Today is International Women’s Day so for day 4 of 40 Days of Blogging I am dedicating this post to my favorite women in pop culture: Rory and Lorelai Gilmore. Sure there are a million real, awesome, funny, kickass women I could write this post about, but Gilmore Girls is my favorite television show of all time.
*Some minor spoilers follow*
To begin with, the show was created, written, produced, and sometimes directed and edited by Amy Sherman-Palladino (and her husband Daniel). This is a show about mothers and daughters and their relationships. Sure there are other great families on television, but no show has ever come this close to what this specific kind of relationship is really like. Palladino just gets it. The complexity of loving someone even though they drive you crazy. Having that one person who will always be in your corner no matter what. And most importantly the way women speak and interact. I’ve had guys friends tell me they don’t like the show because “no one speaks like that.” Spend 10 minutes with me and my sister or any of my friends and then tell me how you feel. Teenagers (and people in general) don’t say, “Leggo my eggo I’m preggo” or whatever they say in Juno, they quote movies and TV shows and books and they do it all in lightning speed. (I don’t mean to hate on Juno, just the way people talk in that film just really annoys me. But go Diablo Cody, another cool female!) Gilmore Girls was on for 7 years because it resonated with people. Watching it felt like spending time with your best friends or your mom or people you wished were your best friends or you mom. (Just kidding, love you mom.)
What girl doesn’t/didn’t want to be Rory? I bought a Yale shirt online THAT’S HOW MUCH I WANTED TO BE HER. Every time I like a guy I text one of my friends about whether he’s a Dean or a Logan or a Jess. (I’m still looking for my Jess, but aren’t we all?) Rory is the ultimate female role model because she’s smart and never pretended to be anyone but herself (except for that one time we won’t talk about where she stole a boat…and dropped out of college). But the whole stealing a boat and dropping out of college thing was okay because it meant Rory was human. Sure she got straight A’s and still found time to read for fun *and* watch endless amounts of movies, but she also had her heartbroken and slept with a married man and never ate her vegetables. Nobody’s perfect and we liked watching her because there’s a little bit of Rory in all of us.
Although I suspect that there are a lot more Lorelais out there than Rorys. Rory might have been the brain of the show, but Lorelai was the
heart and soul. Sure she might be an over-caffeinated, too fast talking, movie referencing female, but she was also a mother and a friend and a business owner who was trying to figure out how to have it all (or at least have her own little corner of the world). As I get older I appreciate Lorelai’s character more and more because she is the one who had to make sacrifices, who had to change and grow, and who was let down over and over again by the people around her. Which is oftentimes what happens in life. GG was great is because it taught us that what really matters are the people you surround yourself with and the dreams you create for yourself.
Another notable female on this show? Pre-Bridesmaids Melissa McCarthy who didn’t need to engage in any gag out humor or fat jokes for a laugh. She was just the sometimes forgetful, but always amazing chef who had her life together. She could balance a successful career with having 2 kids in ways Lorelai never could. I miss that Melissa.
Also, honorable mentions must go to Rory’s BFFs. Paris Geller is a character who is to be feared, loved, and most of all respected for being an intellectual badass. I would like to see her in a room with Sherlock Holmes. Lane is a character they could have easily replaced her when Rory left first for Chilton and then Yale, but I love the way they kept her character and let their friendship evolve as the characters aged. It gives hope to someone like me going though the same experience of not knowing where life is taking you, but glad to have your friends by your side, whatever that means.
Gilmore Girls will always be my favorite show because happy, sad, stressed, or angry- there’s an episode for that. I have laughed, I have cried, and I have grown up in Stars Hallow alongside these characters. I don’t think another show will ever “get” me like this one and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Final Words
- Read this if you want to get really mad like I just did about what happened to Amy Sherman-Palladino and last season of GG
- I’m really sorry for not including a paragraph about Emily Gilmore because she’s amazing and deserves to be mentioned, but this post was running way long (like always).
SNAP. CRACKLE. POP...CULTURE. 