By Neha, Grade 10
Note: contains some spoilers for Gilmore Girls
As fall and winter come to a close, I know that many people, myself included, are wrapping up their annual re-watch of one of the most beloved TV shows of all time, Gilmore Girls. However, this year, I ended up noticing aspects of Gilmore Girls that I hadn’t noticed the first couple times I watched the series. There were especially progressive ideals for the time, but in addition, there were some harmful narratives and implications that the TV show made that broke my immersion and slightly disappointed me.
Before continuing, I want to mention that Gilmore Girls will always be one of my favorite TV shows of all time, and I want to clarify that the faults of Gilmore Girls were also faults of almost every other TV show at the time. I also believe that the faults of the Gilmore Girls script were more due to the show’s writers rather than the actors themselves. Seeing the online presence of the actors, it’s clear that the harmful narratives of the series are not agreed with by the actors themselves, all of whom (at least, to my knowledge!) are very progressive people with respect for everyone. In addition, Gilmore Girls was made and set in the early 2000s, a time when society hadn’t fully accepted many groups of people. Although I do not want to excuse these actions, I do not believe that Gilmore Girls is an intentionally harmful show, and when watched with an attentive eye, can teach us more about society and the fight against discrimination.
Gilmore Girls has no shortage of nuances and complexities to appreciate. For example, it depicts one of the most accurate portrayals of motherhood that I have ever seen. Lorelai, one of the main characters of the series, is unexpectedly thrown into motherhood through a teen pregnancy, making her experience more difficult than it was for most. Despite these challenges, Lorelai manages to be a good mother to her daughter and the show’s second protagonist, Rory–but not without her fair share of struggles. The portrayal of Lorelai struggling to raise Rory is executed extremely realistically, with Lorelai being depicted as an overall good-hearted mother who has her flaws. Small aspects of Lorelai’s parenting, such as her tendency to avoid conflict with her daughter Rory, make it clear to the viewer that she has struggles raising Rory, despite her successes. For example, when Rory decides to drop out of Yale, Lorelai simply breaks contact with her instead of trying to meaningfully resolve the conflict.
In addition, Rory’s character herself is portrayed with complexities beyond the typical comedic TV show. While the writers and directors do portray her as a collage of various stereotypes through her craze for studying and her shyness, Rory acts in surprising ways as the series progresses. Sometimes, she even shows what seems to be backwards character development. While it doesn’t inherently make sense for a character to develop a more problematic personality as time goes on, in Rory’s life, it helped me get a sense for who she really was. In earlier seasons of Gilmore Girls, when Rory was a high school student in a small town, she was portrayed as a loving, relatable, funny girl. However, when Rory ends up going to Yale and being exposed to more privileged people, she ends up turning into exactly what she wanted to avoid–a rich, privileged, college student. Although this may seem like backwards development, I believe that Rory was always privileged–being white and conventionally attractive–, despite her small-town upbringing, and that this transition was just her way of realizing it. This is especially important because acknowledging our privilege is the first step towards taking action.
However, some of the series’ narratives are definitely harmful, especially considering the behaviors of the town characters themselves. There are close to no characters of color in Gilmore Girls, and the few that are included are racially stereotyped and almost never given a moment in the spotlight. For example, Lane Kim, a Korean character, had the most predictable stereotypical Asian American portrayal possible–a straight-A student with a strict, religious mother, a rebellious streak against that strictness, and a fair amount of social awkwardness. Although Lane’s storyline did get more interesting throughout the series with her starting a band and moving out, she eventually becomes trapped back into her small-town life, never achieving fame, getting pregnant extremely young, never achieving the freedom that she spent her life searching for. Although I understand that characters don’t always get the happy endings they deserve, I truly believe that the writers should have given the sole Asian representation in this series a proper ending.
Moreover, the series contains several throwaway remarks that promote homophobic ideologies. Throughout the series, jokes about the LGBTQ+ community are delivered lightly, such as Lorelai calling Kirk (a side character) “gay” for carrying around a purse, or Emily Gilmore (Lorelai’s mother and Rory’s grandmother) saying that there is “nothing funny about being a lesbian”.
Overall, Gilmore Girls is a highly entertaining show that I’d consider relatively progressive compared to similar series at the time. However, when watching, one should be careful and watch with an observant eye, because even shows that feature strong, progressive female leads have their faults. Ultimately, I do believe that the unique and realistic portrayals of multifaceted characters in Gilmore Girls does outweigh its stereotyping and casual discrimination, but it is important to acknowledge the less glamorous aspects of early 2000’s culture and remember to appreciate its strengths while keeping its harms in mind.
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