I hear you guys loud and clear about the reading of the screens. Noted for next time and I appreciate you guys being nice about it. I only added the screens bc as I was finishing up editing I realized I had more to say but with my program I edit the audio first and then add scenes on top and once the 30 minutes of audio is edited and broken down if I add ANY new audio afterwards it practically makes me start over. Here’s hoping for getting a better editing program soon
My favorite Jess-scene is the "Whyy did you drooop out ouf YAAALe?!" because it was the necessary reality check that Rory needed and no one faced her with
The reason Jess is able to get his life together is Luke, specifically the plotline in season 4 when Luke makes Jess come to his mother's wedding, and spends three episodes offering him a combination of accountability, encouragmement to think of his impact on others, a dorky self-help book and unconditional love and acceptance. Lorelai occasionally attempts to impose accountability with Rory, but is always undercut by her parents (both after sleeping with Dean and after dropping out of Yale, the grandparents intervene take her away from the conseqences of her actions.) This is why Jess is the only person who can offer Rory what Luke gave him: "Whyyy did you drooop out of YAAAALE!" ... and then later hey I'm not going to be the person you cheat on Logan with. Each time it's accountability mixed with unconditional love. (This happens later in the revival too.) Jess may not be Rory's best boyfriend, but he is one of her true friends.
Totally! It´s my favorite too because Jess understood her and it´s what she needs to listen to go back to Yale. I love that moment. I also love when she says: "You wrote a book. You sat down and wrote a book".
@@jsmith8904 i don't think she thougth that in that moment she was just hurt and wasn't thinking straight, this actually happened to me i was the academic gifted child who drop out of college, the difference is i did it because i got ill, and then i had deppression, but at that time i was feeling so bad i would have done anything like hurting myself, she stole a yatch because she wanted to get out of the world she wanted to stop being her.
I feel like Rory started spiraling when she took on too many classes which lead to her failing and looking for comfort in a familiar place like Dean. She tried to go back to the last time she felt successful and on track and that was when she was in high school, with her ‘perfect’ boyfriend who worshipped her. I feel like Yale opened her eyes to the fact that she wasn’t extraordinarily gifted beyond compare like she had been told and instead of accepting that and adjusting she ran from it.
I don't disagree that Rory's environment definitely influenced her behavior. It is interesting you bring up therapy though because she actually does go to therapy after she returns to Yale. She does start trying to be independent by living with Paris and taking the initiative to get a job at a different newspaper along with catching up to graduate at the same time as Paris. She even turns down offers from her dad and Logan to live in a nicer place. If I were to change the revival, it would be to have her live with Paris again because while she cares for Rory, she doesn't coddle her. She pushes her to be better, and Rory does the same for her. They don't lie to each other unlike every other person in the show
She goes to therapy as far as we know once. The scene was also portrayed in a very comical way with no real depth or self reflection. It would have way more interesting to have seen Rory continue therapy but really have some accountability. It would have been refreshing in the revival for her to have maybe gone to therapy with Loralei and Emily bc she was one who needed it just as much if not more. Maybe then we could have had a breakthrough as to how she got to where she was. It wouldn’t have fixed things but man, it would have been a start.
I would have liked for Rory to have the epiphany that she is allowed to be a rich housewife and she could use that power to help others. She would be like on therapy (I agree she needs it) and be like omg! I should marry Logan! And for Jess to find someone better for him who he loves even more than Rory. The way she treated Jess was 🤯 and he deserved better.
