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Why Lorelai Gilmore from ‘Gilmore Girls’ Is a “Cool Girl”

The Cool Girl is positioned as being so because she’s not like other women. You’ll notice that apart from Sookie St. James, Rory, and the select few townswomen that put the Gilmore Girls on a pedestal, Lorelai doesn’t play nice with other women. In fact, I would go as far as to say she disdains them.

This guest post written by Scarlett Harris appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions.

We all know the famous “Cool Girl” screed from Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel, Gone Girl. But since it’s been four years since the book’s release, and two years since its big screen adaptation, here’s a refresher:

“Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.”

Watching Gilmore Girls for the first time in the lead up to the revival because, even though I was in its target demographic, somehow I missed it the first time around, it hit me that Lorelai Gilmore was a Cool Girl long before Flynn, and Buzzfeed writer Anne Helen Petersen, popularized the term and Jennifer Lawrence became the living embodiment of it. Let me count the ways.

Not Like Other Girls.

The Cool Girl is positioned as being so because she’s not like other women. You’ll notice that apart from Sookie St. James (Melissa McCarthy), Rory (Alexis Bledel), and the select few townswomen that put the Gilmore Girls on a pedestal, Lorelai (Lauren Graham) doesn’t play nice with other women. In fact, I would go as far as to say she disdains them. While the problems between Lorelai and her mother Emily (Kelly Bishop) are for another article, one of Lorelai’s many criticisms of her mother is that she’s concerned with manners, proper presentation, and social acceptance, all traditionally feminine markers. Lorelai — and the television show as an extension of her — vilifies other women who share traits similar to her mother, such as Sherry (Madchen Amick) and Lindsay (Arielle Kebbel), for catering too much to others, particularly men. For example, Lorelai mocks Sherry for being excited for her baby shower and Dean’s (Jared Padalecki) new bride, Lindsay, for bringing baked goods to his workplace and wanting to be a good wife. But in Lorelai’s cultivation of her Cool Girl persona, she also makes a covert effort to appeal to men in just as damaging ways, placing herself as different from and therefore better than those other girls. Even the long-suffering Michel (Yanic Truesdale) displays too much femininity for Lorelai’s taste, making him the butt of her jokes. Gilmore Girls creator and showrunner, Amy Sherman-Palladino, said that the character “was pretty tough, made her own money, but she also liked men. She wasn’t demonizing them.” Because Cool Girls love men while other girls don’t.

All About Lorelai.

In the mini-series Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, during an argument with her daughter — because what would a revival be without at least one? — Emily says, “Nothing ever matters to Lorelai Gilmore except what she wants, what she feels,” a recurring theme for Lorelai throughout the show. One of her paramours, Digger, picks up on this on their first date. “Does everything have to be fun for you?” he asks when Lorelai expresses restlessness with an intimate dinner in a private room of a happening club. Lorelai doesn’t care that she shows up to Rory’s first day of Chilton in cowboy boots and tie-dye, or about the parade of on-again off-again men affecting her daughter’s life, or about Luke’s (Scott Patterson) obvious discomfort with the workmen renovating their house seeing her naked because she’s just one of the guys except, you know, one they want to fuck. There are no gay men in Stars Hollow, a fact the revival makes light of when the town struggles to find LGBTQIA residents to march in its first ever gay pride parade. Lorelai’s a cool mom who just wants to have fun and [insert whatever other pop cultural stereotype about women here].

Food. Oh, the Food.

If Gilmore Girls can be associated with one thing, it’s food. Cherry danishes, coffee, pizza, Pop Tarts, Tater Tots and Red Vines. As we read above, Cool Girls are all about eating the food that other, not-as-Cool Girls would shun in favor of their diets. Though Lorelai and Rory hate exercise as much as they love junk food, at least Gone Girl’s protagonist Amy Dunne had the decency to expose the lie that eating junk food while movie marathoning and seldom exercising won’t get you the lithe bodies of the Gilmore clan.

Gilmore Girls, Indeed.

Though Lorelai raised a child on her own as a teenager and the Cool Girl is more than capable of handling day-to-day inanities and complex hijinks herself (hello, Amy Dunne), the archetype is imbued with a certain childlike quality. Despite her propensity for playing 40-year-old mothers, Hollywood Cool Girl Jennifer Lawrence (who’s 26) certainly has that carefree youthfulness about her. As does Emma Stone and Anna Kendrick (you’ll notice that Cool Girls are almost always white). Because Lorelai’s childhood was cut short, plus the fact that her best friend is her teenage daughter, her immaturity often shows through. She doesn’t care that she disturbs the sleep of Rory during exams or Luke when he has to get up for an early delivery: it’s snowing in the middle of the night, damn it, and Lorelai will frolic in it because she’s quirky like that.

What a Difference A Year in the Life Makes…

Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life does make some strides in dismantling the Cool Girl stereotype. When Rory tells her mother that she’s writing a book about their relationship, Lorelai is displeased, asserting that, “I went to all this effort for many, many years making sure that people only knew what I wanted them to know.”

Cool Girls are supposed to not give a fuck, cultivating an air of carefree- and go-with-the-flow-ness. In actuality, a lot of effort goes into the artifice of the Cool Girl, just like the no-makeup look. Lorelai drives a beat-up old jeep because a less conspicuous car just won’t do, but as season seven draws to a close we saw it starting to sputter and, ten years later in the revival, she’s still hell-bent on keeping it, if much of her other Cool Girl traits have dissipated with age. Because as Flynn writes, the Cool Girl doesn’t exist effortlessly: a lot of work actually goes into maintaining her air of apathy leading us to wonder what even is a Cool Girl and why is Lorelai — and by extension, us — holding on to her so dearly?

