The past couple weeks I couldn’t help but notice the latest ad campaign running for the new television series Gossip Girl. The show hasn’t been on the air for a couple months now because of the writers’ strike, but it is returning with new episodes starting Monday, April, 21. In order to regain old viewers and attract new ones, the marketing execs for the show decided to use the shock factor and the infamous sang “sex sells” to advertise the series’ return.
The new ad campaign shows the main characters engaging in sex acts with the letters “OMFG” on the 
bottom. For those of you who aren’t familiar with text talk, OMFG stands for “Oh my f*%^ing God.” What makes the ads even more controversial than the text itself is the fact that the show is about teens, and therefore it is also targeted at a teen audience. That’s a pretty racy ad for a show targeted at 15 year olds.
The show is based on a book series called Gossip Girl that originally surfaced on bookshelves in 2001. The books are supposed to be a Sex and the City type set-up but for a younger crowd, a.k.a. teen girls. There have always been critiques of the book series because of its scandalous content itself, and it is one of the most popularly opposed series among adults. However, now the books have been brought to life in a televisions series on The CW.
The show itself was already raising eyebrows and turning heads but it seems this new ad campaign really pushed people over the edge. Let’s just look at those four little letters filled with controversy:
1. There is obvious use of profanity in the “F” featured in the ad.
2. There is reference to God and it isn’t exactly the most endearing or P.C. use of the religious figures name, or as some people would put it-a blatant use of the Lord’s name in vain.
3. The pictures in the ads show the teen characters in soft-core pornographic positions.
So now the question is, did this campaign hurt or help the new show, that is obviously desperately seeking attention and better ratings? Really, I think the campaign was a very ballsy move on behalf of The CW, and it definitely accomplished its goal of wanting to grab people’s attention and get them talking. However, I am not a regular viewer of the show, but I do hope that if they choose to show teens engaging in sexual activities it’s important to also show the consequences and make it a realistic portrayal of life. It can’t have ads like this and then romanticize teen sex and not show the many negatives outcomes that could come with it, like teen pregnancy, STDs, heart break and possible ruin of ones reputation.
It’s important that if teens are exposed to sex, which in today’s society is almost inevitable, they are shown real-life scenarios so that they don’t end up becoming an unfortunate statistic. If shows are going to show mature material like this, they also have to take the responsibility of educating viewers as well.
*Images provided by gossipgirlinsider.com
Filed under: Television | 8 Comments
Teens are already having sex. Gossip Girl and the OMFG campaign are not going to increase sexual activity among teens who are already going at it like rabbits. I agree they should portray the real life consequences, but I don’t think they need to change anything about the show or the campaign. It’s obvious that sex sells. If this new show wants to stay on top of the rating charts, then its campaign needs to break through the noise of all the other commercials. There are so many commercials on TV these days, that unless you do something shocking your commercial will just blend with the clutter. The commercial caught my attention when I saw it. It didn’t strike me as being anymore scandalous than Sex and the City, a show most of my female friends worshiped as teenagers. Not to mention, “OMFG” is an abbreviation or phrase that was coined by text happy teenagers. It’s part of their everyday conversation. Personally, I think the campaign was brilliant. It had the shock factor to grab your attention, and it spoke to its target audience clearly, quickly, and in their language.
Gossip Girl HAS done a good job of showing the potentially devastating consequences of reckless sexual behavior. Blair had a much-publicized pregnancy scare in the (mid)season finale in January, which gave rise to a bunch of important conversations within the show. In fact, right after that episode on the Gossip Girl blog http://www.cwtv.com/thecw/gossip-girl-blog they even posted links to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen & Unplanned Pregnancy’s websites along with this message:
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January 14, 2008
Hey everyone. Can you believe that Blair Waldorf thought she was pregnant?! Pretty crazy, huh? But not that crazy considering 1 in 3 girls in the US will get pregnant at least once before her 20th Birthday. The only 100% way to not get pregnant is abstinence but if you are going to have sex use contraception carefully and every single time. If you think you are pregnant you should first find a trusted adult and confide in them. You don’t have to go through this alone! To find more about teen pregnancy please visit http://www.teenpregnancy.org or http://www.stayteen.org. And remember, please stay safe. You know I love you.
xoxo GOSSIP GIRL
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Teens are talking about sex whether they see it on TV or not. Kudos to GG for adding important information to the mix!