A really interesting video, but I've noticed that, in a lot of these videos analyzing Rory's privileged and coddled life (which is a definite fact, not trying to deny that), people tend to really overlook the first 16 years of her life and how that might affect her privilege-blindness. The show starts when she's 16 and the Gilmores enter her life, but it's made very clear often enough that, for the first years of her life, she was the child of a teen mother, living in a potting shed behind a hotel, while her mother worked as a teen maid for said hotel (not really gonna even comment on the child labor law violations involved with that). It's played for quirkiness and fondness in the show, but that is single-parent *poverty.* We're told often enough that her father is utterly absent and doesn't fulfill his obligations, both financially and parentally, regarding Rory. All of these things (poverty, familial and financial instability, borderline-if-not-outright homelessness) absolutely take a toll on children, especially during those formative early years. We, as an audience, see Rory/Lorelai later in life, when Lorelai is older, more mature (although still immature when it comes to relationships) and more settled. She has risen through the ranks to settle into a more comfortable income and eventual home-ownership. We are introduced to them as "comfortable" and eventually, with the introduction of Emily and Richard, and particularly in Rory's case, "cushioned". I can totally see how a character like Rory can look back on her early years and think "No, I'm not privileged! I'm the child of a teen mom! We grew up in a shed and lived off of cast-offs and charity", completely blind to the fact that she can no longer claim that disadvantage anymore. If anything, I can see why it would make Rory cling to the comfort and shelter she perceived in Emily and Richard. Not trying to defend Rory (I've been thoroughly over her character since Season 6, honestly) but I think this is a big oversight in these debates about Rory and her privilege that I've never really seen discussed in great depth in the videos I've come across. Rory is discussed as this middle-class girl thrust into an upper-class world and how it ruined her. And that's fair. But we also really forget that she did, in fact, grow up poor and homeless in her early years and all of the ways THAT lifestyle might have affected her in the long-term. Great video! Love the insight! Gonna check out your others!
I actually know someone like this. She's so set in her mind with herself as poor from the past she hasnt been able to internalize that her situation is different now.
@@krose6451 yes, i think it is a realistic 'scarcity mindset' thing, if you have grown up with a traumatic loss, you can't accept internally that the hole may be filled now, instead people psychologically 'store-cupboard' in case it all gets taken away tomorrow again. So, in a way, Rory has been brought up in the shadow of Lorelai's lost life, and she wants as much of it as she can get, bc tomorrow it might all be gone.
1. Have you ever heard of the lottery? Do you know what most lottery winners do once they hit it big? It doesn't matter what most of their life experience was, they'll become a completely different person once they're super rich and they'll splurge their wealth and power until their broke. 2. Everything before the age of 10 is irrelevant. Everything between age 10 and 13 is semi-irrelevant. Since she wasn't being tortured by her mother at a young age, those memories even if they were non-privileged don't weigh much on her personality because she's not traumatized from abuse or living on the street, so it's all water under the bridge that's irrelevant to how she turns out as an adult. Only the lived experience of her teens has any significance and that was a very short period before she got spoiled.
i agree w/ you, but my nick-picking ass wants to point out that Lorelai was 18 when working at the hotel (she god pregnant at 16, had rory, and waited a year before running away.) a year + 40 weeks, she was more than likely 18 when she ran away--At least that's if memory serves (going off that flashback episode where sherry has her baby)
I think something major that people often overlook is that although Rory is coddled and has a lot of safety nets, she’s never truly been given space or been allowed to be truly independent. As much as Lorelai tried to be not like Emily, she did kinda become like Emily. Lorelai didn’t smother Rory like Emily smothered her growing up, but she didn’t exactly give Rory space either. When Rory wanted to drop out of Yale bc of Mitchum’s comments, nobody was supportive of that. Lorelai literally told Rory “not an option”. But the thing is, Rory never really had options. I get it, kids have dreams. Rory wanted to be a journalist since she was 5, but also did she really? She had pretty much always been on that trajectory but never explored any other options. And even when she dropped out of Yale, Emily got Rory a job at the D.A.R. Nobody ever gave her options. Heaven forbid she works in fast-food or retail like the rest of us college-dropouts. And whenever Rory made independent decisions, such as her romantic partners, people constantly criticized her. Emily and Richard constantly disapproved of Dean and Jess, Lorelai constantly disapproved of Jess and Logan. I also feel like Rory was constantly expected to be perfect. A lot of times in society, children of single parents are called “b*st*rds” and are shamed for even existing, just look at season one of the show. Christopher’s parents, Rory’s grandparents, insulted her for just simply existing. And so many people, Emily and Richard included, like to constantly hold Lorelai’s “accidental teenage