't. We don't see much of Jenny before her assault, but it's clear from her family's reaction that the rebellious, angry, backstabbing girl she becomes over the next three years came (from their perspective) out of nowhere. I'm not saying her transformation is entirely a result of her assault. People are more complex than that, and Gossip Girl, for its first couple of seasons at least, is remarkably adept at making its characters complex. But the consistency of Jenny's anger is striking, and I think a lot of it stems from the fact that she had a traumatizing experience, was made to believe both by people she looked up to and the world around her that it was her fault, and never got to deal with it and move on.
I am not going to examine the events of Jenny's arc in any detail, not least because this essay is already longer than all of the actual essays I have written for classes this semester and I still need to get to the episodes that support my assertion. I do want to make it clear, though, that I am not looking to paint Jenny solely as a victim or claim that she is defined entirely by Chuck's actions. But what Chuck does to her is part of her, and the show will never allow her to claim that fact and assert her power over it, so I'm doing it instead.
I remember being surprised and pleased when, late into the second season (2x21: "Seder Anything"), the show actually touched upon Jenny's assault, however briefly. I may not have had the understanding of feminism and rape culture that I do now, but I did realize that it was bullshit that it had happened and the show had apparently forgotten about it. I'm not sure why it came up after so long. I think it was meant as part of Chuck's (temporary) redemption in the name of getting him back with Blair, plus maybe the writers realized that they wouldn't be able to get away with having Chuck and Jenny share a home, because SERIOUSLY. Whatever, I almost don't even care, because I love the scenes dealing with it. They almost make up for the "lol Jewish people" Seder plot.
. . . anyway. In this episode, Jenny has brought a date to the penthouse for dinner and a quiet game of Monopoly when Chuck shows up with a woman he's picked up. Jenny is visibly uncomfortable as they make their way to Chuck's room, making out as they go. "If you hear screams," he assures Jenny and Wes, "don't worry. We're fine." The comment is not merely crude, it's gross, considering he's making it to a girl he assaulted and who did cry out when it was happening. The possibility of Rufus moving his family into the penthouse has recently arisen; the disgusted look on Jenny's face in response to Chuck's remark is perhaps the moment she realizes (or at least consciously acknowledges to herself) that such a move would mean living with Chuck.
Later, Chuck emerges from his room and promptly starts making obscene remarks to Jenny and Wes, including an entendre about Jenny herself disguised as commentary on their Monopoly game ("What a shock, the girl from Brooklyn's a renter."). Jenny interrupts him with an invitation to Wes to go out for a walk; when Wes goes to get their jackets, Jenny takes the opportunity to confront Chuck, which I am quoting in its entirety because GO JENNY GO:
Jenny: "You know, just because you're bored with your own life doesn't mean you have to make everyone around you miserable."
Chuck: "For your information, you don't live here yet."
Jenny: "Please. After what you did at the Kiss on the Lips party last year, like I would ever live in the same house as you." [She pauses and swallows nervously before continuing] "You know, you're lucky I didn't tell my dad, because if I did he'd make Lily choose, us or you, and I wonder who she'd pick."
Chuck: "You really think I care if Lily kicks me out?"
Jenny: "Yeah, I do. Because you lost Blair, and now she's dating your best friend, so therefore, the only human contact you have that you don't pay for is the people in this house. But knowing you, you'll screw that up, too."
Taylor Momsen's acting in this scene is incredibly expressive. Jenny is angry at Chuck and triumphant over the fact that she finally has power over him. Under that, though, she's also afraid. This is, after all, the guy who tried to rape her, and this is the first time she has directly confronted him about it. She's safer than she was at the party - she has the upper hand and they're not alone in the apartment - but it's still a scary moment. Momsen shows us that without undermining Jenny's moment of triumph.
Chuck's reaction is - uh, well, Ed Westwick appears to act primarily via squinting, so Chuck is a little harder to read in this scene. It's clear by the end of it that Jenny's remarks have hit home, but impossible to tell which parts hit the hardest or if he's feeling any remorse. This is in all likelihood the first time he's ever been confronted by one of his victims or seen that what he does to them hurts them, and that hurt doesn't just evaporate. Maybe it's a shock to his system that he needs time to absorb; maybe the only part he cares about is not letting Jenny endanger his relationship with Lily. (You can probably guess which answer I think is truer, especially in light of events to come in the next two seasons.) At any rate, after angsting manfully with Nate for a bit over Blair, Chuck encounters Jenny again. She greets him calmly, maybe feeling more secure now that the initial confrontation is done with (or at least trying to look like she feels more secure). Much to her surprise, Chuck apologizes to her and promises that if the Humphreys move in, he'll move out. Westwick's acting is a little clearer here; this is a rare awkward moment for Chuck, who can't bring himself to look Jenny in the eye until the apology is done with and he's moved on to making his promise.
Jenny, surprised, doesn't answer. Chuck exits the scene without trying to extract an expression of forgiveness from Jenny, which I like and will give him credit for because it is the only thing he does right in their entire storyline. (He will, of course, ruin it in season four by claiming to Rufus that Jenny forgave him when she did no such goddamn thing that we ever saw.) I don't think Jenny expected an apology from Chuck, or any kind of acknowledgment at all of the pain he caused her, and she definitely didn't expect him to offer to move out. The gesture means a great deal to her in terms of feeling less powerless and feeling safe. I think it gives her some sense of closure and allows her to believe that Chuck won't attack her again.
