Let’s Have fun ‘Gossip Woman’ Luna La Whereas We Can

When everybody in my household and me all bought sick (COVID and a foul flu) this winter, the pressured isolation and downtime allowed me to make amends for season two of the Gossip Girl reboot, which is now my favourite model of Gossip Woman. Don’t get me mistaken, there’ll all the time be a particular place in my coronary heart for Blair, Chuck, Serena, Nate, and even (I hate to confess this) Jenny. In any case, I spent an excellent chunk of my teenagers and twenties studying (after which watching) all about their messy-yet-fabulous lives within the Higher East Aspect of Manhattan. 

However the reboot contains a Mexican-American actress and I’m sorry, however I’m all the time going to choose something the place Latinx expertise proudly will get to take middle cage. Which is why it’s tremendous frustrating (if predictable), that we’re not getting a season three. Nonetheless – let’s take pleasure in what we now have!

And what we now have on this Gossip Woman is Zión Moreno – a 27-year-old, El Paso, TX native, trans actress and mannequin who performs Luna La, the stylist mastermind behind the UES’s best-dressed teenagers within the reboot. Moreno is likely one of the first Latinx trans actresses to get a job in a franchise as widespread and beloved as Gossip Woman. Whereas she is perhaps a comparatively new face for a lot of Spectators of the present, she beforehand starred in Netflix’s Management Z, the place she performed her highschool’s it-girl, Isabella de la Fuente (who by the best way, has the same story to Zión’s personal expertise with bullying relating to her gender). 

Gossip Woman was Euphoria earlier than Euphoria. It’s all the time pushed boundaries and brought about numerous dad and mom of youngsters to have minor coronary heart assaults as a result of matters and imagery featured within the present — they could hate it, however that’s additionally a part of that can also be why so many people cherished it. In each the e book collection and the early 00s present, GG was recognized for bringing all of these “taboo” issues that youngsters and younger adults do into the mainstream media: intercourse, medication, relationship drama, scheming, cliques, and intense household drama. They had been all closely featured within the present, and very like IRL, whether or not dad and mom appreciated it or not. 

This new model continues in that very same mission to push boundaries, nevertheless it does so with a way more numerous forged. This time as an alternative of an all über-privileged, all-white forged we get (a nonetheless very privileged) forged that options gender and racial variety. 

Whereas at a primary look, Luna La may look like a secondary or supporting character within the present’s reboot, upon additional reflection, she wields quite a lot of energy. Give it some thought! In a world like theirs, the place who you might be carrying and the way you might be carrying it issues greater than who you might be, being the brains behind the Queen B’s fashion is a place to be envied. She’s the trendsetter and tastemaker who folks look as much as. Not solely is Luna La the very best dressed among the many finest dressed, however she additionally occurs to “secretly be the wisest one amongst us,” as Max Wolfe says. For as soon as, it’s a Latina girl holding all of the playing cards (and all the facility!) – and a trans Latina girl at that. 

Certain, the truth that she’s the one Latina within the present and she or he’s the one which inevitably finally ends up fixing all people’s issues is giving some main Luisa Madrigal/oldest sister vibe, (that’s a narrative for one more time), however let’s take the time to have fun a trans Latina stealing the hearts of tens of millions of individuals all over the world – even when we didn’t hear almost sufficient from her.

If Zión Moreno’s Luna La just isn’t proof sufficient that Latina girls can (and may) rule the world (or at the least the leisure business), I don’t know what’s.