Lorelai Gilmore and Gilmore Girlsitself were products of their time. Seldom would television shows of today get away with the homophobia, ableism, and racism of the original series except, you know, in its Netflix revival, which was just as blatant, if not more crafty, in its bigotry.

Ten years have passed since husband and wife team Amy Sherman-Palladino (creator, showrunner) and Daniel Palladino (producer, writer, director) departed the series but you wouldn’t know it from the stagnant feel of the revival. Their vice-like grip on the penultimate season and their apparent bitterness that Gilmore Girls continued without them meant that Rory regressed while Lorelai tried desperately to find some meaning after her father’s death while reckoning with her fading Cool Girl persona.

Maybe a modern-day Lorelai would be more informed, and thus, angrier at the feminine ideal she and the women around her have been forced to embody. Angelica Jade Bastién writes of “the particular brand of anger that blooms in intelligent women when you realize how hard it is to live by your own definition of being a woman,” in a piece about Gone Girland the femme fatale. Lorelai left a stifling home for a just-as-stifling small town that equates her worth as a woman with what she can offer the town (’s men), of which the Stars Hollow basket auction is just one example. Perhaps a thoroughly modern Lorelai would be forging her path through single motherhood in the big city, as Rory attempted in her career as a journalist. We may never know, even if there is a second/ninth season of the show, because Lorelai Gilmore’s creators seem intent on upholding archetypes instead of examining what it actually means to be a woman — and not the titular Girls — today.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Emily Gilmore and the Humanization of Bad Mothers

The Kims Next Door: Korean Identity on Gilmore Girls

Pop-Tarts and Pizza: Food, Gender, and Class in Gilmore Girls

The Paradox of the Gilmore Diet in Gilmore Girls

Scarlett Harris is an Australian writer based in New York City. You can follow her on Twitter @ScarlettEHarris and read her previous published work at her website The Scarlett Woman.

The Kims Next Door: Korean Identity on ‘Gilmore Girls’

While Rory struggled with the myriad of concerns afforded to a main character: her love life, her future, her friendships and family, Lane’s biggest conflict was always her overbearing, uber-religious mother and to a lesser degree, her own Korean heritage. Being Korean is never posed as a positive thing for Lane, it is only a marker of difference.

Written by Elizabeth Kiy as part of our theme week on Asian Womanhood in Pop Culture.

When Gilmore Girls was on it never occurred to me how strange it was that doe-eyed, bookworm Rory was on odd choice for a main character. Rory always carried a book around in her purse and considered an ideal evening to be watching a movie with her mother and eating her weight in junk food; on any other show she’d be a nerd, but her best friend, Lane Kim was undeniably cool. Lane was in a rock band, Lane was a cheerleader, she had an encyclopedia knowledge of music and later, she lived in a virtual frat-house with her bandmates. But she wasn’t Rory, the town’s baby, the golden girl, Snow White. Lane appeared to be just as smart and well-read as Rory, but no one ever suggested Chilton or Yale could be options for her. Rory and her big blue eyes went off to conquer the world and Lane stayed back in Stars Hollow, a few blocks from where she’d grown up, still in her mother’s sphere of influence.

For most of the show’s run, Rory or her mother Lorelai, would have their A-plot adventures, navigating the strange world of wealth and classism their old money background and Rory’s acceptance to Chilton usher them into, while plots for supporting characters like Lane, Rory’s closest friend (besides her mother) since the first day of preschool, popped up occasionally. While Rory struggled with the myriad of concerns afforded to a main character, her love life, her future, her friendships and family, Lane’s biggest conflict was always her overbearing, uber-religious mother and to a lesser degree, her own Korean heritage.

Being Korean is never posed as a positive thing for Lane (played by Japanese American actress Keiko Agena), it is only a marker of difference. Besides Michel, the flamboyant Celine Dion-loving inn concierge, who is Black, there are no other memorable minority characters in the series besides Lane and her mother. Though she is given her share of witty lines and pop culture references, Lane is the token minority best friend who has quirky hobbies, such as obsessively collecting CDs and hiding music and books her mother wouldn’t approve of under her floorboards. Once, when she believes she is being shipped off to Korea with a giant suitcase and a one-way ticket, the unseen idea of Korea, a far away land full of unknown relatives and unfamiliar culture so different from her American identity, is posed as a punishment and a threat.

In the first few seasons, her major hurdle is her mother’s insistence that she only date nice Korean boys, preferably future doctors. In one episode, she finds herself interested in a Korean boy who attends Chilton with Rory and her attraction to him becomes a minor identity crisis, that she handled by sneaking around and acting as if he was a boy her mother would not approve of. The relationship quickly ended before it had really begun because of Lane’s fixation on her mother’s approval, and her often pointless rebellion against her. In a later plot line, Lane discovered another young Korean boy, who she described to Rory as “the male me”, as he was forced to keep his relationship with a white girl secret from his mother. At the time, Lane was dating a white boy ( Adam Brody , who left Gilmore Girls to make his name in The OC ), they made a deal to pretend they were dating each other.

