Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series) (17 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Crusie,Leah Wilson

Tags: #Humor & Entertainment, #Television, #History & Criticism

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As in, hands-over-my-ears, I’m-not-listening-to-reason biased. See, I grew up in New England. It’s home. It’s my roots.
 
Now, I live in the new and modern West Coast. Been there ten years. I have to admit it’s a pretty cool place to live, but it’s not New England. What is? Nothing. New England is special, unique, annoying as heck, and totally sigh-worthy.
 
And one of my favorite things about watching
Gilmore Girls
is that it’s chock-full of so many reminders of New England, and all the idiosyncrasies about the region that drive you so crazy at the same time they ground you and let you know that you’re H.O.M.E. We’ve got intellectual elitism, Old Money, freezing ankles, history like you’ve never seen before, traditions . . . the list is so long! Warms me up just thinking about it. . . .
 
Face it. The best thing about
Gilmore Girls
is not Luke’s stubble.
 
Did You Steal That Class Ring?
 
One of the most beautifully annoying, aggravating, and wonderful things about New England is the intellectual snobbery. I mean, seriously, is there any place in the world that has a 1:5 ratio of people to colleges/universities? (I made up that stat, but I’m sure it’s close.) Private high schools abound; Ivy League alumni reproduce like rabbits, permeating every sanctuary in the region; and everyone is judged based on where they went to school. And
Gilmore Girls
represents this intellectual elitism so well that I can barely keep from running upstairs and dusting off my diploma.
 
Take Chilton. Rory Gilmore headed off to her uniform-wearing private school when she was in high school and as smart as Rory was, she was no match for the total snobbery of that place. Oh, she was smarter than most of her classmates, but man, the sense of entitlement those kids at Chilton had was truly stirring. They owned the world, everyone else was a peon, and an Ivy League school was in all of their futures.
 
And prep school is just the beginning. What comes next? College, of course. Not just college. Top colleges. Top universities. New England is chock-full of all the best universities and colleges in the country. Except Stanford, and it doesn’t count because . . . well . . . because it doesn’t (it’s not in New England, remember?).
 
When Rory was getting ready to do that college application tango, what schools were on her list? Yale and Harvard. That’s it. Nothing else. And none of her classmates were dipping into the junior college or state school pool. Only the top of the top for Chilton kids.
 
And look at Richard Gilmore. Yale grad. Yale alum. Yale tattoo on his heart (well, how do you
know
he doesn’t have one?). His granddaughter was considering Harvard? Crimson be damned! Only Yale was good enough for a Gilmore granddaughter. And as for the rest of the world? He and his warm and fuzzy wife Emily judge people based on whether they went to Yale. No other questions need be asked. Yale or no Yale, that is the question.
 
I lived that kind of educational snobbery. I breathed it. I basked in it.
 
Until I moved out to the West Coast, I didn’t even realize any colleges other than New England schools existed. I mean, why would anyone go outside the region for school when we had the best there was to offer?
 
But now that I live out here on the West Coast (and I don’t live in Beverly Hills, which might be different, so don’t get up in my grill, okay?), I’ve discovered that smart people go to colleges I’ve never heard of. And they turn out okay. Go figure—what true-blue New Englander would have ever guessed? Very few people out here go to Ivy League schools, and that doesn’t make them any less appealing as job candidates or dinner companions. Weirdest thing ever. . . . It’s pretty cool, though, because I didn’t go to an Ivy League school, and I always felt a little sub par because of it. Now I don’t have to, which is good. But at the same time, I feel that something is missing out here. True education snobbery simply doesn’t permeate society here the way it does in New England, and the flip side of that is how the importance of education just doesn’t get the same kind of emphasis.
 
I may not have gone to an Ivy League school, but I know that it can open doors for you your whole life. The education, the contacts, the automatic stamp of credibility—it’s all there for the graduates of those schools. For the folks who can’t get in (like me), those schools still represent something to aspire to, to live up to—and, after college, to push to make up for. That kind of goal-setting is a fantastic thing, and it really helped me to continue to raise the bar for myself and accomplish more than I would have if I wasn’t constantly reminded that I wasn’t “the best.”
 
And at the high school level out west . . . private schools are, well, not a big deal. They aren’t elitist, they aren’t for those of a “special class,” not the way they are in New England. There’s actually very few of them, and the ones that are there are, well, kind of normal. There’s not that sense of everyone looking at your résumé to see where your diploma is from, not even in the job fields with the potential to really capitalize on the intellectual snobbery brigade (like lawyers, for example). I have friends who can afford private school for their children, and they don’t even consider it. Didn’t they get Richard’s memo about the importance of private school? Apparently not. Does that make the kids out here take school less seriously? Some would argue not at all. I personally wonder if not having numerous high profile colleges, universities, and private schools around makes kids a little less driven to accomplish more and rise above where they are. I look back at my motivation level when I was a teenager, and, quite frankly, if I hadn’t been surrounded by a bunch of prestigious education institutions, I’m not sure how motivated I would have been to work hard.
 
In New England, your alma mater isn’t just key for jobs and memberships to golf clubs, it’s also a resounding statement of your social worth as a person. On
Gilmore Girls
, where Emily and Richard have parties for Yale alumni, anyone who doesn’t have that school on his or her résumé simply isn’t worthy. Look at Jess, Rory’s second boyfriend. Yeah, okay, so he was also kind of a jerk, but he wasn’t worthy because he was just a common kid. But bring in Logan, her Yale boyfriend, and he’s worthy? He treats Rory even worse than Jess did, in his own way, but that’s okay because he’s a Yalie. Even the show’s producers give him more love than they gave Jess.
 