This is the only episode in which Jenny acknowledges her assault as something that Chuck did to her, and the only one in which her anger over being assaulted is explicitly shown and (sort of) addressed. Unfortunately, both Chuck and the show seem to think that this one instance is plenty good enough and that his apology should make it all better. Hell, by season four, Chuck probably does think Jenny forgave him. He does move out well before the Humphreys move in, but it's not because of Jenny; it's to present himself as an adult capable of handling business. That Jenny brings her assault up with him more than a year after the fact makes it clear that it's still an unresolved issue for her, but the show never touches that. Jenny puts it away again and keeps being angry, keeps fighting for control, and keeps hurting people in her quest to have power over her life.
In the third season, just as Jenny has managed to start pulling herself up out of a spiral that included her becoming a drug dealer, she is almost assaulted again when she is roofied by a supposed friend during an event that should be an unadulterated success in Jenny's restarting her life. Agnes then drops her off at a bar, tells its customers that Jenny is looking for a good time, and leaves her there to be raped. This time it's Nate who saves her; Jenny is just able to answer a phonecall from him and tell him that she doesn't know where she is. Nate tracks her down, arriving just in time to prevent a would-be rapist from taking her away himself. One can only imagine (because the show certainly never addresses it) what a terrifying experience it must have been for Jenny, betrayed in such a horrifying fashion and in danger of being attacked again. The timing of it, just as she had begun to regain control and acceptance, is one of the cruel twists the show likes to visit upon her (and Blair, whose story also becomes intimately tied to Chuck). It's worth noting that this incident occurs in episode 3x16, the episode before Chuck makes his deal with Jack, adding to the themes of betrayal and issues of consent the show seemed to be building up in this season. It is after this incident that Jenny's interest in Nate is rekindled and she goes completely off the rails.
At this point, you can't blame Jenny for believing that she will never be safe, that her life will never be okay, that everything will always be horrible and the only thing she can do is be horrible right back. Nate, who came to her rescue when she needed help, represents safety and security, and Jenny clings to that with everything she's got. Thing to add to the list of things I am not doing: Excusing Jenny's behavior. She is cruel and hurtful throughout her three seasons as a regular on the show, and that's not okay. She is arguably at her nastiest in these episodes as she targets Serena, who has generally been her friend and ally, in her efforts to get Nate as a boyfriend. When those efforts inevitably backfire, Jenny turns on her family.
Jenny's involvement in Lily's fake cancer storyline is initially a protective one. Her reaction when she realizes that Lily's medication is worryingly screwed up is to get to the bottom of things and save her stepmother. She calls Chuck, with whom she has been interacting on more positive terms since his apology, who has reason to want to protect Lily himself, and who really is the best candidate out of the people Jenny knows for pulling the rug out from under Lily's creepy ex. (Which, seriously, speaking of betrayal and violation of consent, how about that entire storyline, holy shit.)
In the penultimate episode of the season, though, Jenny, having failed with Nate, decides that her entire situation can be blamed on the Upper East Side and everything would be better if she, Dan, and Rufus went back to Brooklyn and life was like it was before. In first watching this episode, I found this motivation inexplicable and bizarre for about eight thousand reasons, not least of which is that Jenny's overall situation began well before the move to the penthouse. I also found it difficult to swallow the idea that Jenny is foolish enough to think this could possibly work. Now, though, I think that Jenny had simply stopped making any kind of sense at all. By this episode, she's overwhelmed by the misery of her life and grasping desperately at any way out. Being mean hasn't worked for her, and trying to be good didn't work either. This is where Jenny breaks and demonstrates clearly that her capacity for decision-making has, for the time being, deserted her. The fact that the smoking rubble of her life is largely the result of her own actions is of course noteworthy, but it's barely relevant to my argument here, and honestly I'm not even comfortable with linking the one with the other. The implication would be that the events of the finale are Jenny's just desserts for all the hurt she's dealt out, and that is not true and flies in the face of everything I'm trying to say here. So, focusing on Jenny's state of mind: Jenny isn't operating on a basis of logic or out of any kind of comprehension that actions equal consequences. Right now, she's in a bad place emotionally, and all she can see is that she is there alone.
So. Midway through the finale episode, Jenny has completely isolated herself. Even Rufus has finally reached the end of his rope, arranging to send Jenny to live with her mother and finish out her schooling there. With (to her mind) nowhere else to go, Jenny goes to Nate and Chuck's home, because she still associates Nate with security.
I'd like to pause and emphasize that: Jenny believes that she has nowhere else to go. She has taken her behavior and agendas so far that everyone she knows is angry at her; her father has, for the first time, explicitly rejected her. We in the audience realize that she can always go back to Brooklyn, that Rufus isn't going to slam the door in her face, that technically she's the one who walked out anyway. We also know that, regardless of what Jenny has done, Lily would let her into the penthouse rather than make her sit out on the street. But Jenny can't recognize these things. She can't process them on an emotional level, and she is so shattered now that it's arguable whether she can even understand them intellectually. There may also still be in here somewhere one last flicker of Jenny's fight for control - going home is giving in, and she can't give in.
So when she arrives at the Empire and finds Chuck alone in his and Nate's suite, she doesn't have many choices that she is able to see. She says as much: "I guess if Nate's not here, I'll go. Not that I really have anywhere to go, but . . ." They discuss briefly that Jenny has stayed in the suite before, but always with Nate around; Jenny spends time with Nate, not with Chuck, and she doesn't spend time alone in the suite with Chuck. She's very awkward during this part of the conversation, aware that her presence might be an unwelcome intrusion. Rather than assure her that he doesn't object, Chuck takes the opportunity to make a rule: "I don't play video games, so if you wanna hang with me, you do what I do." He then offers her his drink.