If Lane is used as a foil to Rory, Lane’s mother, who is only ever referred to as Mrs. Kim (Emily Kuroda), is contrasted with Lorelai. Lorelai is young and fun, while Mrs. Kim is austere and unyielding; if the show’s thesis is that Lorelai’s parenting style, acting as best friends instead of mother and daughter, is successful and enviable, we can only infer we are meant to see Mrs. Kim’s authoritarian parenting as failing her child. Though her character is given several humanizing moments throughout the series’s run, she retains cartoonish characteristics (notably in seven seasons, she is never given a first name), though this is common among the denizens of Stars Hollow. She talks fast and brusque, “barking” out orders in her heavy accent, scaring and dominating other adults, and single handedly controls Lane’s life, like a less ambitious “Tiger Mom.” Her idea of the life Lane can have is small: attend a religious college, marry a Korean doctor and have children. It’s a life not unlike her own.

Though early seasons hint that there is a Mr. Kim living with Lane and her mother, just offscreen, gradually these hints peter out and Mrs. Kim is left in a strange netherland: She mistrusts unmarried women and considers herself to be married, yet she doesn’t seem to be divorced or widowed. Like Lorelai, she is, or at least acts as, a single mother and along with her dominance, this masculinizes her.

Meanwhile Lane is closer to the stereotype of Asian women as submissive. Though she attempts to be rebellious and independent, Lane’s worldview has been shaped by the mother whose shadow she lives in. As Gilmore Girls began with the tension of whether or not Rory would repeat her mother’s mistakes, sex was always loaded territory in the show. Though Rory is able to grow into an outgoing, sex positive woman, thanks to Lorelai’s example, Lane is never able to enjoy sex. She believes her mother has somehow gotten into her head, convincing her subconscious that she had to wait until marriage to have sex, even though her conscious mind has not made this choice. On her wedding day, she learns that Mrs. Kim believes she is lucky because she only “had” to have sex once in her life, which produced Lane. Likewise, Lane becomes pregnant from her first, grossly unsatisfying sexual encounter.

As a friend, Lane is also subservient to Rory, though part of this is the nature of her role as a supporting character. Rarely does she get mad at Rory for going off to a fancy new school, leaving her at Stars Hollow High, frequently referred to as a nowhere school which prepares students only for trades and sales. Lane is forced to live the life Rory would have lived if not for her rich grandparents’ patronage.

Part of Rory’s new life are her countless new friends, classmates roommates and colleagues (mostly notably frenemy cum BFF Paris Geller), who often seem closer to her than Lane. Even if Lane is Rory’s closest friend, Lorelai is always her best friend, the person she cares about and understands better than anyone else. In contrast, Lane only has her music and she accepts this.

Besides being the only non-white character whose background we are given in detail, Mrs. Kim is also the only religious character, thus her Asian-ness is inexplicably tied to her religiousness, as a Seventh Day Adventist. Her church appears to be mainly Korean and Korean food and instruments are major parts of their gatherings. Though religion is a major source of conflict between Lane and Mrs. Kim, it also facilitates an understanding when Mrs. Kim’s mother comes to attend Lane’s wedding. The grandmother is a strict Buddhist who is unaware that her daughter is a Christian, forcing her to hide her bibles and crosses under the same floorboards where Lane hid her music. Lane is finally able to understand her mother though this rebellion, her Christianity becomes as subversive as Lane’s rock and roll.

Though Lane’s Korean identity only ever appears to be a source of discomfort, by the series’ end she seems to have made an offscreen peace with her heritage, as she names one of her twins Kwan.

Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.

Everything’s Coming up Braverman in ‘Parenthood’

‘Parenthood’ is about showing us rounded human beings, triumphantly showing us their strengths and compassionately portraying their weaknesses. The interconnectedness and communication of this family is inspiring, and the series is always true to its characters’ unique psychology.

Everyone gathered 'round the Parenthood table — Everyone gathered ’round the *Parenthood* table

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.
Spoiler Alert

Despite my largely cynical personality, I found myself really enjoying the NBC TV series Parenthood. The show follows the intergenerational lives of the Braverman family living in Berkeley, California. The family is very close-knit, helping each other raise children, weather difficult times, and answer tough questions. Sometimes bordering on goody-goody or saccharine sweetness, the show mostly impresses me with the breadth of important issues addressed and the true-to-life character depth and psychology.

First, let’s address the ways in which Parenthood falls short. The cast is predominantly white. Crosby (Dax Shepard) marries a Black woman, Jasmine (Joy Bryant), and they have two children together, who constitute most of the non-white main characters on the show.

With a cast that big, mainly casting periphery characters of color is a missed opportunity to dig into the intersection of race, culture, class, and family. Though in a limited, somewhat unsatisfactory way, the show does, however, capitalize on Crosby and Jasmine’s life together to delve into issues of interracial family. In a plotline about interracial dating, Adam (Peter Krause) and Christina’s daughter, Haddie, dates a young, Black man, which they forbid under the guise of his age and experience, when it’s clearly more about their discomfort with his class and race. It’s unclear whether or not the show truly acknowledges the racism of Haddie’s parents.

Parenthood also intersects race, class, and adoption themes when Julia and Joel adopt Victor (Xolo Maridueña), an abandoned 10-year-old Latino. Though the way the Braverman clan embraces Julia and Joel’s new son wholeheartedly is full of warmth and humanity, Victor’s representation brings into high relief the lack of class diversity depicted on the show. Though the character Sarah Braverman (Lauren Graham) struggles with money, she has the wealth and home of her parents to fall back on.

