Warning: spoiler alert.
I have recently rewatched Gilmore Girls and I am down to the last season. I have a habit of looking up and reading commentaries and articles about the shows I am watching to get a sense of other people’s opinions. I was shocked to learn that so many people hate Rory Gilmore. She was pegged the worst character in Gilmore Girls. Her character apparently went downhill from the loveable teenager to a huge disappointment.
I want to put in my two cents.
Rory in the earlier seasons was the perfect kid. Her relationship with her mother Lorelai was what we all wish we had with our mother. She was a good student. She was nice to everyone in Stars Hollow. Hell, she harbored no ill feelings against her estranged father.
Naturally, people had great expectations. People put her on a pedestal. They thought the world of her. Rory could do no wrong. Rory would not hurt anybody. But as we see on the later episodes, she does hurt a couple of people, the prime example being her ex-boyfriend Dean.
Then, she went to Yale.
She slept with a married person. She quit school after hearing negative feedback. She and Lorelai stopped talking for months.
I’ll concede she was indeed acting immature, but I can’t completely fault her for acting the way she did. She was young and a comment from a person like Mitchum about “not having it” really hurt not only her ego but her confidence. The whole time I could only imagine how I would react. I don’t think I would take it so well either. I can’t stand people calling her a brat for it. Being told you’re brilliant your whole life and then entering college where people are just as, if not more, brilliant than you can really shake your confidence. Are these people so perfect that they couldn’t simply relate — how precarious a young person’s confidence can be?
Then, the revival happens.
At the outset, Rory sleeping with a married man (for the second time) is unforgivable. It’s clear to me that she and Logan really want to be together but for some reason can’t seem to fully commit to each other. But I don’t want to talk about that. Let the record show, however, that I’m Team Jess.
I want to talk about Rory’s career. I got defensive after seeing how people are so disappointed at Rory for dropping the ball on her career. Yes, she was set to do big things — she wanted to be the next Christiane Amanpour. In the revival, we see her working at her town’s newspaper, broke, and not knowing what to do. In a desperate attempt to do something important, she decides to write a book about her and her mother’s life. Things don’t go as planned, but I expected a little more compassion from the viewers who have watched her since Season 1. I can’t believe people are so quick to call her a disappointment. People get a little lost sometimes and that should be fine. She’s only 31 and it’s not too late for her to become who she wants to be. But even if she decided to stay in the Stars Hollow Gazette, there’s nothing wrong with becoming a small town newspaper editor. It’s not what she planned on doing, but who said we all had to big things in our lives?
Is it so wrong to just be happy with the lot you get in life?
This hits close to home. Maybe I’m such a big Rory Gilmore-apologist because I can relate to her struggles. I don’t have it together. I don’t really know what I’m doing with my life. I wanted to achieve big things too — be the next Sofia Coppola. But I ended up in a path so different from what I imagined. These days, I find myself okay with the idea of moving back to my hometown and maybe opening my own coffee shop. Pull a Lorelai, if you know what I mean. I still want to become a brilliant filmmaker or writer, but that seems so far-fetched now. It was fun to dream about it, but I don’t see it happening to me in this lifetime. That hasn’t stopped me from writing, but it’s more for myself than for others to read. I’m not banking on become the next Sofia Coppola, and I’m absolutely fine with that. I wonder if this is what growing up is like or has life broken down my spirit?
So this is really just me projecting myself onto Rory and then feeling defensive about people’s comments about her.
I’m down to the last few episodes. Watching Gilmore Girls always gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling — like it’s cold outside, I’m wrapped in a blanket, and I’m sipping on my hot coffee (but in reality, I live in a tropical country and I only ever drink iced coffee). If there’s one thing Gilmore Girls has taught me, it’s that we can find happiness anywhere. It’s not about becoming the next big journalist. Lorelai is my hero in this department. She has always been fine and satisfied with how her life has become.
You know there are very few times in my life when I find myself sitting around, thinking I wish I was married, but today… I… I’m happy, you know? I like my life, I like my friends, I like my… stuff. My time, my space, my TV.
This has become my new dream… to like my life, and I hope Rory finds a way to get there.