And Luke. Poor, gruff Luke. He gets no respect from Emily and Richard because he’s got no résumé. He owns a diner, for heaven’s sake. Where’s the dignity in that? Yeah, that kind of judgment is wrong, but by having it happen to us or our friends, it helps teach us that it’s wrong. It also helps force people to find their own worth, to laugh at the people who are unable to look beyond the surface. It makes us better people to have to deal with that kind of situation.
 
But for people like Luke, it’s not just about the fact that he doesn’t have the educational heritage; he also doesn’t have Money.
 
Money, you say? He has money. He owns his own business.
 
Yes, but it’s not Money. Big difference.
 
Money Makes the World Go ’Round
 
See, not only is intellectual snobbery thriving in New England, but in New England you’ve got people with Money, and they’re something special. And Old Money is even better than New Money, because Old Money comes with a pedigree. New Money . . . well . . . you could still be too close to your unworthy roots. Old Money are class, they are history, they are It. More Money makes you Better. Old Money makes you Best.
 
Out here in the Pacific Northwest, there’s not a lot of Old Money, because no one has lived here that long (at least not in comparison to New England). And there isn’t even a lot of New Money, at least not the way there is in New England.
 
Look at Richard and Emily. Look at their ornate house, their proper manner of speaking, their refined and classy sense of dress, their sedate but expensive cars. Richard and Emily are Old Money, and they are better than anyone else. They are so far removed from the commoner that they can’t even remember that their household staff are actually people. Real people don’t have those kinds of jobs, do they? Ah, how lovely is that attitude? You just don’t see that kind of snobbery in other parts of the country (well, there might be pockets, but it’s still not
the same
, so I don’t want any nasty reader letters, okay?).
 
I didn’t grow up with Old Money, and there were many times that Old Money people liked to remind me of that fact by sneezing on me or pausing to use my pants to wipe the mud off their boots. There’s nothing like a snub from an Old Money to humble you, and we all know humility is the key to happiness.
 
Look at the conflict between Richard and Emily and the life Lorelai has chosen to lead. Lorelai owns her own inn, has a diner-owner fiancé . . . er . . . ex-fiancé. She lives in an old house that always needs repairs and has less then ten bedrooms and
no
servants, and she drives a—gasp—
Jeep
. (Oh, and by the way, I had a Jeep when I was in college, and just so you know, there is
nothing
cooler than driving down the highway at ten o’clock at night in the pouring rain with the top off. People just think you
rock
. So, when it comes to the car thing, Emily and Richard are way off . . . Lorelai’s so got the goods.) Richard and Emily believe their lives are worthy. Lorelai’s is not.
 
But you and I know Lorelai is the one who’s truly happy. She’s the one with friends who love her no matter what. She’s the one following her dream and accomplishing great things she can be proud of. But there’s this firm belief on Richard and Emily’s part that life is not complete unless you are in their Club (and that includes their country club as well). And quite frankly, you and I both know that Lorelai would never have found happiness and followed her dream if she hadn’t been constantly trashed by Old Money and intellectual elitism. It made her stronger, pushed her to find her own beliefs, and helped her decide not to do to her child what was done to her. By growing up with “haves,” she was able to make her own decisions about what was really worth having.
 
Richard and Emily are absolutely brilliant at keeping track of who is worthy and who isn’t. Christopher—not exactly worthy, but better than pond scum. He has a bit of substance to his life résumé. Luke—so not worthy. Jess—so not worthy. Logan—worthy. Ironic, because Luke is the one who loves Lorelai and didn’t leave her knocked up at age sixteen and then play MIA while his daughter was growing up (okay, he did do the MIA thing, but he didn’t know he was a dad, so he’s excused). And Logan, well, Logan’s an underachieving, irresponsible, philandering snit—so not worthy of Rory, except, of course, for the fact that he’s rich and “classy.” But in New England, in the Old Money circles, love, devotion, common courtesy . . . those don’t matter when evaluating a person’s worth. Marry Logan for a few years. Marry Luke for a few years. See who makes you happier. You know true love and smiles in the morning will so get old. Servants, fancy cars, and black-tie cocktail parties? Enough to overcome anything.
 
Yeah . . . sure . . . like when Emily and Richard split, and Emily was living all alone in that big house. Remember when she came home from her date that night, shut the door, and started to cry? Her servants and her house totally made up for the fact that she was alone. Those were tears of joy to see her gorgeous antiques yet again . . . yeah . . . that’s it. Hey, let’s be honest here. Emily’s life is made complete by having Richard in it, and
Gilmore Girls
does a fantastic job of showing the snobbery and the elitism, and then pulling back the blinds and showing that life is really so much more than that.
 
Richard and Emily might seem to be a little over the top with their elitism, but they represent a class of people that’s living and thriving in real world New England. You just can’t find that kind of snobbery out west, not to that extent and certainly not as well-honed. Yes, there are times when it feels grating, but there’s something reassuring about being in a world where education rules and your family tree matters. It’s an idiosyncrasy other people might shun (and they’d have a good point), but to me, it’s home.
 
All Those Related to Paul Revere, Please Raise Your Hand
 
Old Money being Best isn’t just a reflection of money. Old Money is also about the immense amount of history and heritage in New England. Not just family crests, but history of the world, of America, of architecture. . . . New England is replete with a past and a history so phenomenally rich that it simply can’t be duplicated anywhere else.
 
When I was in sixth grade, my history curriculum included a field trip every Thursday to a historic site. Do you realize how many field trips that is in a year? Yet there were no shortages of places to go. Paul Revere’s house, the Old North Church (where the “one if by land, two if by sea” lantern would be hung), Sturbridge Village (a genuine colonial village with people working and “living” there), the State House, Plymouth Rock (where the Pilgrims landed) . . . it’s truly amazing. The United States began in New England. The history is there for the taking, and it begins with the buildings.

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