The entire Braverman clan comes out for Victor's adoption day — The entire Braverman clan comes out for Victor’s adoption day

I waited five whole seasons for them to introduce a queer character. We all thought it would be young Drew, the quiet, sensitive younger brother of Amber and son of Sarah. Nope! In the very last episode of the most recent season (Season 5), Parenthood showed a long absent Haddie (Sarah Ramos), home from college, in love with a woman.

Haddie kissed a girl...and she liked it — Haddie kissed a girl…and she liked it

Talk about a token LGBTQ character. She’s not even on the show anymore! It felt like Parenthood wanted to show us it was down with the gays without having to deal with any of the issues, hardships, or questions that come with being a young, queer woman in the US. Haddie also dated Alex, a Black man, so the implication is that she’s boundary-pushing and possibly a LUG. Not cool, Parenthood. Not cool.

Haddie Kiss Parenthood — Props for NBC’s on-screen lesbian kiss

Its shortcomings with regard to race, class, and sexuality mean that Parenthood disappointingly represents a narrow, unrealistic demographic of people. Though that seems like a massive fail, now we get to talk about the ways in which Parenthood succeeds. As I already referenced, the show deals with adoption and infertility with its Victor storyline. Not only that, but tackling the “C word,” the gentle-natured Christina (Monica Potter) is diagnosed with breast cancer. While Christina eventually goes into remission, she struggles with sickness, lack of energy, a desire to see her children through their challenges, loss of self-esteem, the death of close friends who also have cancer, and, most importantly, her own agency, her own ability to choose how she will live, how she will face cancer, and how she will prepare herself and her family for her potential death.

Christina shaves her head while undergoing chemotherapy

Fear, insecurity, trust, and love are repeatedly called into question when Parenthood deals with infidelity. We see Camille and Zeek secretly separated before they slowly repair their marriage due to an affair Zeek (Craig T. Nelson) had, showing how time, history, and forgiveness are crucial to any long-term relationship. We see Crosby destroy and slowly rebuild his family when he sleeps with Gaby (Minka Kelly), Max’s aide, which highlights how Crosby needed to grow up, accept responsibility for his actions and choices, and become more steadfast in his relationships. We see Adam and Christina weather a kiss Adam’s assistant, Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), plants on him during a rainstorm, showcasing the need for honesty and compassion within a marriage. The series primarily features male partners transgressing against their female partners, but in the most painful and drawn out indiscretion of all, we see Julia kiss another man and lie about it for a time, which leads to a separation and a difficult custody situation.

Julia and Ed acknowledge their shared attraction

Both characters are sympathetic: Julia (Erika Christensen) is desperate, lonely, and feels invisible, while Joel (Sam Jaeger) feels betrayed and unsupported by his wife in the pursuit of his career. We can also see both of their faults in the situation: Julia is selfish and can’t handle being a stay-at-home mom even though she rashly quit her job, and Joel is rigidly unforgiving and untrusting, refusing to communicate or work on their underlying marital troubles. It’s rare to see an honest, balanced, yet sympathetic portrayal of a drowning relationship due to infidelity.

Parenthood features a teen abortion without judgement. Drew’s (Miles Heizer) girlfriend, Amy (Skyler Day), becomes pregnant. Amy decides to get an abortion, and Drew, in his awkward, teenage way, tries to support her choice and be there for her. Despite his attempts to be a good boyfriend, their youthful relationship disintegrates as a result of the very adult situation they find themselves in. My major complaint is that much of this happens from the perspective of Drew, and we only get glimpses of how Amy feels and how, over a year later when Amy and Drew reconnect, Amy is still troubled by the secret she keeps from her family.

Drew and Amy's relationship falls apart after her abortion — Drew and Amy’s relationship falls apart after her abortion

One of Parenthood‘s pet issues is Asperger syndrome and more broadly autism spectrum. In Season 1, Adam and Christina’s son, Max (Max Burkholder) is diagnosed with Asperger’s. Together, the family rally, compassionately supporting Max to give him structure, safety, and a quality education that doesn’t discriminate against him. Later on, the show introduces Hank (Ray Romano), a love interest of Sarah and a mentor for Max, who is pained to discover that he, like Max, is autism spectrum.

Max and Hank share their love of photography

The series strives to show that despite the very real challenges they face, neither Max nor Hank are incapable of normal lives or of being loved. There aren’t a whole lot of representations of autism spectrum individuals that don’t tokenize them as a “character with a disability”–certainly very few make them primary characters on TV, and even fewer cast them as love interests.

I was impressed with the very real, honest depictions of addiction, in particular the plight of the loved ones of addicts. Sarah’s ex-husband, Seth (John Corbett), is an addict and an absentee father. He flits in and out of his children’s lives, promising to change and disappointing them each time. Amber (brilliantly, viscerally performed by Mae Whitman) is so sensitive that when we meet her, she is acting out, a lost teen with little self-worth who’s hardened her heart to her deadbeat dad, while her younger brother, Drew, yearns for his father, constantly forgiving him and eternally holding out hope that he’ll have a real relationship with his father this time. Sarah, herself, never gives up on Seth, and (while I think it’s unrealistic that Seth does, in fact, go to rehab and eventually maintains his recovery since it happens more often than not that people don’t ever recover) the Holt family exemplifies dysfunction and the behavioral patterns of living with an addict.