I don't think, in this episode, that he manipulates Jenny with malicious intent, and I do think he believes that his apology wiped the slate clean, but as I said in my discussion of consent, intent is not magical. He still manipulates her. He still, yet again, sees a power imbalance and leverages it to get what he wants. Jenny has told him that she has nowhere else to go and she is clearly uneasy about imposing on his hospitality. Chuck, as we will see, wants the company; Jenny needs the roof over her head. There is no reason for him to emphasize the power he holds in this situation and then add to it by making a rule for her to obey. He just does it anyway, and I doubt he even thinks about it. Oh, and his rule also involves getting Jenny drunk, which I also don't think is deliberate (alcohol is to Chuck as water is to other people) and doesn't actually happen, but still needs to be noted. Gossip Girl does like its parallels - he also plied her with alcohol in the pilot.
Of course Jenny sits down and accepts Chuck's drink. What else can she do? And because she is Jenny, she tries to reframe the situation to give herself a little more leverage and convince them both that she wants to be here, drinking with Chuck: "I'm trying to forget some things too," she says.
They discuss how the world Jenny was seeking entry into doesn't really exist. Chuck says that he's always known it was empty, to which Jenny replies, "Yeah, well, now I know that, too. I found out the hard way." This is her acknowledgment that she's burned the life she had down to the ground for nothing. (Technically, it's like her umpteenth acknowledgment of this, with number umpteen and one coming in season four before she finally escapes the show for good, but we've got bigger fish to fry here.) She has nothing. She gave away her friends, her self, and her family for nothing. She is alone. But, here is Chuck, who is also alone. He understands.
Then, of course, their hands touch when she goes to give Chuck's glass back to him, and there is a lengthy pause in which a lot of things happen very quickly. The atmosphere in the room changes and becomes charged; Jenny is painfully aware of both her loneliness and Chuck's; the last time they had any kind of contact like this, Chuck took Jenny's control away from her and she has spent almost three years trying to get it back. And let's not forget Chuck's rule: "You wanna hang with me, you do what I do." She doesn't want to be alone, and Chuck has, ironically enough, quite suddenly become the "only human contact" she has. Both emotionally and literally, Jenny has nowhere else to go. So she kisses him, and then she goes to bed with him.
Supposedly, Chuck gives her an out ("If you wanna leave, now would be the time.") but Jenny's answer is very revealing. She hesitates, not looking at Chuck, and says, "I don't wanna be alone." That is not how we do consent okay. Jenny doesn't want to have sex with Chuck. She wants not to be alone and having sex with Chuck is the only way she has to not be alone. This is not dissimilar to the Indecent Proposal story - saying yes to sex is the only way for Jenny/Blair to get what she wants, so that's what she does.
There was of course also this whole fixation on Jenny's virginity throughout the season. Again, I won't lie. When I watched this season, I ignored all that crap as much as I could, because I have just about had my damn fill of the cultural fixation on female sexual purity. So while I do realize it's been a big deal to Jenny all season, there has been plenty said about how horrible and sad and creepy it is that she ends up losing it to a guy who tried to rape her and I just don't have much to add to that conversation. Acknowledging it, moving on.
The "after" scene in Chuck's bedroom is heartbreaking, and just from the dialogue alone I don't see how anyone could think that Jenny wanted what just happened.
Chuck: "Are you okay?"
[Jenny doesn't answer.]
Chuck: "You're welcome to stay the night."
Jenny: "You're not kicking me out into the street? Lucky me."
Chuck: "Hey. Some people don't get the offer."
Then the elevator dings, but Blair can wait, I'm not done here.
Jenny is not okay. She is not even a little okay and unlike in the pilot, she can't even fake it, so she doesn't try. She keeps her back turned to Chuck until they hear the elevator, and she is so listless that even Chuck - Chuck - has noticed that there is something wrong. Plus, watch her face when she makes the comment about getting kicked out into the street. She tries to make it into a joke, but it isn't, and Chuck's answer confirms that she was right to think it a legitimate concern. How anyone can watch this scene and think that anything consensual has happened here is fucking beyond me. I didn't even need to write this entire meta, I just needed to analyze this scene.
ANYWAY. Blair shows up, Chuck hastens to intercept her, yadda blah. Jenny, however, is still clinging to the hope that Chuck is her human contact. In her mind, Chuck, the guy who assaulted her three years ago and cornered her into having sex with him tonight, is the only person left willing to validate her. I don't think I even need to tell you how horribly sad and fucked up that is.
It doesn't take long for Chuck to torpedo that hope. When Blair asks if someone is in his room, he says, "No, nobody." And that's when Jenny is done. She's done fighting. Why should she fight? Even Chuck thinks she's nobody. Even so, though, she still does him one last favor, no doubt to avoid incurring his wrath; when she finds the bag holding the engagement ring Chuck bought for Blair, she puts out the candle, gets dressed, and flees the suite. She could stay and ruin his moment out of spite, as one would have expected of the Jenny we've seen for most of her arc, but she doesn't. Her fight is gone. She is nobody.
Having heard Blair say that everyone is at the hospital for Dorota, Jenny goes to the hospital. She doesn't go to find her family, though. She doesn't believe she'll be accepted. Instead, she goes to the hospital chapel, which must seem like the last place in the city she can go. Anyone can go to a chapel, and if a stranger sees her upset there, they'll just assume she has a sick loved one. It isn't a stranger who finds her, though. It's Eric.
This is the scene that made me believe that the sex between Jenny and Chuck was being deliberately portrayed as rape. Jenny is in pieces here. She recoils when Eric tries to touch her. She is desperately ashamed. She asks him not to tell anyone. This is not a girl who has had consensual sex that she now realizes was a mistake. This is a girl who has been raped.
