Rik's Blog

One of the many smaller things resulting from September 11 in New York was that TV became much harder to watch. New York City had a ton of broadcast channels, so we never felt the need to get cable (and this was before cable companies were ISPs). But the majority of them broadcast from the WTC antenna, so choices became much more limited for a long time (even once signals got up and running from the Empire State Bldg antenna, they were never as strong in Brooklyn). One of the panic-inducing things about the towers falling was that it was a lot harder to even get information about what was going on.

That was a really dramatic way to explain that we weren’t watching a lot of TV in the early 2000s. Also, we had a baby in 2002, so we were busy with other things. When we had time to turn our brains off, we’d watch DVDs (we rewatched Highlander: the Series since the sleep deprivation of having a baby reminded us of turning to that show after the late movie on Channel 13 was over on Saturday nights). Eventually we entered a phase of fansubbed anime, but other than Buffy and Firefly we didn’t watch anything on the air. When those shows ended we got rid of our TV entirely.

We’ve caught up on some shows from the era: Angel, Veronica Mars, Freaks & Geeks, Arrested Development, House, Doctor Who; but there are many we’ve never gotten around to. Anyway, while quarantining seperately, Elizabeth started watching Gilmore Girls, under the presumption (true enough at the time) that I wouldn’t be particularly interested. Of course, there are tons of episodes, and she was only partway through season 3 when we were able to live in the same house again.

Since I like the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel well enough, I figured I’d give it a shot. The rhythm of the banter gets in your head as much as anything Joss Whedon ever helmed, but the whole “Harvard or Yale” plot did little to endear me to the Gilmore clan. For a long while it was a hate-watch for me.

We’re now at the end of season 5, and I have to say my opinion has changed entirely. Gilmore Girls is a scatterbrained mess, yes, but it’s also really deep. Lorelai Gilmore does not seem, at first glance, or even at 50th glance, to be a protagonist worthy of deep literary dissection. She presents herself to the world as a shallow, quirky, caffeine-fueled fun mom who never stops talking long enough to think things through. She lives in Stars Hollow, a shallow, quirky small town in Connecticut where each character you meet is more absurd than the next. Her daughter Rory is sweet and perfect, and they banter over the goings-on of the town and boys they like at Luke’s diner. Luke is grouchy, but with a heart of gold, and the show telegraphs from the start that Lorelai/Luke are the show’s OTP.

The premise of the show is that Rory is too smart for her small-town school and wants to go to Harvard (which was her mom’s dream), but she can’t afford the fancy private school, so Lorelai has to make up with her parents so they’ll lend the money. They are rich, snooty, old-money types and they cut off Lorelai when she got pregnant with Rory at 16. Now Lorelai and Rory have to have dinner with them every Friday night (more banter ensues).

The slow pacing of 22-episode-long seasons pulls in various side characters and goofy local traditions, trying to make the town a character as much as a setting (very much in the vein of Northern Exposure). But the forced absurdity combined with the constant soapy churn of romantic subplots gives the whole proceeding a dark existential air. Kirk alone is a nightmare of meaninglessness, a man-baby of indeterminate age who will do anything to please/annoy but never makes progress toward anything. Few characters have much personal drive, because they have to stick around as set decoration for the main characters. Lorelai wants to go from managing an inn to starting her own inn, which she does and quickly becomes successful at (after a few perfunctory bumps). Rory wants to go to Harvard, where she is accepted, but goes to Yale instead, where she is successful (but not as successful as she expects, which she takes as a huge personal blow).

So far, so trashy. It’s fine to have on while knitting. Lots of bad romantic choices get made. But when you start stacking up individual episodes into arcs, and stacking up arcs into themes, it gradually becomes a much different show.

Lorelai rejects her parents’ values, yes. But she’s not as free-and-easy bohemian as she play-acts. (Just as Lane realizes she can’t just drop all the baggage of her mother’s Christianity without paying a deep personal price.) She’s deeply wounded because her parents rejected her. She can’t reconcile because her parents refuse to apologize or change, but she can’t completely cut them off, either. She tries, but family is too important to her. She has invested so much into Rory, and the turn when Rory stops being little-Ms.-perfect and starts screwing up her life is huge. Because suddenly Lorlelai sees the situation from the opposite side. She thought she had the power to keep this from happening, and she thought she had the attitude to keep herself from reacting wrong if it did. And the show underplays it! The family stuff is always kept at a simmer while the romances are foregrounded. But the real drama is the generational damage.

The characters make a lot more sense when seen through this long lens. Lorelai presents herself as trashy as a defense. If that’s how her parents see her, she’ll wear it with pride. She transforms her mother’s class markers but can’t fully let them go. Her own house is cluttered and worse-for-wear, but she designs and builds an inn that oozes luxury (even sharing a decorator with her mom). It’s very important to her than Rory not just go to college, but go to an Ivy. And once Rory is ensconced and Yale and the inn is running successfully, Lorelai is at sea personally. Does she want to sell the inn and become a traveling consultant? (Clearly creating an inn is more fun for her than running an inn.) Does she want to settle down with Luke and start a whole new family? (When she’s never had an unencumbered adult life yet.)

Rory, too, gets more interesting later in the series. The Friday night dinners have had their effect, and at Yale she fits in much better coming from her grandparents’ world than from her mom’s. In fact, meeting Logan’s family she realizes that her grandparents are totally low-class compared to all her new friends. This sends her into a tailspin of self-doubt that she’s inequipped to deal with. Lorelai has protected and provided for Rory so well that leaving the nest is inordinately hard on both of them.

Shows aimed at women have always had to work extra hard to be taken seriously. Even dancing backwards in high heels is not enough. Gilmore Girls the show rejects its own seriousness in the same way Lorelai does, by presenting a shallow, trashy facade filled with quirky banter and whimsical characters. But in the end it’s a much more realistic and relatable character study than Mad Men with its cypher-in-a-suit Don Draper. Lorelai Gilmore’s emotional damage is far more universal and comprehensible. The theme of the mistakes of one generation raining down on the next make it a powerful statement wrapped in a sweet-nothing-2000-era-flavored confection.