Drew finds his wasted father playing a show

For example, Sarah can’t ever choose the potential partner who has his shit together. She’s always drawn to the one who needs her most. Amber also grows up to embody this same trait when she falls in love with deeply troubled war veteran, Ryan (Matt Lauria). Ryan’s storyline allows Parenthood to delve into PTSD as well as the way in which veterans come home haunted. While I’m disappointed that the show has yet to explore PTSD as a result of sexual violence and/or trauma (especially considering how real that storyline is for so, so many people, especially women), Ryan’s arc and the way in which it intersects with Amber’s is crucial for revealing to us how much she’s internalized that responsibility of caring for someone who isn’t healthy.

Ryan nearly dies as a result of his PTSD motivated reckless behavior — Ryan nearly dies as a result of his PTSD-motivated reckless behavior

One storyline that I’ve been incredibly pleased to see is that of Camille (Bonnie Bedelia), the matriarch of the Braverman family. Her family takes her for granted and neglects her needs, invalidating her as a human being. They’ve so cast her in the role of “wife” and “mother” that they don’t see her as anything but an extension of themselves. This is clear in the resistance she meets from the entire clan when she wants to explore her love of painting on an extended, solo trip to Italy followed by her family’s baffled disbelief that she wants to sell the house in order to travel more and not be weighed down by that behemoth of a home. I’ve not often seen a story like this that calls out husbands and children for forgetting that their wives and mothers are human beings with separate hopes and desires.

Zeek realizes his love for Camille is the most important thing in his life

Bottom line, Parenthood is about showing us rounded human beings, triumphantly showing us their strengths and compassionately portraying their weaknesses. The interconnectedness and communication of this family is inspiring, and the series is always true to its characters’ unique psychology, revealing to us that every choice each of them makes is connected in a subtle way. If Season 6 would show us more race, class, and LGBTQ diversity, Parenthood would go from being a really good series to a really great one.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

World Champion Eaters: The Paradox of the Gilmore Diet in ‘Gilmore Girls’

Guest post written by Amanda Rodriguez.

The long-running TV series The Gilmore Girls followed the lives of a single mother who got pregnant at 16 and her daughter as they live and grow in a small town. The mother and daughter duo (Lorelai& Rory) are unconventional, confident, independent, smart, capable, and fun-loving. In Lorelai’s words, “That’s because I’m not orthodox. I’m liberal with a touch of reform and a smidgen of zippity-pow.” The way in which Lorelai and Rory relate to food, however, is a complex issue that can function as a microcosmic reading of the entire show.

First of all, it’s important to establish Rory and Lorelai’s eating habits.

The Gilmore Girls like junk food.

The pair is infamous for not knowing how to cook and always ordering take-out or going out to eat. They eat burgers, pizza, or Chinese food for dinner nearly every night. For breakfast, it’s donuts, pancakes, bacon, pop tarts, or four bowls of cereal. They avoid vegetables at all costs. When they have movie nights (which is often), they stock up on a bevy of sugary snacks, including (but not limited to) Red Vines, marshmallows, cheesy puffs, potato chips, tater tots, and mallowmars. Not only that, but they drink copious quantities of coffee. Refusing to eat any sort of healthy food while indulging consistently in junk food is only half of it…

The Gilmore Girls can seriously eat.

This mother/daughter team has the capacity to consume mass quantities of food, out-eating their much larger male counterparts. They’re always up for round three or even four when the boys have thrown in the towel. In addition, they despise exercise and ridicule other women who either enjoy or feel compelled to workout.

Other characters constantly crack jokes that revolve around their disbelief surrounding the quality and quantity of the food the Gilmore Girls consume. The Gilmore Girls themselves refer to their eating habits with startling frequency. In fact, their diet is referred to in one way or another in nearly every single episode. Why is this theme so central?

Ostensibly, the way the Gilmore Girls eat is intended to be commensurate with the way in which they live their lives. Lorelai is not a traditional mother. She doesn’t grocery shop for healthy foods; nor does she prepare meals.

Lorelai’s refusal to conform to what society expects a mother to cook is symbolic of her rebellion against society’s expectations of what a mother should be. Instead, Lorelai is a hot, fast-talking, coffee guzzling, career-oriented woman whose relationship with her daughter is more like that of a friend than a parent. She encourages her daughter to think for herself and to make her own decisions. Both Lorelai and her daughter are extremely successful and well-respected with an intense emotional bond, proving that their unconventionality is not only endearing, but it works.

The pair’s notorious consumption habits act as a rejection of the notion that women must be so body obsessed that they strictly monitor their food intake, which can devolve into an unhealthy eating disorder and/or suck the enjoyment out of food and of life. These two women flaunt a freedom, self-acceptance, and pleasure-seeking attitude that are all expressed through their love of food.

Rory (Alexis Bledel) and Lorelai (Lauren Graham) in Gilmore Girls

Rory and Lorelia embrace the lowest common denominator types of food, preferring high quantity and low quality. Though Lorelai was raised in a wealthy household, she has rejected the upper class lifestyle. When eating their weekly Friday night dinners with Lorelai’s parents (Emily & Richard Gilmore), Lorelai and Rory often have trouble eating or enjoying the gourmet delicacies that they’ve been served. This is an expression of the way in which they’ve embraced their working class status.

Unfortunately, this is where the positive interpretations of the Gilmore diet end. On the surface, eating junk food and tons of it may seem subversive in its rejection of traditional values surrounding womanhood, motherhood, and class, but it is, in truth, an enactment of the male fantasy of the beautiful, slender woman who loves to eat and doesn’t worry about her weight. Within this context, their eating habits seem more in-line with an idealized concept of womanhood rather than a dismissal of it.