pregnancy” over her head, and by extension Rory possibly felt that she was responsible for being perfect so that Lorelai wasn’t deemed a “failure” by society. Or maybe just so that she didn’t feel like a failure herself. And I think that, unintentionally, Lorelai pressured Rory into “perfection” as well, so that Lorelai wouldn’t feel like a failure as well. By me saying this, I’m not trying to say that Rory has no part in any of this, she definitely has A LOT of accountability to take. But “gifted” children, or children who are people-pleasers, or people who are expected to be “perfect” “good girls” eventually face burnout and when not given the time or space they need, will eventually act out. Hence, her stealing a yacht, getting into other shenanigans, etc. Even in earlier seasons, she skipped school to visit Jess in NYC because everyone around her forbade her from being with Jess. Idk if any of this makes sense, but this is why I think Rory eventually turned out the way she did 🤷♀️ P.S. Great video btw!! ❤️
on the topic of "did she really?" i have a feeling if rory was ever to say growing up "you know, maybe i don't want to be a journalist..." her mother would swoop in with the whole "oh but of course you do sweetie!!" or "what are you talking about? of course you want to be a journalist! it's your dream!!!" and growing up rory idolized her mother so of course in turn she'd probably say "omg you're right! that was so silly of me to say otherwise." like imagine that. when i was 5 i wanted to be all kinds of things, and they eventually fell to the wayside and got replaced with other dreams and aspirations. but for rory, her dream at five remained "her dream" throughout her entire life. it's like loreli got on this one track thing when it came to rory. rory is a smart kid. later, rory struggles with a subject or keeping up with grades and it's "what do you mean you're struggling?? you're so smart!! you'll ace this!" and rory throws herself into studying all night to try to live up to that. she was never really allowed to be imperfect. if she diviated from the preset "dream" that wasn't okay. if she struggled in her classes, her mother would just tell her how brilliant she was but what did she do to actually help? it just is so wild watching it back as an adult and seeing things in a new light.
@promisemochi I agree with you for the most part! The only thing is, Lorelai did help Rory a LOT with her school and her goals. She even stayed up all night with her to help her study when it seemed necessary. But imo, that kind of makes it worse. Rory felt so much pressure to make her mom proud. And that can be a positive thing for people, but not if it's constant and you never get space. I agree with Kierra that Lorelai only had good intentions, but she really should have gotten some therapy or something.
Definetly makes alot of sense I hate to admit it but I do see Emily in Lorelai even when she tries not to be like her it’s like she can’t control it which makes sense bc that’s reality alot of us pick up traits both good and bad from our parents, definetly agree
In my opinion Rory's "downfall" began not when she dropped out of Yale, it was when she decided to *go* to Yale. I know that Harvard didn't allow them to film but i think it would have been way better if she actually would have went to Harvard. The way in the show she just changed her mind that quickly is honestly kind of sad and how much she is influenced by her grandparents. But maybe that's exactly the point of the show, to see a relatble character with big opportunities just for them to fail and to look right into the eye of the harsh reality
I raise you on that. I think the first cracks can be actually seen in the very first episode - she meets a cute boy and she is immediately ready to give up Chilton?
Her changing her mind about harvard was a betrayal of everything she and her mother had worked for. I get that its her life… but they had worked towards that goal for years- of course lorelai wanted that for rory from birth.
Even her punishment for stealing the boat was ridiculously light. 300 hours of community service? she could knock that out in less than 2 months if she was serious about it, yet she acts like she has to go to Azkaban or something.
What disappointed me about the revival was her needing a job and then wasting her opportunities. The star's hollow newspaper is a good example. After she makes this big deal about the newspaper, she doesn't use her degree in journalism or connections to do anything to actually help the newspaper. She's just kind of Goofing around. Then Chilton generously offers her a position if she gets her masters (which is a pretty good gig) and she turns them down without even saying "let me consider this before I get back to you." She goes to her interview completely unprepared because she assumes she's better than that job, when she has no job at to speak of. She complained but did nothing to actually improve her situation. She acted like anything that she didn't specifically want was beneath her whike showing little if any work ethic. And while writing a book is impressive, she dragged her mom into it without consulting her first.
Ultimately, the only interesting thing about Rory (maybe the only redeeming thing about her)... is her mother. So she found a way to use that for herself too.
Also on the note of Rory's hypocrisy re:ballerina article, that season Doyle tries to provide Rory criticism and she was aghast at the fact that he was criticizing her paper or providing feedback on it at all.
This! Even at Chilton, she refused to take criticism. She was late for an exam and still felt entitled to take it. When she was told to take extracurriculars or to make friends, she acted like she was above it.
