Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series) (9 page)
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Authors: Jennifer Crusie,Leah Wilson
Tags: #Humor & Entertainment, #Television, #History & Criticism
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Rory—perhaps sensing that she’s gonna need some distance from Lorelai over the summer to keep things going with Logan—moves in to her grandparents’ pool house. She also joins the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) and basically becomes an Emily clone. It’s the grandmother of all insults. The ultimate betrayal. Rory has defected. Gone over to the other side. Become one of them.
And, most traumatically for
Gilmore Girls
viewers across the nation, Rory stops speaking to Lorelai. They are incommunicado. Lorelai, who’s been dating Luke for the past year, takes drastic action: she flat out proposes marriage. He says yes. So for awhile, the Gilmore Girls lead parallel and separate lives. It seems that they can only have serious relationships with men if they’re not speaking to each other. It’s distressing. The whole best-friend mom and daughter thing has totally backfired!
Gilmore Girls
viewers across the nation, Rory stops speaking to Lorelai. They are incommunicado. Lorelai, who’s been dating Luke for the past year, takes drastic action: she flat out proposes marriage. He says yes. So for awhile, the Gilmore Girls lead parallel and separate lives. It seems that they can only have serious relationships with men if they’re not speaking to each other. It’s distressing. The whole best-friend mom and daughter thing has totally backfired!
It’s understandable that Lorelai would want to create a relationship that transcends the usual bond between a mother and daughter. After all, she grew up feeling constrained by her mother’s needs and demands. In order to flourish, she had to rebel against Emily and everything she stood for. As Lorelai says: “My whole life, my whole existence, my essence, my being, my ability to be the sparkling creature who stands before you, all of this depends on the complete and total separation of my life from my mother’s life” (”The Fundamental Things Apply,” 4-5).
Her best-friend mom and daughter strategy is geared towards keeping that unhappy situation from repeating. As they say: you can’t choose your relatives, but you can choose your friends. So, the “bestfriend” bond proclaims: “I am with Rory because we chose to be together, not because we were randomly paired because of a practical joke by God.”
Of course, Lorelai did not really choose Rory. The pregnancy was an accident, and in any case, a mother never knows who is going to come out. But Rory
was
“chosen” in the sense that most teenage girls would have had an abortion rather than keep the child. So on some level, Lorelai did choose to keep Rory. And then she raised her as a best friend, determined never to snuff the “sparkling creature” that is her own daughter.
was
“chosen” in the sense that most teenage girls would have had an abortion rather than keep the child. So on some level, Lorelai did choose to keep Rory. And then she raised her as a best friend, determined never to snuff the “sparkling creature” that is her own daughter.
Now, with Rory in the pool house dating Logan and organizing DAR functions, Lorelai has to stomach seeing her own daughter accepting her mother’s values. Despite the fact that Lorelai has tried her darndest to ward against it, Rory is being as disappointing as she could be. She’s rebelling against everything Lorelai stands for.
Lorelai has to make a decision. Refuse to accept Rory’s relationship with Logan, which means she’ll alienate Rory, which means she’ll lose her just like Emily lost Lorelai. . . .
Or suck it up.
Can she? Is she willing to take a less important role in her daughter’s life? Will she allow Rory to let Logan be the person she’s closest to in the world?
This is the true job of the mother, isn’t it? To step back when it’s time to step back. To allow your child to make her own decisions—even if those decisions distress you to the core. My own daughter, I might mention, has recently done the unthinkable. She has up and moved out of the house. That’s right, she’s gone away to college. Her bedroom is empty! There are no clothes on the floor. No dirty dishes next to her computer. There aren’t even any condoms in her sock drawer. How can she do this to me?
I, like Lorelai, realize I cannot control my daughter’s decisions. If she wants to get an education, fine. I have a life. I have friends. I have
Gilmore Girls
. And if Rory wants to marry a vapid, selfish rich kid and spend the rest of her life throwing him dinner parties, so be it.
Gilmore Girls
. And if Rory wants to marry a vapid, selfish rich kid and spend the rest of her life throwing him dinner parties, so be it.
Lorelai sucks it up. She decides to try to like Logan, or at least get along with him, or at least keep herself from insulting him to his face.
Eventually, Emily has a falling out with Rory. No surprise there. Once grandma realizes Rory is having sex in the pool house, she threatens to ground her. Rory points out she’s twenty-one and can’t be grounded.
