Jenny Humphrey: A Victim of False Consciousness

In class this week, we learned about the Marxist theory of false consciousness. Marx explained it as the process by which the real economic imbalances of the dominant social system get hidden and ordinary citizens come to believe in the perfection of the system that in fact oppresses them. As a result, those in the oppressed class unconsciously adopt views of the oppressor class. When I think of this concept, the thing that comes to mind is the character of Jenny Humphrey in the television show Gossip Girl. While all of the other characters in the show live on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, her family lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. By default, this means that she and her brother are inferior to the kids they go to school with. To no end, they are ridiculed for living in Brooklyn and not having as much money as their wealthy peers.

While Gossip Girl is of course just a television show and moreover, a very unrealistic one, I cannot help but ask myself how Jenny Humphrey can afford the clothing that she wears. The way the show makes it seem is that the Humphrey family is really tight on money. Towards the end of last season, it was revealed that the dad, Rufus, would not be able to afford to send his son, Dan, to Yale (NYU gave him more financial aid…hahaha); yet Jenny waltzes around in Diane Von Furstenberg leather jackets and Alexandre Birman python booties. Where’s the logic there? I found a website showing where you can find the clothing that are featured on Gossip Girl and there is a post about Jenny’s clothing showing that her outfit is over $1,000. If your dad cannot afford to send your brother to college, why are you wearing an $895 DVF jacket? You can find the post here: http://www.gossipgirlfashion.net/5013738

Anyways, the reason why I thought this was relevant was because if one were to quote on quote by into the show’s plot and look past the ridiculousness of it all, then you can see that Jenny is a victim of false consciousness. They portray her family as being tight on money demonstrated by the fact that they “have to” live in Brooklyn and not in Manhattan, yet she runs around the city in expensive snakeskin boots. One could therefore say that Jenny is the ordinary citizen believing in the perfection of the system that really oppresses her; she unconsciously adopted the views of her elite peers. So while Blair and Serena have a lot of money and can really afford the clothing they wear, she cannot and buys them anyway. In season one, she got angry at her mother for buying her vintage shoes from a thrift store and she said, “Kids at school shop at places like Saks and Bendels, I can't be walking around in someone else's old shoes.” This just goes to show that she is trying to be someone that by nature, she is not because she has succumbed to false consciousness.