@@Cal-c-u-later to an extent that was understandable, she really didnt have controll over the fact a damn deer hit her car. But the way she reacted was messed up, she shouldve camly collected herself to an extent and filed some sort of student misadventure report thing (no idea what their called in the us) so she would be allowed to take it
@@Cal-c-u-laterim assuming youre talking about the puff episode and she wasnt upset bc she was above making friends she was upset because the school officials had told her she wouldnt get into a good university if she didnt make friends even tho she did have friends and she did extracurriculars outside of school
OK, here's the thing about Rory, she was sheltered her entire life and unlike her mother never had to practice any real world responsibilities. Yes she's well read but literary knowledge doesn't necessarily translate to any skills other than expanding intellect or possibly landing her a career in writing or publishing or teaching, which she never really pursued (possibly cuz she burned herself out at Chitlin). Plus, she only ever read highly dramatic works of fiction, which is maybe why she's been prone to making dramatic, rash decisions like the whole cheating with Dean saga and dropping out of Harvard. ALSO I feel like she only ever wanted to go to an Ivy League for the prestige. She never had a real goal other than getting in. All of her academic success seemed only to serve her Harvard dream, which is fine enough but of course when she gets there she has this huge identity crisis because her entire identity up until that point was to be smart in order to get into Harvard. She's hanging onto this thread of an identity as a writer/journalist and then the Mitcham situation happens and it completely destroys her. She's left with no personality and no goals which plummets her into a crisis she never really recovered from. It's honestly tragic and super common. Also if she weren't the main character there's no way she'd be valedictorian over Paris I mean come on.
True... but let’s remember Paris called it that, statistically, salutatorians do better in life than valedictorians. And that’s exactly what happened in the show.
I'm glad you mentioned how similar Rory and Jess are. I have been thinking for a while now that it really seems like Rory sees a lot of herself in Jess when they first meet, and views him and his journey as mirroring her own in a lot of ways, and I don't think that perception of herself in relation to him fully updates until she reconnects with him while living with E&R. I think it's only then that she becomes aware of how unlike him she's become, of how much Jess has grown in ways that are authentic to the person she knew then while she's strayed far away from that, and of how skewed her perception of herself and her own privilege has become. I really do wonder if anyone else could've made her see that so effectively.
I believe that Rory didn’t know how to fail. There was always somebody there to help her like her mom her grandparents. They all see her as this perfect little girl
I would like to think that if I saw my trust account getting smaller and smaller, I would make better choices because I would want to be independent. I had a very codependent relationship with my parents, I was an only child and we had zero family around, it was literally just the 3 of us. I know it was codependent, I know that even now as a married adult with kids in her 30's I could go running back to them if I needed help and while yes its a nice safety net, it's not what I want. I don't want to be reliant on them. What I am getting at is that I would have liked to have seen Rory grow past being a teenager and actually take some responsibility for her life, not be a damn cheater (I can't stand cheaters) and show through her growth that she can handle things on her own, instead of not thinking of the consequences and knowing she will be coddled the moment she drives over the town line.
Yes, that would have been nice. But it feels like while Rory wants to be responsible for her successful moments she always runs to her mother or grandparents. I understand her in a way. I did that myself. But I never wanted to and I try really hard not to use my safety net because I want to be able to be independent, something Rory only seems to try when she directly benefits from it. But when things are getting hard she immediately turns to her family instead of trying it on her own first. I guess that’s okay for a very young adult, but at some point it seems like an adult would have too much pride to run to their family as a first option. It’s easy, yes, but it should only be the last resort. However, as sad as it is, it makes sense for Rory with her storyline and with how her family thinks of her and treats her.
I also have a lot to say about the dropping-out-of-yale plotline lol. I read a post that brought up how both lorelai and rory have self destructive tendancies, Especially when it comes to relationships. Viewed through this lense, Rory / Logan's relationship makes sense as a sort of spiral, culminating in her leaving Yale. My view of Rory has changed a lot over the years lol - I think she's a deeper character than a lot of people give her credit for. Love the videos btw just sharing my views!!
