Gossip Girl Pitch

LOGLINE: “The scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite” MEETS real-life ‘scandalous’ Manhattan elite; controversial global political, pop culture, fashion icon Imelda Marcos appears on TV’s Gossip Girl, a first for the provocative and notorious, inimitable former First Lady.

The foregoing is the logline of a pitch I made to Gossip Girl producers on the possibility of a cameo for Imelda Marcos for its last and final season. Whilst the drama was unfolding at the Capitol the past week, fans of the iconic show aired over the CW Network prepped themselves up for the ultimate conclusion to 6 years of drama, riddled of course with the following staples: scheming, scandals, plotting, and well, gossip.

The fanatic that I am (I have my own set of ‘compelling’ personal reasons for following the show), I even organized a finale viewing party at a friend’s house (thank you Vanessa Wortman for having us at your seaside villa at the Coral Point), complete with French macarons, Moët Rosé Champagne, fresh strawberries, the final episode projected onto a 100 screen, masseuses to make sure we’re all relaxed, relieved, and well taken care of, a delectable seafood spread for supper, the works! I know, I know, a tad too much for a TV show; but it’s just one of my many quirks.

Speaking of quirks, let’s go back to the pitch.  Good friends of mine know how I entertain myself with the occasional frivolity (we can’t all endeavor to change the world 24/7, you know), and I do go out of my way to try to make these ‘special projects’ happen. So apart from the viewing party held the other day, I submitted this pitch several months back. Too bad the contempt case against the Marcos family in the US courts got in the way (Google it for more information), and it was too risky (for the production to be at the mercy of current events), so I didn’t follow up with the producers anymore.

Still, it was fun thinking about it (and actually asking Imelda Marcos, my great  aunt, if she’d be open to the idea; that was memorable to say the least) and making a huge step in sending the pitch (initially through dear friend, Emmy Award-winning producer Michael Carandang). Some of my friends and followers on Facebook have been requesting to read the pitch, so as a tribute of sorts for the show’s finale, here’s the rest of it: 

1) Madame Imelda Marcos, fashionable and controversial Philippine First Lady known throughout the world for her 3,000 pairs of shoes (“in my defense, when they opened my closet, they found shoes instead of skeletons”), her ostentatious lifestyle and frivolity, her quirks and quotable quotes, on Gossip Girl’s last and final season? Talk about ending the show with an added buzz!

2) Mrs. Marcos, her hair all coiffed in her signature style, seen attending one of the high society parties that take place in each episode—the style icon in her natural habitat. She may even dish out one of her famous quotes on love, power, wealth. She fits the “scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite” tag to a tee, having had several properties on 5th Avenue and the rest of the Upper East Side, and being the global socialite that she is, as well as having been embroiled in her own share of scandals and controversies while in power (much like some of the show’s characters—Lily Bass and Anne Archibald, to name a few). Who can forget her ‘trial of the century’ in New York, when she walked to the altar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on her knees after being acquitted? The ‘Marie Antoinette’ of the last century, she is the quintessential cover girl for controversy, power, fall from grace, and rising from the ashes. Some blogs compare her and Blair Waldorf: beautiful, ambitious, unquenchable lust for power, in love with a powerful man, etc.

3) When she was Philippine First Lady, the (in) famous former beauty queen hosted glamorous parties in her different Upper East Side properties, apart from gracing important events such as the opening of the New York Metropolitan Opera House (together with Nelson Rockefeller, Alfred Vanderbilt, John Hay Whitney, notable surnames mentioned frequently on the show), and going on $5 million Manhattan shopping sprees.

4) Other high-profile celebrities like Ivanka Trump, Lady Gaga, Tim Gun have had cameo appearances on the show, and mention of real-life personalities or historical figures like the Grimaldis of Monaco, Cornelius Vanderbilt, et. al., together with ingenious political references and storylines (“plotting, fatwa, diplomacy, scheming, treaties, etc.”) make the presence of a real-life iconic global political superstar—one who has charmed the world’s strongmen: Castro, Saddam, Qaddafi, Mao—quite apropos.

5) This shall be the first time that she—a piece of living history—would be seen doing a cameo for any TV show or series. Although interviewed in numerous news and current affairs programs on CNN, BBC, Al Jezeera, etc., magazines like TIME and Newsweek, and mentioned countless times in Hollywood movies and American TV shows throughout the decades, she has never appeared as herself on any television drama series. History is made.

6) Madame Marcos has been recently elected congresswoman, with the Marcos family seeing a return to power, her son now a national senator, her daughter a governor—all under her tutelage and guidance, and with all but a handful of the 901 cases filed against her in the US and the Philippines dismissed (billions of dollars in gold and other frozen assets are said to be still intact in Swiss banks). She’s very current, always good copy, a constant subject in news interviews, documentaries, magazine features, blog posts, and was the inspiration for the Fatboy Slim - David Byrne collaborative album, “Here lies love.” A Broadway musical on Imelda is said to be in the works and will be opening its curtains very soon. On top of that, the ‘Iron Butterfly’ is still looking very beautiful and regal at 83.

7) Pending any communication with you or your rep, I took the liberty of asking Mrs. Marcos, my paternal grand aunt, if she would agree to do a cameo appearance on the show for me, considering she has never done anything like it before, and if the show’s producers welcome the idea, since I’m an avid follower of the show. And to this request she so gregariously agreed, “For you, hijo (“son”), I would. Do whatever you want if you can make the arrangements. I’ve never done anything like this before, but I’ll do it for you. If they’ll have me, it would also be a new experience; it should be fun!”