Okay, now I'm going to start talking a lot about Eric and then later Dan, two of the men in Jenny's life, and make no mistake. That bugs me. Jenny's rape should be about Jenny. Unfortunately, the way her next couple of scenes are framed, with a lot of male POV, it's largely the actions Eric and Dan take that convinced me that the show was purposely telling Jenny's story this way. Because god forbid a girl's story should be told from her perspective, right?
So. We will get back to Jenny and end with her, I promise.
Eric's reactions are wonderful here. Connor Paolo does a great job of taking him from concerned confusion to the realization that he is in over his head. We have since learned that by season four, Eric did know about Chuck assaulting Jenny, though we don't know when he found out. My guess would be that Jenny told him sometime after the apology, when she might have felt more comfortable talking about it. It's possible that she didn't tell him until after this, but I don't think so. Paolo's performance makes me think that the knowledge of the assault is informing Eric's reactions. Eric initially seems to think Jenny is experiencing post-coital regret ("Jenny, why would you do that?") and tries to reassure her ("It's not the worst thing."). He's uncertain as he speaks, though; he knows that Jenny's misery here is all out of proportion for simple regret. It's when Jenny admits that she was still a virgin and that she had wanted to wait that he starts to get it - you can see the horror starting to dawn on his face. He reaches out to comfort her and she snaps, "Don't touch me!" then asks him not to tell anyone. Eric definitely gets it then. He also gets that Jenny needs more than he can give her right now so, with one last worried look, he goes to find Dan.
Eric's perspective in this scene is clear: By the end of it, he believes, if not that Jenny has been raped, then certainly that something awful has happened. I didn't believe this was an accident or my own projection before I found out that the writers fail spectacularly at women's issues, and I don't believe it now. Maybe the director did it. Maybe Paolo himself did it. Whatever it is, by the end of this scene, we are definitely meant to see through Eric's eyes that Jenny did not want to have sex with Chuck.
Mostly I am not going to deal directly with season four episodes here, because at this point I am depressed and angry enough about Jenny's story without taking too close a look at how Chuck uses her in "Easy J," but I do want to bring up the scene in 4x03 where Eric tells Rufus about the assault in the pilot. (And where someone FINALLY fucking uses the dreaded R word to describe Chuck's actions, and to his face, no less. Thank you, Rufus. Problematic as it is that the episode deals with Jenny's assault via the men in her life, at least someone finally fucking called Chuck out for being an attempted rapist. Too bad it didn't go anywhere.) Eric has had plenty of time to think about the entire situation and emphatically confirms my reading of his reactions in the chapel scene: "You don't understand, it's not like what happened between Chuck and Jenny was an isolated incident. […] When Jenny was a freshman, Chuck tried to force himself on her at a party. So I don't care what Chuck says about being a changed man, what he did to Jenny this time makes it clear. He has always been that person and he always will be." Much as I hate the way Eric gets marginalized as a character because the writers don't know what the hell to do with a gay character, I love the way that marginalization allows him to occasionally step out of the narrative and call the others out on their shit.
Back to the finale. Eric goes to get Dan, whose dialogue here is like a distillation of Eric's reaction in the previous scene. First, still angry with Jenny, he cracks a snide joke, but when Eric tells him no, Jenny needs him, he turns instantly serious and goes to find her.
And then we . . . don't get that scene. Why, I don't know. It's important to the plot, to Jenny and Dan as characters, and to their relationship. That is some bad storytelling right there. Well, let's piece it together, shall we? Jenny tells Dan what happened; Dan comforts her and convinces her that she does indeed have somewhere to go; they leave the chapel to leave the hospital and presumably head home. We know that much must have happened, because they are on their way out when they encounter Chuck and Blair, and Dan knows that Chuck needs to be fucking punched. And so he obliges, creating another (and the most delicious) parallel to the pilot. (I would watch the Dan Punches Chuck show, I'm just saying.) This parallel emphasizes the connection between the assault in the pilot and the events of this episode in an aggressively overt manner that anyone who missed the subtleties of the chapel scene will definitely notice. You see why I thought the writers were doing it on purpose?
Now let's rewind to have a look at Jenny's perspective, and I swear I am going to finish this thing sometime before the show is cancelled. Her immediate response to Eric's entrance is to reject him before he can reject her. When he tells her firmly that he is not going to reject her - "We may get mad at each other sometimes, but if you're really hurting, I'm here for you" - she initially can't believe it. He persists in expressing concern, though, sitting down next to her to indicate that he's not going anywhere. At this point she opens up to him completely. Eric's failure to reject her is all she needs; it's a lifeline. Someone still cares. She is not nobody. When he leaves after she's done, she thinks he's deserting her, but when Dan arrives a few minutes later, she probably realizes he wasn't.
I would guess that the imaginary scene with Dan is something of a mirror to the one with Eric. Once Jenny has been assured that Dan still loves her, she tells him what happened. Maybe she goes into more detail than she did with Eric; maybe she lets him hug her. Maybe not. (I am so annoyed that I have to speculate about this. Note to self: missing scene fic. Write it.) One thing I can venture with confidence is that the fact that Dan is immediately and unquestioningly on her side and wanting to help means the world to her. She hasn't burned the bridge between them forever as she believed she had. He is the second person in ten minutes to prove that to her. Moreover, he is her brother and will always love her (and no doubt tells her this, because this is Dan and he does have a gift for knowing what a distraught person needs to hear). Jenny is not alone.
