Gossip Girl Threesome Has Parents Television Council’s Panties in a Bunch

Nov 5, 2009 | Filed Under: Pop Culture,Television

Once again the Parents Television Council are playing right into the hands of the Gossip Girl marketing team, making a big fuss about on-air promos for a sexual threesome on an upcoming episode — and, therefore, garnering even more publicity for the show.

The Council is asking affiliates of the CW network to pre-empt the show.  A request that I’m sure will be very effective.  *AHEM*

Airing the teen tryst, which is being teased in an ad as a “3SOME,” is “reckless and irresponsible,” said PTC president Tim Winter in a statement Wednesday.  (Grammatically reckless, perhaps.  “3SOME?!”  Seriously?)

The 3SOME involves three main characters in the show but they are not identified in the promos.

In a letter to the affiliates, Winter asked:

“Will you now be complicit in establishing a precedent and expectation that teenagers should engage in behaviors heretofore associated primarily with adult films?”

Hey, porn is a VERY respectable career path!  (Says the woman with a porn name.)

This is not the first time the PTC has complained about Gossip Girl, which Winter said is “expressly targeted to impressionable teenagers. . . CW has been defending graphic content on ‘Gossip Girl’ by asserting that they don’t target teenagers,” Winters said Wednesday. “Such a claim doesn’t even pass the ‘laugh test.’”

CW spokesman Paul McGuire said the target audience for “Gossip Girl” is 18- to 34-year-old women, with a median viewer age of 27 years old.  Outliers include my three-month-old daughter, who is MESMERIZED by the show.  (YES, I let her watch Gossip Girl.  It keeps her QUIET, okay?  I have no qualms about letting Chuck Bass babysit my kid.)

As for the network, they had no comment on PTC’s complaint.

Except to say behind closed doors, “Woo-hoo!  Thanks for the media coverage and extra viewers, suckers!”