From «Bridgerton» to «Gossip Girl», when the common thread is always gossip

As a Christmas gift Netflix has included in its catalog Bridgerton, among the most anticipated titles. Despite being set in 1800s England, it has already been defined the new Gossip Girl. As if Serena and Blair had met Jane Austin along the way and, tired of drinking vodka and martinis, had given up at tea time. To dominate the new series will always be secrets, gossip and private revelations that fuel the intrigues of bourgeois society. Because despite the years pass and technology continues to evolve, gossip will never disappear, remaining one of the constants that unite the centuries.

And therefore, as the good old man Gossip Girl can ever be so different from Bridgerton? Maybe a lot in the scene but very little in substance.

Even Tolstoy in his Anna Karenina he spoke of a nosy society that criticizes the protagonist’s love choices. New and old loves, betrayals, filthy and unacceptable acts on the part of society. But let’s talk about a story set at the end of the 19th century, sixty years after the one told there The Bridgerton saga (Julia Quinn, 2000) from which the series is based. And if therefore since ancient times we intrude on the lives of others, how to judge a group of teenagers who, in the luxury of their New York, do not know how to pass the time except by putting their mouth to the scandals of the city?

The ways have certainly changed. From long, refined chats in social lounges and country walks, we moved on to alcohol and sex parties and car rides from one penthouse to another. The clothes got shorter and shorter, and in the 2020 reboot they will be even shorter than the already non-existent skirts of the turn of the century. Schools have become a point of interest for the emergence of new scoops and new mobile phones have allowed letters to become more direct and voiceovers to have a wider audience. In Gossip Girl in 2010 a simple “send” was enough and the phone started vibrating throughout the Upper East Side, while today, in the phantom “eight years later” from that final episode, everything has become simpler and more deadly. With social media, one click is enough to keep even those who have flown to the other side of the world informed and to destroy anyone’s reputation in a few seconds. Precisely for this reason that the goal of the reboot that will be released in 2021 will no longer be to find out who he is Gossip Girl, because after all … we all are a bit.

Also for this Bridgerton it is among the most acclaimed titles: we want to know, we want to talk about it. We have that insatiable desire to be omniscient storytellers, we want to be Kristen Bell acting, and she will soon be back to acting: “I’m Gossip Girl, your one and only source of news on the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite ”. Role that in Bridgerton will be taken by the queen of cinema Julie Andrews, she who sees everything and knows everything. Renamed Lady Whistledown, the new “gossip girl” will not sentence with a message but with a small tabloid newspaper: «You don’t know me and you never know me. But I warn you, kind readers, I certainly know you ».

Bridgerton is taken from the eight books of the homonymous saga, each of which tells the story of one of the eight brothers. The first season, available from December 25th, will be taken from the first volume entitled «The Duke and I». The protagonist, Daphne, will be played by Phoebe Dynevor (Younger) as the eldest daughter of this middle-class family in search of the right suitor to marry, under the constant pressure of the social circle of debutantes. Under the careful direction of Shonda Rhimes, no action will be lost and no scandal will go unpunished.