Then they go out to the hospital foyer, where a furious Dan marches right over to Chuck and hits him hard enough to send him to the floor. This part of the scene is framed to be more about Blair, so we don't see much of a reaction from Jenny. Well, most of this scene is about Blair, but Jenny is in the background for the punch in particular, her expression blank. She seems to have just about enough energy to let Dan take her home. She can't spare any for anything else.
Blair, unfortunately, does not pick up on this - if she notices that Jenny has been crying, she probably decides it's a show to gain sympathy - and creates another parallel to the assault story when she explicitly blames Jenny. As I mentioned several thousand words ago, Blair has a serious problem with internalized misogyny. This scene is one of her most flagrant displays, second only to the campaign against Serena in season one. She orders Jenny out of the hospital and off Manhattan Island, viciously confirming the self-blame Jenny has already expressed. Jenny is too beaten down to do anything but obey - watch the reflexive way she moves toward the entrance when Blair first says "Get out" - and even apologizes to Blair.
Far from inadvertently placing blame on Jenny this time, though, Dan is having none of it. He touches her shoulder to stop her when she starts to leave (Jenny doesn't so much as flinch), and when she apologizes after Blair's rant, Dan says, "You have no reason to be sorry."
Then to Blair, emphatically: "This begins and ends with Chuck."
Dan is talking about Chuck's responsibility for the situation. He recognizes clearly that Chuck has victimized Jenny and wants Chuck held responsible for his actions. More than that, though, he has just described Jenny's story arc, which has now come horribly full circle. This is the line that made it all click together in my head, that brought Jenny's behavior for the last three seasons into focus for me. The spiral Jenny falls into, especially in season two, was something I'd never quite understood when I was watching the first time around. How did the adorable, naive girl from the first few episodes become someone who didn't hesitate to hurt whoever she had to however she had to? "Because the Upper East Side is poison" was not a satisfactory answer. But after I saw this episode, Jenny made sense to me. She was acting out her anger at what happened to her in an incredibly unhealthy way, because she never got to deal with it. At some point she got trapped in the spiral and all her efforts to escape just entangled her further.
Again: I am not looking to define Jenny by Chuck's actions. All I want to is claim that part of her story on her behalf (since, being fictional, she can't do it for herself) and hold Gossip Girl accountable, even if it's just in a post on LiveJournal, for trying to sweep it under the rug. In the fourth season episodes that I am not talking about, the show tries to put blame for Jenny's rape on Jenny, in much the same way as it tries to blame Blair for going to Jack or tell us that Chuck is a lost hero when he's an abusive rapist. That's all bullshit. All of it. Blair's fans have rallied around her and lots of digital ink has been spilled decrying Chuck, which is awesome, but Jenny needed someone on her side, too.
But let's end on an up note. When Rufus and Lily appear on the scene, Jenny goes to her father for support. He responds without hesitation, as does Lily. They walk her out of the scene together, arms around her, symbolic of the support Jenny can always find from her family.
In her last scene in season three, Jenny is happy. It's a week later and she's heading off to Hudson to live with her mother as planned, but the circumstances are different. "It's my idea this time," she says. She wants to leave now; it's her choice. Finally, Jenny has found a measure of control over her life. She hasn't had to hurt or fight anyone to get it, and she needn't fear having it taken from her. She is surrounded by the four people who showed her love and support in the hospital - Eric, Dan, Rufus, and Lily - and they're showing her love and support now as they have no doubt been doing all week. They don't want her to go, but they understand that she needs to. Rufus is also sure to remind Jenny that her mother is glad to have Jenny come live with her. The episode gives us one last parallel, showing Jenny gazing out the train window in a shot similar to one of Serena in the pilot, evoking the last member of the Humphrey-van der Woodsen clan. Like Serena, Jenny is going to have a long, hard slog on the road to becoming who she wants to be, but you know what?
Jenny is going to be okay.
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you make the internet a better place.
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A consenting person cannot be: intoxicated; deeply emotionally distraught; too young; on the wrong side of a major power imbalance; other stuff I am probably forgetting. A person who is intoxicated or otherwise unable to think clearly cannot make healthy decisions. (Example from the show: Serena at the wedding where she had sex with Nate. It is made clear over and over that she would never, ever have done it sober, but the event is so intensely romanticized and eroticized that it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Nate had raped her. He may also have been intoxicated, but he's the one with male privilege, which gives him power that Serena does not have.) A person who is too young cannot be relied upon to make healthy decisions; this is why we have age of consent laws. A person on the wrong side of a power imbalance may feel that they cannot say no, or be afraid to say no, which takes away their ability to choose to say yes and means they cannot meaningfully consent.
In short: rape is not just an act of violence. It's not just the rapist forcing themselves on their victim. Rape and consent are far more complex than the black-and-white scenario society gives us. A person can be raped without ever fighting back or saying no, and a person can commit rape without ever realizing they're doing it. Intent does not erase an act or its effects.
This? This right here? Is why I struggle so much with Jake/Neytiri from Avatar. She never told him that they would be married/bonded for life until it was too late for him to back out. And I have no idea how to fix it. Make them BOTH drunk? But then she still has the power over him given it's her culture, her native physiology, and she's his teacher...Ugh.
That aside, I don't watch GG, but I love this post. It's detailed and fierce and awesome.
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I'm glad you liked the post! Thanks for commenting. I spent a couple weeks thinking and letting it all work itself out in my brain, so when I sat down to write it it pretty much fell right out of my head. (The post, not my brain.)
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It...yeah, I think I saw bits of one episode where one girl was nearly raped, and I went 'fuck this' (was it the pilot? was it Jenny? I have no idea). But this essay is brilliant, and it explains things well enough that I could follow them. (and ahahah, well, given MY brain ATM? I wouldn't surprised either way)
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I have always thought of the S3 finale encounter as rape, but I could never pinpoint the exact reason why.. so I really appreciate this meta for linking the two rape attempts, and pointing out at what point exactly was Jenny's consent taken away.