I think a few things would have made Rory’s story land better for me. If she had gotten pregnant just after college and was raising her child as a single mother in her thirties, struggling with a career that had to be put on indefinite hold, and a disappointed family the way lorelai did (if asp was so married to Rory mirroring lorelai), and Rory admitting that maybe she did need serious therapy. Rory is my age, and the revival was around the time I realized that I needed more professional help than I was getting. They gave that story to lorelai, but I think it would have been more interesting and more generationally accurate for a millennial.
@Spicy Bees oh yeah I know. It's why I'm so nervous for the last season of Mrs. Maisel. Asp has already proven she's willing to sacrifice narrative for what she wants. 😅
@@happytofu5 I think it would have made more sense for the revival to take place about 3 years later. But about 10 years is just too much for what they did.
I agree with this, and as others have pointed out, the show’s creator, Amy Sherman Palladino, mentioned the revival is generally how they were planning to end the original show - I assume that means Rory getting pregnant in her early 20s, not long after college. If we followed that plot, I believe the revival showing Rory in her 30s could have been all about Rory reconnecting with her literary goals after years of feeling burned out by motherhood and perhaps a more monotonous job (like working at a local newspaper!)
You make a lot of wonderful points. At the same time, I can't help but feeling that Rory always must have had so much more capacity for developing sheer coldness than Lorelai ever imagined, or indeed knew to be actively guarding against her developing. And for me, the biggest moments aren't even any boyfriend stuff, at least not more than tangentially. Like so many other viewers, despite not having been born into DAR-WASPy New England Elite wealth privilege, Rory was initially extremely relatable to me. In some of the obvious ways she was relatable to probably a million other girls, but also, I actually did have a grandparent relationship where I got some stuff given to me pretty lavishly even while there were some pretty unhealthy dynamics going on with my her and my mother (her mother-in-law in this case). I definitely always saw the problems--and as you've shown, the manipulations--in Richard and Emily's place in Lorelei and Rory's lives. At the same time...I just cannot wrap my head around Rory just sending Logan's buddies to get her stuff like it's some joke rather than showing up to tell them in person she's going back to Yale. It's not that they deserve better as like, universal karma, it's that I can't understand how she herself didn't feel any degree of guilt not paying them any kind of courtesy of, thank you for everything but I'm ready to go back to school now, when they not only bankrolled her life and took her on another trip to Europe, but literally kept her life from being destroyed after she blithely stole a yacht (tbh this seems to be the permanent point-of-no-return with me and Rory). Rory's coldness is also imo evident to me in her and Paris's relationship, which, let me make it clear, I wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to be friends with Paris. But the last we see of them in the series, Rory 's body language is kinda acting like Paris is a weirdo for hugging her at graduation. This is after moments like other students at the Yale paper assuming Paris is Rory's best friend and Rory correcting them on that even though she didn't actually have more of a best friend at Yale. Then fast forward to the revival and we know through dialogue that although Paris is married (divorced?) with two kids she has literally given Rory a key to her home in New York (I think) that Rory uses to stay whenever she wants. Rory just increasingly comes off like such a cold person who's very comfortable being a user with zero guilt about using people she doesn't even like/would be very happy to ditch.
I’m friends with my mom and get away with saying things to her that has others giving me horrified looks when I say them. The difference though is there was/still is a line I wouldn’t cross. Rory is believable trust me. I was Rory(minus romantic drama...and minus money bags, I mean her grandparents) school came very very easy😂Then real life hit. Rory could’ve recovered like the rest of us if she didn’t have Emily and Richard to fall back on. She knew she was going to inherit a lot of money.
