November 29th, 2015
Galley Friend and all-around-awesome-guy Gabriel Rossman had a funny/interesting thought about who the real villain was in Gilmore Girls:
Rewatching Gilmore Girls and tempted to write up a @JVLast/@SonnyBunch-esque piece on how Lorelei is the villain
— Gabriel Rossman (@GabrielRossman) November 27, 2015
.@JVLast@SonnyBunch And much like Emperor Palpatine, Emily just wants to establish an essentially benevolent order in Connecticut — Gabriel Rossman (@GabrielRossman) November 27, 2015
Since this is kind of my move, and because I was on the Gilmore Girls beat literally from episode one (because I was writing about it for a now-quasi-defunct religious website called Beliefnet.com) I have a couple thoughts on this. (1) I agree, whole-heartedly with GR’s view of Emily Gilmore. Further, I suspect that any parent over the age of 40 sees Emily as the hero of the series. This grande dame does nothing but suffer: She has a headstrong, willful daughter who gets herself knocked up in high school by a guy (Christopher) who we subsequently learn really is an ass-hat–both as a teenager and an adult.
Then, Emily’s daughter somehow blames her for the mess she’s gotten herself into. The daughter packs herself and her baby off across the state and refuses to have contact with Emily. She has a truly-awful mother-in-law. She eventually loses her husband. And though it all, all she really wants is to create family ties between herself, her daughter, and her granddaughter.
Is Emily perfect? No. But she’s a grandmother you can do business with.
(2) I disagree with Rossman’s proposed view of Lorelai as the villain. I view her as a noble, but tragic, figure who makes a great many mistakes, but who tries, hard, to get parenthood right.
(3) Which means that the real villain of Gilmore Girls is . . . Rory? I think so. And she’s a tragic villain. Certainly, Rory begins the series as the most sympathetic character and we root for her the whole way.
But as she grows up she becomes less and less sympathetic. By the time she’s running around at Yale with her dashingly handsome, 0.0001 percent, Skull-and-Bones boyfriend, you’re basically hoping she gets syphilis and has to finish her degree at UConn because she’s so insufferable.
Put it this wayL an alt-title for the series could have been Rory Gilmore: The First Millennial.
Boo.
By-the-by, if I was at Marvel, I would totally take a flyer on asking Amy Sherman-Palladino to write a script. I’m not even sure what property I’d give her–Runaways? Spider-Gwen? Guardians of the Galaxy 3? Maybe it wouldn’t work. But maybe it would.
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Not to mention that in the finale, whose campaign does Rory go to cover as a cub-reporter (for an online-news site, no less) to symbolize her potential and her trendiness . . . Senator Obama’s! (Who at that time was still considered an extreme longshot to derail HRC’s nomination). EVIL!!! . . . (or at least “quasi-evil” to the effect she embodies the poor judgment of her generation).
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The episode (and I cannot believe that I am admitting I watched this or that I remember the episode) that shows Lorelei is not the villain is when she went to speak to a group of high school girls about being pregnant in high school.
Gabriel December 7, 2015 at 3:54 pm
I thought you were wrong, but then my binge rewatch hit season 5 and you are so so so totally right.