EMILY: You are becoming more and more like your mother with every passing day.RORY: And you are becoming more like my mother’s mother with every passing day. (“Let Me Hear Your Balalaikas Ringing Out,” 6-8)
Rory ditches the pool house, moves in with Paris, and—not to worry—goes back to Yale. And she makes up with Lorelai. But it’s different now. It feels different. The dynamic between mother and daughter has actually evolved.
This is especially apparent in the episode when Luke and Lorelai visit Rory and Logan at his father’s vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard. Rory seems all grown up: wears older, more sophisticated clothes, shows the house off as if she owns it, and chatters about planning a six week trip to Asia. (I’m presuming Logan would be paying for this? Or possibly Christopher.) She even cooks! Lorelai is in shock: “You’re wearing an apron. You’ve not worn an apron since you saw
The Sound of Music
and you put one on so you’d look like Sister Maria, and you made a big crucifix out of Popsicle sticks” (“A Vineyard Valentine,” 6-15).
The Sound of Music
and you put one on so you’d look like Sister Maria, and you made a big crucifix out of Popsicle sticks” (“A Vineyard Valentine,” 6-15).
Lorelai, engaged to distinctly working class Luke, feels like she’s in a different social class from her daughter. She jokes that Rory has become too fabulous to hang out with her anymore. It really does feel like they’ve grown apart. They’re each part of a couple that’s doesn’t include the other. They each have, at this point, more intimacy with the men in their lives. I might even submit that they are now mother and daughter first—and best friends second.
Why? Because Lorelai is allowing Rory to be different from her, different from what she wants her to be. In accepting this new Rory, she’s doing what Emily can’t. Lorelai is being a role model.
I suppose it’s gratifying to see the Gilmore Girls growing and maturing and all that. But still, it’s sad the way time marches on. I can’t help but wonder: Will Rory ever move back to Stars Hollow? Will Lorelai ever marry or have another child? Will my daughter meet a vapid, selfish rich kid and make me feel like I’m in a lower social class? Thank god for DVDs and reruns. It feels good to relive those good old days—back when Lorelai was a best-friend mom first, and Rory was still a virgin.
Stephanie Lehmann
is the author of the novels
Thoughts While Having Sex
,
Are You in the Mood?
,
The Art of Undressing
, and
You Could Do Better
, which is about a curator at the Museum of Television. Her plays have been produced Off-Off Broadway, and her essays have appeared on Salon. com. Originally from San Francisco, she now lives in Manhattan with her husband and son. Stephanie finds it hard to believe that she no longer lives with her daughter. Stephanie’s mother says she’ll get used to it, which may or may not be insulting. Stephanie’s glad her daughter does come home from college to visit occasionally, and when she does, they enjoy drinking coffee and eating something with sugar in it and gabbing while watching TV. Stephanie does the same when she visits her mother. You can visit Stephanie at her Web site
www.StephanieLehmann.com
.
is the author of the novels
Thoughts While Having Sex
,
Are You in the Mood?
,
The Art of Undressing
, and
You Could Do Better
, which is about a curator at the Museum of Television. Her plays have been produced Off-Off Broadway, and her essays have appeared on Salon. com. Originally from San Francisco, she now lives in Manhattan with her husband and son. Stephanie finds it hard to believe that she no longer lives with her daughter. Stephanie’s mother says she’ll get used to it, which may or may not be insulting. Stephanie’s glad her daughter does come home from college to visit occasionally, and when she does, they enjoy drinking coffee and eating something with sugar in it and gabbing while watching TV. Stephanie does the same when she visits her mother. You can visit Stephanie at her Web site
www.StephanieLehmann.com
.
Charlotte Fullerton
In Defense of Emily Gilmore
EMILY (to Lorelai): You’re muttering under your breath. Years of experience have taught me that when you do that, it’s usually about me. (“There’s the Rub,” 2-16)Emily Gilmore is the third Gilmore Girl and as such, Charlotte Fullerton argues, much maligned. A woman who’s doing the best she can playing by the rules of her generation and her social class, Emily has much more in common with Lorelai than she or her daughter—or the viewers—may realize.
Hear ye, hear ye! Court is now in session!
The defense will now present its evidence in the case of the
Viewers vs. Emily Gilmore. All rise.
The defense will now present its evidence in the case of the
Viewers vs. Emily Gilmore. All rise.