Gilmore Girls

The most disturbing and possibly damaging facet of the Gilmore diet is that it is patently unrealistic. Yes, there are thin women out there who have naturally high metabolisms or don’t exercise or prefer junk food. The combination of all three, however, is rarer. Regardless, there is a distinction between weight and health. For example, someone can be“underweight” or at “optimum weight” and be unhealthy, while another person can be “overweight” and still be healthy. It’s hard to imagine a nutrient deficient lifestyle like the one the Gilmore Girls practice resulting in copious energy, brain power, and a healthful appearance.

If so much focus wasn’t placed on Rory and Lorelai’s diet, we could chalk all this up to the combination of “good genes” (as often claimed on the show), a cute personality quirk, and Hollywood magic. The emphasis on the Gilmore diet, however, ends up creating yet another unrealistic expectation of how women should be and look. Many women lament online that they wish they could eat like the Gilmore Girls and not gain weight. Blogger with the handle“Leah (The Kind of Weight Watcher”) even created something she calls “The Gilmore Girls Diet” where she lays out her plan to eat like the Gilmore Girls in an attempt to lose weight. Even Lauren Graham (the actress who portrays Lorelai) struggles with food, her weight, and self-confidence. Not only that, but she loves being athletic and relies on exercise to keep her body healthy and within the Hollywood ideal. This underscores the fact that the Gilmore diet isn’t even realistic for the Gilmore Girls themselves.

For countless women around the world suffering from eating disorders and unhealthy relationships with food, the Gilmore diet is another detrimental example of the paradox insisting women should be naturally thin and beautiful while not paying attention to what they eat or how they take care of their bodies. This paradox contributes to many women’s struggles with body image and self-worth. It also promotes a negative relationship with food, where some women no longer view food as simply life-sustaining sustenance, but as a huge force in life. Some may see food as an enemy to be managed or starved, or, conversely, some women may develop an emotional dependence on food so that they must indulge in order to derive comfort. All the positive facets of the Gilmore diet are washed away in the face of its reinforcement of unhealthy body and food issues.

Now consider how unconventional the Gilmore Girls really are. They’re well-dressed, slender, and typically attractive. They live in a quaint, small town that they adore. Rory receives an Ivy League Yale education. Lorelai has no mechanical or home repair skills so must always ask Luke (the local diner owner) to be her handyman. Even their eschewing of the upper class lifestyle has its limits; they often enjoy the benefits of having wealthy family (expensive gifts, education, trips, etc), and the two generally fit in quite well at Emily and Richard’s upper crusty social functions. They obsess over boys and men, and both of them seek traditional heterosexual romances that will lead to traditional marriage and a traditional family.

In the end, the Gilmore diet says the same thing the show itself is saying: Yes, the Gilmore Girls are quirky, independent, and smart. Yes, the Gilmore Girls refuse to bend to society’s ideas of how a woman should be and what should be expected of her. At heart, though, the Gilmore Girls want that traditional life, and by the end of the series, they have that traditional life. Though the Gilmore Girls claim to be nonconformist, though they take an unconventional path to get there, they end up in the same place with the same kind of traditional life as other, less rebellious TV heroines. Their diet, like their lifestyle, may seem subversive at first glance, but instead reveals itself to be another expression of their internal acceptance of ideal, traditional womanhood.

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Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

Gender & Food Week: Pop-Tarts and Pizza: Food, Gender, and Class in ‘Gilmore Girls’

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) in Gilmore Girls

Guest post written by Brianna Low.

Throughout Gilmore Girls’ seven seasons, mother and daughter duo Lorelai and Rory Gilmore are often seen eating vast quantities of junk food and ordering copious amounts of take out, which they consume together, often in front of the TV. From the series’ pilot episode it is made clear that neither Lorelai nor Rory have any interest in cooking, and the only things in their refrigerator are frozen fish sticks and leftover take out boxes. Their idiosyncratic approach to food is framed as just another endearing quirk instead of irresponsible, unhealthy, or an example of bad parenting.

While it could be argued that it is somewhat progressive of the Gilmore Girls series to portray two women who have no hang-ups about publicly consuming large amounts of food, it is important to remember that despite their voracious appetites, Rory and Lorelai are still conventionally attractive, thin, white women. Living in the quirky, depoliticized utopia of Stars Hollow, there is no real examination of the way in which the Gilmore’s racial and class privilege exempt them from the social condemnation that is frequently directed at poor single mothers and women of color whose food choices or weight are often criticized without any real consideration to the inequalities in accessibility to healthy, affordable food. Poor single mothers who rely on social programs like food stamps and have children who suffer from obesity and other related health problems are often publicly vilified for being irresponsible, unfit mothers despite the well-documented structural inequalities in food access and affordability.

Despite their objectively unhealthy diets, Rory and Lorelai manage to escape this specific stigma, both within the context of the show and in its outside criticism; this is due largely, I would argue, to their privilege and even the size of their bodies. While I don’t personally find it problematic that Rory and Lorelai are allowed to eat whatever they want with relative impunity, I do think it is important to place their unhealthy-diet-as-plot-device into a larger social and political context when critically examining the relationship between gender and food within the series.

Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) in Gilmore Girls; image via Emily Grenfell

Lorelai and Rory are not the only ones in the Gilmore Girls universe that have well-documented relationships with food. The diets of many of the supporting cast are intrinsic parts of their identities and function as important aspects of their characterization. The mother of Rory’s best friend Lane, Mrs. Kim, is a strict vegan who makes her daughter drink salad water instead of soda. Michele Gerard, concierge of the Independence and Dragonfly Inn, is a health nut that exhibits an almost fanatical devotion to calorie counting and exercise. The diets of these characters in contrast to Rory and Lorelai’s junk food addiction seem to highlight the drastic differences in the way the Gilmore girls like to eat.