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Yeah, this stuff is hard to talk or think about if you don't have the tools for it. One of my favorite things about everything I've learned in the past year or two about -isms and privilege and rape culture and all those other insidious things is that never again will "But it's just a movie/TV show/whatever" shut me up, because now I can explain why it's not.
Thanks so much for commenting! I'm really pleased with how this post is resonating with people.
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"But it's just a movie/TV show/whatever" shut me up
I have a lot of hate for this argument. It is only EVER used when the stans know that their character did terrible things..that he should not get away with..
I'm really pleased with how this post is resonating with people.
It's a really good post. You should write feminist meta more often, GG or any other show..
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As it might not have been what the writers wanted but it came through and that's something.
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Thanks for commenting! I have the best flist. You guys always read my stuff. ♥
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Basically, you have given me so many things to think about and thank you for writing this! I was never a particular Jenny fan at any point in the show, but you've given me such a greater understanding of her and I'm so glad for that. It's easy, when the show wants you to forget and you yourself would rather gloss over gross things, to ignore the impact of certain events on characters; also being younger when I first watched, and not as educated about these things as I am now. And my long comment is so long, but I really loved this. I was basically just sitting here reading and nodding and occasionally letting out a "MHM, GURL" because really, excellently done. I would love to read your thoughts on Blair's internalized misogyny and Serena's issues around rape, but that is me selfishly wanting more of your smart thoughts. :P
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If I had to pick one thing that I hate about treatment of female sexuality on this show, just the one thing that encapsulates it for me, it's how the following scenario has happened like twenty times:
Blair: Allow me to express my sexual desire for you.
Dude She Is Into: You are a silly female, Blair! I will reject your desire in a manner that is either virtuous or snide and walk away, leaving you to dwell in your humiliation.
Show: Haha, isn't Blair a slut?
So. Sick. Of it. This was actually one of the reasons I liked Chuck/Blair way, waaaaay back in the day - not only did Chuck accept Blair's sexuality, he actively encouraged it. I thought that was awesome, especially after all of Nate's bullshit.
. . . of course, we all know how that's turned out.
that horrid threesome and its fallout
Oh god, I didn't even think about that. I pretty much tuned out of that storyline after the first thirty seconds with Dan's cringe-inducing male gaze POV and was like, "Actually, no, he's been doing threesome stuff with Blair and Chuck, so I'm just gonna ignore you, weird Gaga episode, and invent an AU instead." (Hence my comment to your fic, heh.) It worked really well for me for about half a dozen episodes! So, uh, yeah. Most of that has pretty much been deleted from my brain, but it was definitely problematic. Plus it was a stupid way to get rid of Olivia, who I really liked.
I would love to read your thoughts on Blair's internalized misogyny and Serena's issues around rape, but that is me selfishly wanting more of your smart thoughts.
XD Thank you. It is seriously not hard to get me to talk about my thoughts. I might do posts on those topics (plus I want to talk more about Eric and how probably the only reason he is consistently awesome is because the writers didn't know what to do with his sexuality, but also didn't police him like they do the women, which put him in this weird liminal space from which he could sometimes get away with commenting on the show itself - idk, I'm working on it), but they wouldn't be as involved as this one - waaaaaay more material to sift through.
Thanks so much for commenting!
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This post makes me want to copy and paste this over at CB lj. I just do tbh and I am not hating on the ship but I feel like some fans need reality checks on certain characters. I know I have gotten some in the past.
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I am not hating on the ship but I feel like some fans need reality checks on certain characters.
I know what you mean. Every fandom has its sector of fans I go to great lengths to avoid. I'm new to actually participating in GG fandom, but I can already tell that I won't be hanging out in Chuck fan forums any time soon.
Thanks for commenting! I'm getting some really great comments here and I love it.
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Some CB fans on IMDB really need to read this post as well. I feel like everyone in GG fandom can benefit from this no matter who they ship. the way this show treats young girls sexuality, virginity isn't a good thing and I wouldn't be surprised if Josh or Stephanie received some sort of backlash which caused them to try to white wash everything.
great post, it was educational and you hit alot of points with confusion, sex, saying no vs yes, and just rape in general. It gave me something to think about.
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I can't believe Safran and SS are still giving interviews trying to convince everyone that Chuck's the hero of GG, that attempted rapists are merely 'kissing bandits', that IP can be forgotten in a few episodes, that what happened with CJ is Jenny's fault, that Blair was scared for Chuck when he tried to sexually assault her. And the list goes on and on.
I really liked Jenny's character in S1/2 but she was never my favorite and I know she gets a lot of fandom hate, so it's great to read meta about her. Perhaps if you have time you could share your thoughts on some of the other girls on the show too?
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Yes, exactly. I am so glad that I stopped watching when I did the first time around. I did not, at the time, have the context to understand why the IP story and the finale were so gross, and I shudder to think that had I kept watching, I might actually have bought into the show's insistence on blaming Blair and Jenny.
that attempted rapists are merely 'kissing bandits'
That one wins the prize for being both offensive AND ridiculous. WTF does that even mean?
Perhaps if you have time you could share your thoughts on some of the other girls on the show too?