The people who hate on Rory are missing the point-the entire show is an indictment of generational wealth and class differences, and Rory is intended to demonstrate how those forces change people. I absolutely agree that environment makes a big difference, and that’s why Rory is a good person at the start and changes as they go. they often overlook the impact of generational wealth in the show for some reasons There’s a reason the story starts with the grandparents and Chilton being introduced as elements in the girls’ lives. Every time Rory turns around, Emily and Richard are creating loopholes and helping her evade consequences for her behavior and promoting an idea that she’s entitled to a higher class simply due to birth or money. I’m not exempting her from the choices she makes, but putting this on Lorelei is baloney. She doesn’t believe she’s better than everyone at the beginning, when Lorelei and everyone has been supportive since she was born. That’s always been there, and Lorelei does hold her pretty accountable when things get tough-more than once, she confronts Rory on how she’s treating others and she plays the mom card when Rory forces her to. The problem starts when the consequences for her failures and choices stop costing her and the grandparents allow her a route to escape consequences. The whole show wants to demonstrate that when your world allows you to be selfish and avoid consequences and allow you to obtain things without putting in hard work, you’ll begin to think that you’re really entitled to things. Not to mention that her hard work doesn’t help her get the internship with mitchum, but she’s instead foiled by class differences (something Logan later points out does when he disapproves of that piece she writes, that she doesn’t want to acknowledge that she belongs to an entitled class-once again, there’s a focus on her social class that implies that class seems to matter more than her actual work). The revival is fantastic thematic storytelling-some people just want characters to SAY things that are clear in the subtext. Rory’s downfall IS the accountability that the show is delivering, if you pay attention. The revival shows the actual consequences of class and money enabling you to avoid everything. I love that Rory’s problem the whole show is that she entirely loses her ability to work for things she wants instead of resting on generational wealth, and at the end of the show, she’s at exactly the same place Lorelai is at the start of the show: being forced to step up and return to her roots in Lorelai’s initial spot as a single mother, which emphasized the idea that that is what will finally force her to change, because she IS like Lorelai, and having Rory was what made Lorelai into a good person. It’s a subtle way to show that doing things the hard way has merit, even in a flawed system of social class and money. I hate the way people talk about Rory and Lorelai about whether they’re likeable or not because Rory and Lorelai don’t exist so we’ll like them-they exist to create a message, and I’ll always love Rory for that if nothing else. I was the same age as her when the show aired and I went from trying to mimic her to trying to do the opposite of her and I thought that was proof of a very well-done character arc that taught me something about taking the easy way out. What a lot of people miss about Rory is that you’re not supposed to like her-that she becomes so difficult to respect is THE WHOLE POINT. Wealth and class change you, and not for the better. Edited to add-excellent video :)
Rory's personality "change" should be blamed on her alone. For a counter-example, there are plenty of wealthy and well known people in hollywood that are still mentally down to earth
Do yall think things would’ve been different if she had gone to Harvard? I feel like she really needed some distance from stars hollow and her grandparents. It feels like a small insignificant change but it just makes sense to me. I feel like her grandparents had a lot of access to Rory during this time because of their alumni ties and connections. So it just makes me wonder what that distance would’ve done for her.
That's a really interesting question! Because Harvard is also an ivy league school, maybe the result still would have been similar, but I feel like there could have been potential for her to have a different trajectory for the reasons you mention. Harvard would have been her own world (more than her grandparents'), and maybe that literal and metaphorical distance would have made the difference. Interesting to think about!
Ok hear me out. Lorelai hears the words "Mom, I'm pregnant" and everything freezes. All sound and Rory in the background saying "Mom, .... Mom?" fade out and you can hear Lorelai's heartbeat. Then a montage of black and white scenes flicker past all edited depicting the past. When Lorelai told her parents, when Christopher found out, etc. And then Richard yells "You're going to (insert college)". Then it goes back to Lorelai shouting "You're going to Chilton, end of story" from episode 1 season 1 (whatever the line was), and then it zooms through Rory's proudest moments. Her graduating Chilton, Yale, making speeches, getting her acceptance letters, talking in the Harvard lecture room when they visited, etc. Then it all zooms back out, the sound fades in, and you have a close up shot of Lorelai's face. The intro begins playing.
It occured to me randomly that there is one change they could have made in the revival that would have made all the difference for me. If they had made the Stars Hollow Gazette a real job, either because it had a small modest salary or because Rory took the rest of her trust fund/inheritance and used it to turn the newspaper around. I think it doesn't make her a bad person or a bad journalist to be unable to make a real living in the current media enviornment. Lots of people can't. But if that piece of the story was turned into Rory giving up the big Christiane Amanpour dream and realizing that you could do something worthwhile with your education (and/or money) by reviving your home town paper - that would have changed the ending a lot. Instead they made it a sad little joke of a volunteer job and said hey, instead of coming back home to serve your community you're going to write a book using Lorelei's story against her will and then emotionally blackmail her into consenting - yuck. I mean you could have the book still in the revival, you could even have the whole messed up thing with Logan, but I'd have loved a story where we see her hit bottom and realize, like a Frank Capra movie, I love this town I grew up in, I can do something that would be in service to it. It would have been large and deep instead of entitled and shallow.
