Gilmore Girls, an American comedy-drama directed by Amy Sherman-Palladino, follows the lives of Lorelai Gilmore and her daughter Rory Gilmore through seven seasons. As the show progresses, viewers learn more about their complex lives. I started watching this show in eighth grade, and haven’t stopped since. As a current senior now, I have been rewatching Gilmore Girls for over five years. As someone who is a serial binger of this show, and have re-watched it at least fifteen times, the depth of Rory’s character has become more and more apparent.
Let me be clear, I adore Gilmore Girls. I love how realistic the show is. It truly immerses me in Stars Hollow, Connecticut, living a life alongside the infamous Gilmore Girls. Along with the rawness of the show comes many complexities within the character’s personalities. Especially considering the fact that the show spans seven plus years. Rory’s privilege is an example of that.
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The show starts with Rory’s acceptance to a rich private school, Chilton. Lorelai Gilmore, is a single mother who raises Rory for most of her early life. Viewers learn that she left her life with her parents in Hartford to raise her child as a pregnant teen in the small town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut. Loreali’s parents were not supportive of her decision to raise her child alone, and therefore she had to find a way to sustain herself and Rory on her own. Lorelai, being a single mother without a college degree, could not afford to pay the high tuition that comes with Chilton’s “elite” education. This leads Lorelai to asking her parents to loan money, in exchange for a weekly dinner and phone call.
Now you might be thinking, what could this have to do with Rory? This is where Rory’s reliance on privilege stems from.
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Rory’s privilege started at a young age, despite the show not fully covering her childhood. Lorelai’s choice to run away from her privileged life gave Rory the false idea growing up that she is middle/lower class. This is because for most of Rory’s young childhood, she lived in a cabin with her mother in the hotel that hired Lorelai. But, Rory carried on this false idea of being “poor” all through her life, despite later having moved to a nice two-story home and her mom being a manager of an inn with a stable income. In her Chilton years, Rory also had an increased connection with her grandparents, per the agreement Lorelai made for the tuition loan. In that, viewers see numerous occasions where Rory is treated like she is an angel who can do no harm. Part of this is due to her grandparents’ own projection of her as a “replacement daughter”, as Lorelai would call it. Having three people, along with her boyfriend of the month, constantly praising her, did wonders for her inflated ego in terms of accepting criticism which we see more apparent later in the show.
What Rory fails to recognize is that she has had opportunities given to her not only because of her intelligence but her grandparent’s generational wealth. Both her expensive Ivy league college education and private high school education were paid for, and she never even once thought of debt. While she was accepted into Chilton due to her hard work, she was truly only able to attend because of her privilege of being able to have the funding for an expensive high-school private school education. In terms of Yale, both of her grandparents, Richard and Emily Gilmore, were alumni and were set for a meeting with the Dean of Admissions, an opportunity not provided to general applicants. Many viewers idolize Rory as she is the embodiment of working hard and therefore having a good life. But this ideal completely ignores the implications of her life. Rather than hopping on the TikTok trend of “manifesting” Rory Gilmore, why not manifest Paris Geller, Rory’s friend in Chilton and Yale, who was the one person who actually fulfilled her goals. Paris knows that she comes from a privileged background, and she chooses to embrace that, which is why she actually gets somewhere in life.
Now, let’s talk about the big kahuna, Rory’s Yale years, or at times lack of them. This is when we start to witness her downfall due to her underlying privilege. First off, going to an Ivy League school—without financial support—in this economy says quite a lot. Back then, tuition was roughly $28,000 per term (excluding room and board she did during her freshman year), but if taking living wages and inflation in mind, the education is now worth roughly $64,000 per term. Keeping that aside, I like to refer to these years as solidifying her privilege. She chose to continue her path in journalism, and became a reporter for the Yale Daily News. Her first article was a ballet review which included harsh and frankly extremely problematic insults towards the lead ballerina. Some of which included a reference to a “hippo” and “regretting how evolution had led man to stand on two feet because it led to this night”. Her harmful words got a lot of backlash. What a surprise! The lead ballerina confronted her about it and had a public display of her negative emotions. To which, when she discussed this with her grandparents and her mother, they supported the article. In specific, despite saying at times it was harsh, it was “honest” and “more reviews should be like this” according to her grandparents. The idea of her continuing to be the “golden child” continues to prevail in this sense, and her doubts about being possibly in the wrong completely disappears.