I
T’S NOT HARD to find ways to attack the eldest of the three Gilmore Girls. Emily is an easy target. If I had a nickel for every time I read a rant in an online fan forum about what a “bitca” Emily is, I’d have . . . a whole lot of nickels. She’s a judgmental, overly critical, impossible-to-please, perfectionist, control-freak snob, who takes a sadistic pleasure in belittling those she considers beneath her in social standing, and particularly enjoys making her only offspring, Lorelai, miserable. And those are her good qualities! Okay, seriously. Taking pot shots at Emily Gilmore and her laundry list of faults may be cathartic, but it hardly scratches the surface of this complicated and therefore highly compelling character.
T’S NOT HARD to find ways to attack the eldest of the three Gilmore Girls. Emily is an easy target. If I had a nickel for every time I read a rant in an online fan forum about what a “bitca” Emily is, I’d have . . . a whole lot of nickels. She’s a judgmental, overly critical, impossible-to-please, perfectionist, control-freak snob, who takes a sadistic pleasure in belittling those she considers beneath her in social standing, and particularly enjoys making her only offspring, Lorelai, miserable. And those are her good qualities! Okay, seriously. Taking pot shots at Emily Gilmore and her laundry list of faults may be cathartic, but it hardly scratches the surface of this complicated and therefore highly compelling character.
I do not intend to make excuses for Emily’s often petty and vindictive behaviors and attitudes. But I do want to explore her
reasons
. Every real, live human being has his or her own personal internal logic that lies behind the choices he or she makes. Well-rounded, well-grounded, fictional characters like Emily Gilmore do as well. This is what engages us, convincing us to care about them as if they were more than just words on a page and actors on a stage. Now, whether a person’s internal logic is ever obvious to those around them—or even to him- or herself—is entirely up for grabs. A blind spot for self-awareness can make for an interesting fictional character, if a frustrating acquaintance in real life. When actors ask, “What’s my motivation?” it is a critically important question, not just the clichéd one-liner it’s become.
Why
does this character think this way?
Why
does this character say the things she says and do the things she does? The Wicked Witch of the West is, well, just plain wicked and a witch . . . and presumably from the west. Emily Gilmore has a more complex character profile.
reasons
. Every real, live human being has his or her own personal internal logic that lies behind the choices he or she makes. Well-rounded, well-grounded, fictional characters like Emily Gilmore do as well. This is what engages us, convincing us to care about them as if they were more than just words on a page and actors on a stage. Now, whether a person’s internal logic is ever obvious to those around them—or even to him- or herself—is entirely up for grabs. A blind spot for self-awareness can make for an interesting fictional character, if a frustrating acquaintance in real life. When actors ask, “What’s my motivation?” it is a critically important question, not just the clichéd one-liner it’s become.
Why
does this character think this way?
Why
does this character say the things she says and do the things she does? The Wicked Witch of the West is, well, just plain wicked and a witch . . . and presumably from the west. Emily Gilmore has a more complex character profile.
Emily went to college at a time when earning an “MRS” degree (going to college mainly to find a husband) was considered a viable—even expected—pursuit, and not the post-feminism joke it is today. She is a graduate of Smith College, one of the five remaining, private, women’s liberal arts colleges in the northeast still known as the Seven Sisters, all now considered in some circles to be competitive with the Ivy League. Among notable real-life Smith alumnae are Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan, and even feminist icon Gloria Steinem! So Grandma Gilmore is an educated, capable woman in her own right, as well as one who did very well for herself—or at least as expected—marrying young to trust fund Yalie Richard Gilmore. By today’s standards, however, Emily would be considered to have completely squandered her potential, wasting her own talent, education, skills, and opportunities to play supportive wife to her high-achieving executive husband: a glorified secretary keeping track of their social engagements and busying herself arranging fundraisers and tea parties with various high-society charitable organizations in between hair appointments and managing their household staff with an iron fist. Imagine—if Emily had concentrated all that effort, energy, no-nonsense leadership, strict attention to detail, and my-way-or-the-highway attitude on something that actually
mattered
in the greater world instead of focusing it all on berating maids about the acceptable distance between candlesticks, what she could have done at the helm of a Fortune 500 company! Yet she resents her daughter Lorelai for having wasted
her
potential? Pot, meet kettle.
mattered
in the greater world instead of focusing it all on berating maids about the acceptable distance between candlesticks, what she could have done at the helm of a Fortune 500 company! Yet she resents her daughter Lorelai for having wasted
her
potential? Pot, meet kettle.