I might. I can't promise anything, because that is traditionally the best way to ensure that that my brain will clog right up and I'll never write a word, but there is so much more to talk about. I don't think I could take on whole story arcs for anyone else, because holy excess material Batman, but I already mentioned aspects that need addressing, like Serena's rape issues (if you stop and think about her past, it's hideously depressing to realize how many times she's probably been raped and what it would do to her if she let herself face it head on) and Blair's internalized misogyny (little wonder, since the universe she lives in spends so much energy on slut-shaming her). I also really hated the idea that Elizabeth not wanting to be a mother is the root of Chuck's evil, but that storyline was really confusing and stupid and I still don't know what happened in it, so I'm unlikely to do anything with that.
So yeah, I have ideas. XD
Thanks for commenting! The comments I've gotten have been really encouraging - I wasn't sure of how much of a response I'd get.
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I'm still disgusted by how the show glossed over these issues and Chuck's behaviour in general. (Not even getting into the fandom's opinions here.)
It's been a while since I've seen most of these episodes, so it was a great reminder, on how the show failed to deal with what they choose to show for meaningless OMG moments/ just to shock viewers.
But I disagree with you here:
Example from the show: Serena at the wedding where she had sex with Nate. It is made clear over and over that she would never, ever have done it sober, but the event is so intensely romanticized and eroticized that it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Nate had raped her. He may also have been intoxicated, but he's the one with male privilege, which gives him power that Serena does not have.
I don't think this situation is an example where male privilege applies in that way, if you look at the reactions both of them received for sleeping together, then, yes, Nate is treated differently, and less harsh, than Serena, partially due to being male. That's a perfect example for male privilege and the double standard society uses.
Or, if he was sober, close to sober, or would have encouraged her, I would agree with you, but that wasn't the case.
/sorry for the length and comma abuse that is this comment
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I agree that my oversimplification isn't quite accurate, but I still have problems with the scene that I'm having trouble articulating right now. I think I'd have to go back over it and maybe some other stuff with Serena to figure out exactly what it is that bothers me.
because it reminded me of all the wasted potential that Jenny actually addressing/dealing with what happened to her could have had.
Ugh, I know. She could have had some fantastic story. For that matter - and I'm speaking now as a fan who can't stand squandered potential - so could Chuck. What if Jenny's confronting him had forced him to take a look at himself and how he treats women? Handled correctly, that could also have been an amazing storyline that dealt with the consequences of a culture that condones rape and resulted in a Chuck who hews a little closer to what the writers seem to think he is. Everyone would win!
Sigh.
Thanks for commenting! I will definitely give the issues you raised some more thought.
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I get having problems with that scene, I always felt a little uncomfortable watching it, and didn't know why until I stumbled on this article (http://gg-feminism.livejournal.com/16241.html).
True, Chuck could have gotten some real growth out of facing what happened as well. Instead they didn't even pretend that his apologies were serious, with him having and agenda both times. (The first to prevent Lily from kicking him out, after kicking out a girl, because he had slept with her before. The second while he was stealing her stuff.) It's like they go out of their way to make him look as bad as possible without acknowledging they're doing it. I've stopped trying to understand it.
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Also, Jenny has always been one of my favorite characters. I think most to the fact that I adored her personality in the first few episodes of season one and has since felt very protective of her. So even as she spiralled out of control, which I admit she did and it wasn't pretty, I kept protecting her because she was Jenny - my Jenny that is. Then there is tha fact that I've always related to her character, but that is something I will not go into right now since it has mostly nothing to do with anything right now. It is therefore really refreshing reading things like these that analyses her character instead of the usual slut-shaming and liferuiner comments.
I also find your talk about rape very educational. Not to say that I've ever been ignorant of what it means, seeing since I went through my teenage years having a lot of my friends victimized by, but it still gave me a better understanding which I will shove in the face of the next person to try to excuse such behaviour. So thanks for that!
I completely lost what I wanted to say more in this comment, and I am pretty sure it's a mess. Sorry for that. Also sorry for the overusing of words such as "also" and "and". At least I didn't brought out my love for parenthesis.
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Jenny is adorable in those episodes. When I was rewatching them, I kept thinking what a shame it was that she would become so awful later and wondering exactly how that had happened. She just doesn't give any sign of the mean person she turns into, you know? It was oddly satisfying to finally figure it all out when I saw the S3 finale.
it still gave me a better understanding which I will shove in the face of the next person to try to excuse such behaviour. So thanks for that!
You are so very welcome, and I am really glad to hear this. I had to do a lot of reading and thinking and reexamining the world before I became able to fully understand the real definition of consent, and to be honest, I still have trouble with it sometimes. It's less painful to think of rape as being the violent act we're taught it is; accepting this definition of consent means accepting how widespread and common rape really is, and that's hard, but it's also something that needs to be accepted before it can be changed. I'm really pleased that I've helped to better your understanding and given you something you can use to further other people's understanding as well.
I completely lost what I wanted to say more in this comment, and I am pretty sure it's a mess.
Haha, don't even worry about it. This is a great comment. And I am the last person who gets to call people out for their grammatical crutches - I don't even want to know how many semi-colons show up in this meta!
Thanks so much for commenting! I've really enjoyed seeing what people have had to say here.
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I am really surprised to only see one comment really disagreeing with anything you said. I think what you wrote deserves more thought provoking discussion.
You made a really great case for why Jenny was "raped" (I put it in quotes to emphasize your word choice for what happened) in the scene where she and Chuck have sex. However, I think a lot of the same things you say about Jenny being hurt and thinking that being horrible is the only way to exert control over her life can be said about Chuck as well. If Chuck were a female character, doing the same things Chuck does now, I think that people would be writing the same defense about him that you just wrote about Jenny.