I honestly thought that was the direction they were going to go and was disappointed when it turned into a joke. I think my biggest gripe with AYITL is that the original writer wanted to tell the ending she envisioned so much that they didn’t take into account that Rory was 30 and that her story line seemed to have been something that should have happened right after college when she was first entering the “real world” versus when she was already a journalist for 9 years. I feel like it would be different if she was like this isn’t the life I want now I need to figure out a different path instead of being this floundering person. Also her being pregnant at the end didn’t have the same effect as it would have had at the end of the original series.
She didn't just feel entitled to giving her opinion on a ballet performance, that's not that big of a deal. She felt entitled to giving her opinion on another woman's body. That's the issue
even though i sometimes hate rory’s decisions, i can’t help but also like her and smile when she’s onscreen and i think it’s because she seems like such a real person because of her flaws
Really enjoyed the chatting part. I do think the similarities between Rory and Jess are getting more. Because Jess might not have a support system throughout his live but Rory definitely has less of an support system at the end of the revival. Her grandfather is dead and Emily moved away. The trust fund was gone. Logan proposed and she turned him down. Rory also turned down the opportunity of child support and being the second woman. So Rory could only turn to Lorelei.
I’ve thought a lot about where the series should go after the revival 😅 so I heard the show designer said Rory had to reach rock bottom to be like her mother which is why they were so awful to her in the revival. Therefore I can conclude that like Lorelei, they want her to go on an upward path now. I envision Rory and Lane starting a school for the arts in Stars Hollow to help the next generation of kids reach their goals without needing the privilege of rich grandparents to do it. I think it would be very similar to how Lorelei and Suki started their own inn. I also think Rory being a mom would take some of the focus off herself and would result in her being less selfish.
Rory outgrew journalism path in college but the tv writers didn’t pivot her, that’s why everything in late college and revival see Rory just floundering. A perfect example of this is when Paris is waiting on her acceptance to law school and medical school. She had shit planned and was willing to through everything at the wall and hustle. Rory simply wanted to twiddle her thumbs and wait for her golden opportunities to find her, which they did(thanks writers for unrealistic expectations) but they rang so false. Rory is a writer not a journalist. And the longer she clinged to that childhood career the worse she got overall. She also never ever ever learned or grew from her mistakes. We like to watch flawed characters but don’t like to watch dumb choices being made over and over and the character being shocked by the outcome.
I think that you are correct that Rory was influenced by R&E and seeing her mother spar with them. I also think that her dropping out of Yale was her turning point. It would have been amazing if she dropped out and found an inner passion and pursued it and somehow made a life for herself beyond Yale. Instead the writers chose the narrative that she had to get back to Yale. Meanwhile Logan was a totally terrible boyfriend during that time. He never pushed her to be better. It would have made more sense for her to have ended up with Jess because they could have inspired eachother to find that path and be creative together. He becomes a writer and makes an actual name for himself without a college degree. He goes down the path of hard work and perseverance. Wish I saw more of that in Rory (and honestly wish they showed us more of Jess and his journey. I can’t stand that the writers kept her with Logan and his life of privilege. I actually think that he became more of a cushion for her than R&E were once she was in Yale. I guess to sum up - Rory was never allowed to hit rock bottom and have to pick herself up.
even as just a friend, jess could've been an important influence on her if he became a regular character in the latter seasons. he's someone who reached rock bottom at a worse time and was still able to pick himself up and become better. rory needed someone who wasn't part of the wealthy world and someone who could ground her when she would become too entitled or selfish as well as someone inspiring her. logan is from a world where he's not actually supported by his family so his way of supporting someone is just letting them do whatever they want. some of that is good BUT the issue is that he sees rory's mental breakdowns (like wanting to steal a yacht) and her self-destructive behaviours as fine and not something worth talking about. logan may have grown from their relationship but rory never did and just became worse as the years went on
One thing I noticed in my recent rewatch of the series is whenever Rory does something wrong and 'takes accountability,' she repremand's herself so much and is so hard on herself that the person who she hurt (Like when she missed Lorelei's graduation to go to NY to see Jess) starts to feel bad because she feels so terrible and feels the need to be hard on herself. She inadvertently guilts people into being hurt by her bad decisions, which I think she could have learned from watching Lorelei feud with her mother.