The thing is that, for the most part, Emily does consider herself to be a success story. And given the societal constraints during the time in which she grew up, she is. To Emily, the position in life she’s carved out for herself by Richard’s side is not only perfectly acceptable, but enviable. Why her own daughter—or anyone—wouldn’t want to be in her (designer) shoes is a complete mystery to Emily. So naturally she was genuinely shocked and offended when, at Rory’s twenty-first birthday party, her own husband gruffly blurted out that he wanted more for their intelligent and capable granddaughter than Emily’s “frivolous” life among ladies who lunch (“Twenty-One is the Loneliest Number,” 6-7). It was a good enough life for his wife, but not for his granddaughter? Richard backpedaled, of course: he honestly didn’t intend it as an insult, but I can’t help but wonder whether, were Emily and Richard twenty-one themselves nowadays, his aspirations for Rory would also apply to Emily. Impossible to say for sure. I do think that, somewhere deep down, Emily knows she could have run Richard’s businesses at least as well as, if not better than, he has. But she would never even suggest something so—in her eyes—disrespectful to her husband, and certainly never in front of other people.
At some points, however, it clearly leaks through that, underneath it all, Emily is
not
entirely satisfied with her life. True, she resents it when others don’t take her role seriously. But there are also times when Emily is openly impressed by and even downright jealous of her daughter, the capable, self-made businesswoman. The very few instances in the entire series that are a result of this jealousy—comparing herself to Lorelai and feeling the need to defend her own choices and lifestyle—are some of Grandma Gilmore’s sharpest as well as most poignant moments, Lorelai is surprised and touched when Emily uncharacteristically compliments her dressmaking and parenting skills (“Rory’s Dance,” 1-9). In a later fleeting instance, Emily wistfully wonders why she and Lorelai can’t have as close a mother-daughter relationship as Rory and Lorelai (“There’s the Rub,” 2-16). And, most outstandingly, when Lorelai and Rory are introducing Emily to the joys of the mall food court and Emily overhears Lorelai on the phone adeptly dealing with the Dragonfly Inn’s start-up issues (“Scene in a Mall,” 4-15). This last is a particularly banner moment in Lorelai and her mother’s relationship, with Emily actually openly expressing pride in her daughter for the first and only time, even if that pride is tinged with envy and self-pity. And despite their friction, Lorelai was quick to leap to her mother’s defense when Jason “Digger” Stiles callously canceled Emily’s launch party for his and Richard’s new business venture (“An Affair To Remember,” 4-6) because she understands how much planning these society events means to her mother: that it is the only way Emily feels able to contribute in life. Seems Grandma Gilmore is a tragic character and she doesn’t even know it! (If a tree falls in the forest on a tragic character but she doesn’t consider herself tragic, is she?) It’s hard not to wistfully wonder what Emily’s life might have been like had she not chosen to marry Richard, in much the same way Emily herself laments her daughter’s road not taken.
not
entirely satisfied with her life. True, she resents it when others don’t take her role seriously. But there are also times when Emily is openly impressed by and even downright jealous of her daughter, the capable, self-made businesswoman. The very few instances in the entire series that are a result of this jealousy—comparing herself to Lorelai and feeling the need to defend her own choices and lifestyle—are some of Grandma Gilmore’s sharpest as well as most poignant moments, Lorelai is surprised and touched when Emily uncharacteristically compliments her dressmaking and parenting skills (“Rory’s Dance,” 1-9). In a later fleeting instance, Emily wistfully wonders why she and Lorelai can’t have as close a mother-daughter relationship as Rory and Lorelai (“There’s the Rub,” 2-16). And, most outstandingly, when Lorelai and Rory are introducing Emily to the joys of the mall food court and Emily overhears Lorelai on the phone adeptly dealing with the Dragonfly Inn’s start-up issues (“Scene in a Mall,” 4-15). This last is a particularly banner moment in Lorelai and her mother’s relationship, with Emily actually openly expressing pride in her daughter for the first and only time, even if that pride is tinged with envy and self-pity. And despite their friction, Lorelai was quick to leap to her mother’s defense when Jason “Digger” Stiles callously canceled Emily’s launch party for his and Richard’s new business venture (“An Affair To Remember,” 4-6) because she understands how much planning these society events means to her mother: that it is the only way Emily feels able to contribute in life. Seems Grandma Gilmore is a tragic character and she doesn’t even know it! (If a tree falls in the forest on a tragic character but she doesn’t consider herself tragic, is she?) It’s hard not to wistfully wonder what Emily’s life might have been like had she not chosen to marry Richard, in much the same way Emily herself laments her daughter’s road not taken.
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