Also, given your definition of consent, I guess it would be impossible for someone in Chuck's position as hotel owner to ever have consensual sex with one of the hotel employees, right? Because based on your definition and explanation, a person in Chuck's position can easily have someone fired. Therefore, ANY time he has sex with someone who works at his hotel, there will be a power difference and would be a good contender to rape. That is not ringing quite true to me.
Anyway, I would love to get your feedback on my above two comments. Your essay was very well thought out, so I'm sure those parts of your essay are just on the cutting room floor! :)
Also, silly question, but what is "meta"? I looked up a definition on urbandictionary, but am still not getting how it applies here. Hehe.
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Easy answer first: "Meta," in the context of fannish works, refers to a piece of writing that deals with the show/book/movie/whatever in question as a work a fiction. Some fandoms have more of it than others.
If Chuck were a female character, doing the same things Chuck does now, I think that people would be writing the same defense about him that you just wrote about Jenny.
I would expect so, and they'd be right. If Chuck were Charlotte instead of Charles, she would be operating in a very different context, without the power of male privilege (http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/faq-what-is-male-privilege/) that Charles has. Her behavior would still be wrong and problematic (if Charlotte assaults Jenny at the party, it's still assault; if Jenny is Jason and he does not want Charlotte's attentions, it is still assault), because women can be rapists and abusers too. Charlotte still has class privilege and the other non-gender-related privileges Charles has; however, the absence of male privilege is a critical one. It's an entire level of power that Charlotte doesn't have, and she is expected by society to acquiesce to those who do have it. If you reimagine the finale with Charlotte and Jason, then it takes on a whole different feel; she still has power to leverage over him, but she doesn't have male privilege. He does. It gets a lot more complicated in trying to decide who took advantage of who, because the overall balance of power is redistributed.
For the record, I don't think Chuck's gender on the show is an automatic indictment. I do believe he's been victimized himself and that the show has misrepresented that as badly as it has basically everything else involving sex and gender. He's still a rapist. The cycle of abuse is self-perpetuating.
That is not ringing quite true to me.
I'm not quite sure why? You've summarized it pretty effectively here. Unless you're objecting to the black-and-whiteness of it? Which, yeah, nothing is black and white and every rule has countless exceptions. I'm sure plenty of people have had fantastic and fully consensual sex with their bosses! I'm also sure that those bosses are better people than Chuck, who repeatedly demonstrates his enjoyment of wielding his power over people. Maybe some of his/his father's employees did genuinely want to have sex with him, but I would be frankly astounded if they all did, or if they all felt that they could safely decline without putting their jobs on the line.
One of the difficulties of the definition of consent I've set forth here is that it can get really complicated really fast and people don't like complicated shit. There are a lot of layers of privilege and power to keep track of. Context is key, which is why this meta is so long - I needed to explore Jenny's context here and show in detail why she did not have the ability to consent in the finale. It's true that Chuck is also damaged there, plus he's been drinking, but he still has power that Jenny does not have, and he still uses it to corner her.
And finally:
You made a really great case for why Jenny was "raped" (I put it in quotes to emphasize your word choice for what happened)
Understood, but please don't do it again here. It still looks and feels a lot like scare quotes, which are one of many derailing tactics used to undermine rape survivors. I think your phrasing by itself, as well as the full content of your comment, made it quite clear that the word choice was not yours.
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I'm so glad you've posted this, because as much as I love GG, it's incredibly problematic in many ways (as you've addressed), and I never thought about Jenny's arc in this way, and I'm kind of mad at myself for not being as aware of it as I was.
I must confess, I do love Chuck, but it's more in terms of the potential he had for character development, and all the issues they could have dealt with, but no, they had to stick with the 'he's a snarky playboy but he's hot and loves Blair so everyone should love him' thing, so i've just ended up with a headcanon Chuck that I'm comfortable liking (which I guess defeats the point of the show but oh well)
Anyway, what I wanted to ask you was about Chuck sleeping with employees. It's been a while since I've watched the first seasons, but I'm pretty certain that some of it took place before Chuck was 17 (the age of consent in NY), and although that doesn't absolve him of responsibility, it makes the consent much more complicated because there is still a power imbalance on his part, and I wanted to know your thoughts on that?
Also, regarding the Blair and Jack thing, the way I saw it was that yes, Blair did not want to have sex with him, but she wanted what would come of it and decided that it was something she was prepared to do in order to get it. And I see that as different to agreeing to have sex with someone when you don't really want to (eg Jenny and Chuck). It isn't good consent in any way, and a decent person wouldn't take it as consent (never thought Jack Bass could be classed as a decent person but there you go) but I personally wouldn't call it rape (not that I get to decide what is and isn't, I just think there are sometimes grey areas in consent, and what happened (or thankfully didn't) between Blair and Jack was one of them.)
hello!
i just finished reading this and all i can say is wow… i know jenny gets a lot of hate primarily because of her trying to get in between serenate and breaking up chuck and blair but reading this meta was really eye opening because it doesn’t necessarily excuse those actions it at least provides reasoning to why it happened, or the circumstances in jenny’s life leading up to it. i will admit, as a jenny fan it is refreshing to read something that isn’t vilifying her and the points you made about CJ
and the shows blatant disregard for women and jenny’s character arc as a whole is truly something that i think everyone should read!
Re: hello!
Wow, thank you for this comment. This meta is pushing ten years old, but I just reread it recently and it's something I'm still proud of and wish had gotten more attention. I'm delighted to know that it's still resonating with at least one person.
I felt really strongly about giving Jenny a fair shot when I wrote this. I was really unsettled by a lot of the unintended themes around consent in season three and the thoughts I had bubbled around in my head for a while before I had time to pin them down.
Thank you again. May I ask how you even found this post?