Of all of the supporting characters that are connected in some way to food, two of the most notable examples are Lorelai’s best friend and business partner, Sookie St. James, and Lorelai’s friend and romantic interest, Luke Danes. Sookie, played wonderfully by Melissa McCarthy, is the head chef and co-owner with Lorelai of the Dragonfly Inn. She is an extremely talented cook and a compassionate and loyal friend to Lorelai. Her scenes often take place in the kitchen, where she is seen cooking and dispensing advise to Lorelai. While the kitchen has always been a stereotypically feminine space, Sookie’s fixture there does not come off as regressive. Socially, the world of cooking has been sharply demarcated along gender lines, with the personal and domestic sphere belonging to women and the public and professional sphere being dominated by men. Sookie, a master chef and a woman, is portrayed as a highly skilled and respected cook who demands perfection from herself and her employees.

Sookie St. James (Melissa McCarthy) in Gilmore Girls

Much has been said about the fact that the character of Sookie, a fat woman who is often surrounded by food, is never reduced to her body-size. It’s true that Sookie is never once shamed for her size or subjected to lazy fat jokes, nor does she express any self-hatred or desire to lose weight. It is somewhat sad and telling that Gilmore Girls has received so much praise for treating a plus-sized character with humanity and compassion, but Sookie’s portrayal is indeed remarkable in a popular culture landscape that almost always essentializes fat women to their bodies and positions those bodies as barriers to happiness and love. Sookie is portrayed as an attractive, confident, and competent woman who is deserving of both romantic attention and respect. Her burgeoning relationship and eventual marriage to Jackson, a vegetable farmer, is fully explored and is not framed as some sort of miracle or only chance at love.

Luke Danes, the gruff and grumpy owner of the local diner, possesses many stereotypical markers of traditional masculinity. Seemingly unsentimental, he is often shown shouting angrily at his neighbors and even his customers, he never changes out of his flannel shirt and backwards baseball cap, and often escapes Stars Hollow on fishing and camping trips in order to relieve his stress. Despite this potentially flat characterization, Luke emerges as a complex character that does in fact care deeply about his friends and his community despite his gruff exterior. Luke is an interesting study when looking at the presentations of masculinity and food in the fictional world of Stars Hollow, particularly in the way he is cast as a nurturer who uses food in order to reach out to and comfort his friends and neighbors.

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) in Gilmore Girls

Throughout all seven seasons Luke is often shown bringing food to the Gilmore’s when they are in need. For example, when Lorelai’s father is hospitalized after a heart attack, Luke brings food to Lorelai and her family at the hospital. Inasmuch as food can be gendered, diners and diner food fare with its burgers, fries, and malts often tend to be coded as masculine, however Luke is an interesting case in that he refuses to eat his own food. Although he is never explicitly referred to as a vegetarian, Luke is shown refusing to eat hamburgers and often refers to meat as “dead cow”. When Luke and Lorelai start dating and eventually move in together, Luke is decidedly more active in their domestic affairs, taking charge of the cooking and their home remodel. While this might not be the most shocking or unheard of example of stereotypical role reversal in heterosexual relationships, it’s definitely interesting when examining Luke and Lorelai’s relationship with food and each other.

Luke’s Diner itself is also integral to the series as it serves as the physical and communal space in which much of the community gathers. Episodes often open with Lorelai and Rory sitting and eating together in Luke’s Diner. Throughout the series, food serves as the unifying agent that brings people together. When Lorelai is unable to afford private school tuition for Rory, she goes to her wealthy parents, Emily and Richard, in order to ask them for a loan. The elder Gilmores agree to the loan, their only stipulation being that Lorelai and Rory attend weekly “Friday night dinners”. These dinners are an attempt to fix the strained relationship between Lorelai and her parents.

Gilmore Girls

Like their daughter, neither Emily nor Richard Gilmore are ever shown cooking, instead the extremely wealthy Gilmore’s have their food prepared for them by personal chefs. The class distinctions between Lorelai and her parents are blatantly obvious and are exhibited in the type of food they consume and the way in which they consume it.

Throughout its seven series run, food plays an integral role in the Gilmore Girl’s universe. While representations of food within the context of the show seemingly transcend stereotypical gender division, food and diet choice are still used to identify and characterize the different personalities that make up the world of Stars Hollow. In the words of Lorelai herself, “It takes years to learn how to eat like we do.”

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Brianna Low is currently a student living in Chicago. She enjoys watching movies and reading about feminism.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Three Generations of Mothering on ‘The Gilmore Girls’

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham)

This is a guest post from Megan Ryland.

For me, no television mother springs to mind faster than Lorelai Gilmore of the long running show The Gilmore Girls. In fact, what is arguably so special about the show is that it offers a popular mainstream venue to focus on mothering, and especially the challenges of mother/daughter relationships. Of course mothers are a constant feature in the media (how else would mothers know how to behave!?) but teenagers are rarely depicted as having a positive relationship with their mother. Rory and Lorelai have a tight bond that remains the central focus of the show despite relationship drama for both mother and daughter. They also bring in the dual roles of mother and daughter when Lorelai interacts with her own mother, Emily.

Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel)

Lauren Graham plays Lorelai, an over-caffeinated, high energy manager of a successful inn. As her daughter Rory, Alexis Bledel is a teenager striving more for a Harvard acceptance letter than a date, who has inside jokes with her mother, and clearly thrives in this single mother household. Lorelai’s status as a single mother is important because we are reminded time and time again that Lorelai has created a life that she (and her daughter, and the rest of the townsfolk) finds satisfying and valuable. This is a very different portrayal of the consequences of teenage motherhood.

Although coming from money and privilege, Lorelai left behind the trust fund life when she had Rory at 16. She rejected her parent’s assistance, refused to marry Rory’s dad, and struck out on her own. This further soured Lorelai’s already poor relationship with her own mother, Emily Gilmore, but has not led to Lorelai being a “Bad Mother.” There are many factors that allow for this, including racial, geographic, cultural, class, etc. For example, as a young white woman with the cultural capital of high class status, Lorelai is able to dodge stereotypes and the accompanying discrimination that a young woman of colour and/or low socioeconomic standing might face. This is an unspoken advantage that may allow viewers to accept Lorelai as a successful single mother. However, I still believe that the representation of Lorelai as a mother who has done a great job raising a child without the aid of huge financial resources or a masculine figure is a major plus for the show. And of course her position as a single mother remains difficult. In fact, the impetus of the show is that the lack of financial resources for Rory’s schooling brings all three generations of Gilmores back together, because Lorelai asks her parents to help pay for Rory’s elite education and in exchange her parents re-enter her life.

Movie night with the Gilmore Girls

Rory and Lorelai have a very complex relationship. Rory is occasionally mothering Lorelai, but it is never a permanent role. Superior experience is always on Lorelai’s side and she is able to act as mentor to Rory as she grows up. Lorelai doesn’t always advise her in the most conventional ways, but I would argue that she rarely verges into juvenile territory while parenting. Her temperament is youthful, while Rory’s is much more mature for her age, but they remain a mother/daughter team, and a best friendship. Again, this sort of bond is rare. I think that it’s valuable for a show on a network aimed at young people (WB and then CW) to contain positive relationships between parent and child.

In the first season, they deal with questions of how Lorelai can date as a mother, and how she can share the space that she has carved out for herself and Rory with a romantic partner. This is an important question, and one that is realistically complicated (of course, it’s also made unreasonably complicated by the necessary hijinks of television). Lorelai and Rory are given scenes where they discuss their needs, desires and challenges. Furthermore, Lorelai is accepted as a sexual being who can also be a good mother. I would call that a win.

What is arguably more common on television is the relationship between Lorelai and her mother, Emily Gilmore. Many rants and screaming matches are conducted between them, as their relationship appears based in constant misunderstandings. However, despite estrangement and resentment, the relationship between Emily and Lorelai is arguably never unsalvageable. No one can really write off this bond, because Emily and/or Lorelai occasionally show that they do indeed care for and value one another.

Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop)

Emily is first seen as a stereotypical suffocating, judgmental, harpy of an older mother, except when she becomes vulnerable and shows that she works hard to keep up appearances. She is bedridden when Lorelai runs away, she attends her granddaughter’s 16th birthday despite hurt feelings, and most of all, she is concerned that she might lose her family. She is far more complex than the typical older woman caricature and Kelly Bishop does a fantastic job with the role. Viewers can potentially sympathize with Emily’s ideals (often a product of her time and upbringing) and her feelings of exclusion from her daughter and granddaughter’s lives, even if they can’t identify with her strategies for keeping them close. At the same time, fans can also understand why Lorelai ran from the privileged life that she had grown up with, as well as the difficulties that accompanied that choice.

Arguably Emily was a type of lone parent, as Lorelai’s father was a typical career man who barely had time to put down the paper or end the conference call for meals. Although Emily was privileged to have a number of servants and nannies at her disposal, the fathering provided by Mr. Gilmore appears to have been very limited. As the most involved parent by far, Emily’s mothering has not fostered an obvious bond, showing that this connection is not inevitable. What Rory and Lorelai have takes work and is very special. It’s not a natural given.

The show allows for an exploration of motherhood from a variety of angles. An important aspect is the interplay between the daughter and mother roles. Throughout its many seasons, all three Gilmore women are placed in daughter and mothering roles. For example, in one scene in the first season, Rory is missing after a dance and Emily accuses Lorelai of raising a child as wild and irresponsible as herself. Lorelai defends Rory and says that she trusts her daughter, acting as a daughter herself in a situation with her mother. However, when Emily leaves and a contrite Rory appears, Lorelai acts as the mother terrified for her missing child and admonishes Rory. The transition between daughter and mother happens in a few minutes and it’s not only beautifully acted, but also representative of the dual(+) roles that many mothers play. You are never just a mother. You are also a daughter, whether or not your mother is always present. You parent with a history as a child. It’s a fantastic scene and shows part of the complexity of a mother’s role.

Three generations of Gilmore Girls

The interactions between Emily, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore make the show Gilmore Girls a unique offering. Rarely do popular shows for young people focus on the relationships between generations of women, or the role (and challenges) of contemporary mothering. Race and class issues abound in the show, which should be unpacked, but as a forum for understanding some aspects of mothering and honouring mother/daughter bonds, Gilmore Girls is fantastic.

Megan Ryland is currently completing her BA, focusing on politics, women and gender. She writes about feminism, body image, and media analysis on her blog, http://beautyvsbeast.wordpress.com. She also releases the weekly show Hello City! Culture Cast, a Vancouver-based podcast that reviews movies, theatre, concerts and more.