I quit you: Gossip Girl

I quit you, Gossip Girl. I'm a little embarrassed to admit I watched you at all, but (like your predecessor The O.C.) in the beginning, you were smarter and funnier than most people gave you credit for. A friend talked me into watching you, and once I did I was smitten. You were trashy, witty, razor-sharp eye candy. But then you started trying to convince me that a date rapist was so dreamy. (I find the number of people out there with Chuck Bass crushes scary.) Listen, I just don't like the Beauty and the Beast Blair's-love-redeems-a-rapist concept. The thing is, you kept Chuck just enough of a drugged-up-prostitute-frequenting-asshole for me. (He's not completely redeemed; Blair just has masochistic taste.)

With this new Letourneau storyline, though, you may have driven me over the edge. Lately the media has been amping up stories about female teachers sleeping with their male students. Statistically, it is more often male teachers with female students, but that's not the story that's being told. It's sexist, and it's irresponsible, because in some ways it perpetuates the problem, as when Dan is in the courtyard getting high-fives for his 'conquest' of the hot English teacher--a Teach For America volunteer who moved to NYC from Iowa. Of course, the fact that I'm and English teacher from Iowa who moved to Manhattan for the New York City Teaching Fellows (which is just like TFA) added insult to injury. Getting appropriate respect from teenage boys is hard enough without you encouraging those kinds of fantasies. Cut that nonsense out!