I have watched the show a couple times since it began running. I think that the show deals with alot of issues that teens are dealing with today. Society has changed alot, and so has the way televisions shows react to it. Teens are having more sexual activity and talking about sex at younger ages now. With all the blogging and aol chat. OMFG, may be offensive to parents, but for teens and young adults it’s just regular talk which happens daily. I dont think that the campaign hurt the show at all. the ratings continue to rise, and i do not think that the CW would ever put anything on a family network with “soft porn” as you may want to call it. Although the campaign may come off a little rational I think that the campaign dealt with issues that are happening everyday to teens across America, and I think that it may actually help teens realize how to solve issues about sex, pregnancy, and drama. I do think that it talked to the audience by using their “online language”.
This is also the show’s attempt to create a quick stir, instead of saying Hey, America, our show has teenagers! Who have sex! With each other! They’re trying to attract some new eyeballs with a little controversy— it’s a buzz grab, right down to the oh-so-edgy addition of an obscenity-implying acronym “OMFG”. But honestly, what’s so provoking about this imagery compared to other shows on television today, “One Tree Hill”, ‘The Real World”, and “ The OC”, are just a few. All of these shows are just trying to push the envelope a little further then before, an envelope that was pushed a generation ago by the ever-so famous 90210.
To everyone who has commented on this post so far, I would just like to clarify that I am not saying that Gossip Girl doesn’t show accurate portrayals of teen life and the consequences that come with being sexually active. I made sure to say in my post that I do not watch the show, and therefore don’t know whether or not they tackle real life issues.
All I meant was that they might have pushed the limit a little too far with the one ad pictured in my post -the two kissing, naked with the girl clearly moaning. The other ad which shows two characters kissing in a cab is not crossing the line or too racy in my opinion. And as far as the OMFG part is concerned, I was only pointing out why the ads have sparked such a controversy among the media and parents. Parents who may not let their kids watch the show anymore because of the ad. I know that the show has sex in it, but to so bluntly flaunt it wasn’t a good way to keep that under the radar and unbeknownst to naive parents who now might go out of their way to keep their kids from watching the show.
I guess I neglected to think about the fact that college students and adults watch this show as well. Personally, I don’t. I read some of the books in high school and didn’t have an interest in watching the show. I do agree with all 3 of you, that kids are having more sex now a days, and the OMFG part is mostly offensive to parents and not teens, but on the Gossip Girl Insider Website some viewers commented and said that they felt the ads-the Serena one in particular-was a little over the top. You really should look at this link http://www.gossipgirlinsider.com/2008/04/omfg-new-gossip-girl-ads-spark-controversy/ and check out what people had to say-not necessarily the second response posted because it’s pretty extreme.
I can honestly say that I watched Gossip Girl on its premier on CW and after that I never tuned in again. The whole “I’m a rich kid living in a lifestyle that most teens don’t” is way over played. All these teen drams who are about kids in high school portray high school in a light I sure never saw. And the sad thing about these shows is that many girls try to model their lives after them and at one point or another they wish their lives were just like some of these characters. I do understand that Gossip Girl has a wide demographic of viewers but these ads are rather provocative. But how a show is geared for a freshman in high school to a senior in college is an interesting concept, and in my opinion it’s not a good match, I can’t think of many things these people on the opposite spectrum would have in common including enjoying the same show. Personally I don’t think the ads were needed or called for. All the other great teen dramas before didn’t pounce on just the sex in the show and had great ratings. I personally think it was a bad call for Gossip Girl, putting sex in the show may be one thing but using it to pull in viewers is another.
I do agree that it was a very bold move for The CW. I also believe The CW is going down-hill and fast. They used to be considered a family network but anymore you can not watch the programing with your family. It programmnig has become the guilty pleasure TV shows that you Tivo and watch after your parents go to sleep. This is the company that use to show 7th Heaven and Gilmore Girls, and now they have gone to high-drama, unrealistic sitcoms. I know teenagers are having sex but that doesn’t make it ok to advertsie sex on a show targeted at 15 year old girls, it is the next Dawson’s Creek. If they dont back down on the sleezy ads they will end up being the new Dirt (FX Network).
I happen to watch Gossip Girl on a regular basis and I do happen to love the show. Although the concepts and story lines are somewhat, well completely, unrealistic the majority of times the issues portrayed are very real and accurately conveyed. The new ads are very controversial considering this is a show directed at teens, but I think the show actually is more appealing to a slightly older audience, say 17-22 year olds. While it was risky move to show the less than PC ads, it definitely caught peoples’ attention and that was the point. I do not think it hurt the show at all, and honestly I did not even really feel all that affected by the commercials because to be completely honest we are all a little be desensitized to sexy, racy ad campaigns now.