Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley says people are ‘rightfully’ not interested in shows about excess and wealth anymore

Actor said there is now an appetite for ‘deconstructing those systems of privilege’

Penn Badgley has said he agrees with viewers who are no longer interested in shows that aspire to “excess and wealth” such as Gossip Girl.

The actor starred in the teen drama from 2007 to 2012 as Dan Humphrey, a misfit among rich kids in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

In a new interview with his former co-star Chace Crawford in Variety, Badgley said fans loved Gossip Girl because it was “like an escape” and it “struck a certain cultural chord because it was this aspirational fantastical vision of excess and wealth”.

He added: “But now, cut to 13 years later, people are not interested in that. And I think rightfully so. Now they’re interested in deconstructing why we’re so fascinated with that in the first place… interested in deconstructing those systems of privilege.”

Crawford, meanwhile, said he has absolutely no desire to watch old episodes of the show. “Buddy, you have to strap me to a gurney and pop my eyes open like Clockwork Orange,” he said.

Badgley was most recently seen as a psychopathic bookseller in Netflix’s You, while Crawford plays a superhero in Amazon’s The Boys.

“They’re both shows where immediately they take the trope they’re working with… and then basically within the first episode it’s bludgeoned it with a sledgehammer,” said Badgley.

“It’s quite interesting to see the commentary and satire that showrunners are most interested in now… we’ve seen the happy, sweet, saccharine stuff, and now we’re looking to deconstruct it all, because we see how it hasn’t served us.”

Last year, it was announced that Gossip Girl is returning for a reboot in the social media age, with a new set of private school students taking centre stage.