Later, through Logan, her boyfriend at the time, she got an internship at the Stanford Gazette, working under Mitchum Huntzburger-Logan’s father and one of the highest contributors in the journalism industry. During this time, Rory received, for the first time, real criticism. And, keeping in mind that she has been considered a golden child all her life, it’s safe to assume she did not handle it well. Her constant praises caused Rory to have the idea that she can truly do no wrong, which deeply skewed her own views of herself and her ability to take criticism. When looked down upon by the Huntzburgers, she completely broke down. This ultimately caused her to drop out of Yale, and completely shattered her confidence. On top of that, she chooses to unleash her anger by stealing a yacht with Logan the night of, and ofcourse she got caught and was forced to complete over 300 hours of community service. You would think this is when she would come to her senses and turn her life around right? No, instead she has a “felon party” with Logan and her friends. Thousands of dollars poured into education with a clean criminal record deemed useless the minute Mitchem Hunzburger tells Rory she “doesn’t have it”.
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When she informed her mother of this choice, with the knowledge of the context behind it, she obviously disapproved. Which, I mean considering the lengths she went to for her education, is more than reasonable. Rory’s response to Lorelai’s disapproval is that many students take time off and Lorelai didn’t go to college so she wouldn’t know.
Rory then moves in with her grandparents, and lives in their pool house. Okay, if viewers were questioning her privilege, it’s safe to say they should be sure of it now. What Ivy college-dropout is given “space” with a brand-new decorated pool house? Regardless of her intention of needing the time to refocus her life, she nowhere near stuck to that goal. She chose to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, D.A.R., through her grandmother in which she helps plan socialite events to promote American patriotism. This is a classic example of underemployment, where you have qualifications which exceed the requirements of the job you have. The time to figure out what she wants to do with her life as Rory said to Loreali, was used irresponsibly, considering she planned events for the D.A.R. during the day, and partied with Logan at night.
Succumbing to this lifestyle, shows how accepting Rory is to her privilege. Rory stayed in this slump until she met her ex-high-school-boyfriend, Jess Mariano. During their relationship, he knew of her big dreams, and supported her for them. But to his shock, he found out that the “school-obsessed” Rory dropped out of her Ivy league education. His infamous words of “Why did you drop out of Yale?” seemed to snap something in her head, as Rory did a complete 360° and started getting her life back on track. While to most viewers, it seems like regular character development, the timing was very intentional as she only started to believe in herself again when Jess gave her words of disappointment, making the choice of not attending school completely wrong. And we all know Rory’s tendency to crave positive feedback and loathe criticism.
Now to shift towards the last couple of seasons, Rory’s confidence goes back up to extremely high. One of the most ironic moments is when she wrote an article about Logan’s party full of entitled people with trust fund to which she defends to Logan that its unfair how these “people use connections to get ahead” and stating that “at least I’m not living off a million dollar trust fund my parent’s set up for me”. To which, Logan put her in her place by stating that “you aren’t exactly paying rent either”. Her oblivion to her privilege is insane, especially considering at this time she had an astronomy building created in her name at Yale by her grandparents. Not to mention she got a private meeting with the Dean of Admissions of Yale, which as she would put it is “certain people meeting certain people”. But yes Rory, maybe if you believe hard enough, you are definitely a struggling journalist living off minimum wage.
If you are wondering where Rory ended up, don’t worry I watched the tragedy of a sequal that is Gilmore Girls: Year in the Life. Rory ends up pregnant with Logan’s child- who she rejected his marriage proposal and he was engaged at the time-and back in Stars Hollow still looking for the purpose of her life. Paris Geller, on the other hand, was doing extremely well. She was aware of her privilege and used her resources to back up her hard-work to achieve her goal in the medical industry. In Gilmore Girls: Year in the Life, it is revealed that she runs a successful surrogacy/fertility in New York. Rory’s downfall is bittersweet, because I felt like I grew up with her, but it is definitely what is meant to happen. Which is why even though she is ignorant of her privilege, I absolutely love Rory’s character. What makes this show so special to me is how genuine the characters are, especially Rory. Instead of showing a perfect ending with no consequences to her underlying privilege, the writers chose to embrace this, and shows a realistic outcome of her choices, one that despite viewers heart’s breaking, beautifully ties the story together.
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Category: WHY