yup, in a way it feels like she is suddenly very isolated from the group and a 'bad person', it is interesting to think where that comes from. I wonder if it is bc she hasn't had access to enough of a male role model - I know she had Luke up to a point, but he isn't her 'dad' as a young girl - so she hasn't experienced a different kind of discipline. Lorelai is very protective and loving of Rory, but I wonder if she tended to plead with her more than discipline her i.e. I need you to be good or we won't be able to eat, and she views her as a best friend rather than a daughter, which is understandable when she had her so young.
I feel like when talking about Rory and college, it’s also worth mentioning that in choosing the most “elite” i.e. brand name school, she maybe did not get the best educational experience. A lot of people at unis like Yale and Harvard are there because of a legacy, be it theirs or the school’s - they want the degree with a shiny name even if they aren’t necessarily learning from it. Massive universities are not always great for getting real experience, because you spend more time listening than anything else. What’s more, because Rory had the Gilmore name and wealth to rely on, I feel she wasn’t really pushing herself once she got her college acceptance letters. She stopped growing after she was done with Chilton. Rory’s first real job, and accordingly the first real world criticism she faced, was with Mitchum. In my humble opinion, Rory would have been better off at a small college with small classes, in a truly academic setting. It seems to me that Yale did not really change from Chilton in education or environment, and so Rory became stunted at a time where she was supposed to grow.
Heýyyy... I will have to say I agree with you for the most part but I think Lorelai asking Richard and Emily for the loan for Chilton was not a bad idea. Rory was not academically challenged at Stars Hollow High and I think she needed that competition. I think the issue is that Rory seemed to fit into Emily and Richard's world perfectly but she wanted to pretend she didnt. I think Rory just gravitated towards that world more. Lorelai seems to resent the privileged life she grew up with so I think by extention Rory did not want to think she was a part of it for that sake, but I think deep down her character wanted to live a life of privilege. I think Lorelai should've let Rory see that a privileged life has its advantages and the positive side of it as well. That 'rich people' are not all spoiled and a horrible person but some are kind... Lorelai thought that leaving privilege made her better but she was always a good person even though she grew up 'rich'. I am like Logan, I see privilege as a good thing, however I think it should be acknowledged. I think Rory's relationship with Logan has helped her to see that not all that has money, are terrible. I think we tend to have this idea that someone that's privileged whether its beauty standards, money etc, they're nasty which is not true. Sorry its so long... 😅
Yeah thats why I said I understand it I know why she felt it was necessary but I feel like Emily and Richard’s involvement (even at a restricted level) and Rory’s exposure to their lifestyle was a huge part of what went wrong bc she wasn’t like that in season one, yk? And you’re fine I love having these discussions
My questions to you is? If you can rewrite any Gilmore girl season would you? if yes What season would you change? Would you change Rory character if you had the opportunity? If you can any reliving character for a day who would you been?
I would only change the affair with Dean. She would have to face the town and the shame they would heap on her. She would apologize to his wife and her mother. She would have pushed Dean away and grown from the experience.
In the revival, they did not address all the money Rory was supposed to have. Her dad gave her money after his grandfather died and grandma Gilmore had a trust set up for her, and I’m sure she got an inheritance from her father when he died. What happened to all that money? And then the revivable, she was broke. What’s that all about
She must have spent it all on rent and flights to London and wherever else she was. It’s actually quite realistic, I know people who spent all their inheritance on a nice (but not completely over the top) lifestyle, (I assume) thinking it would be okay because it was enough, until they realized they had to sell their house or something other of value. Rory probably never worried too much about it when she spent money because she seemed to have enough for years and was sure she would land a great job eventually…
I’m studying TV writing. Of course, the pilot sets up the arc and themes for the show. What happens? Lorelei can’t solve a problem due to tons of $$$, so she breaks her own rules and goes to her parents. Emily uses Lorelei’s need for $$ to emotionally extort her for time. As pointed out in the video, Lorelei sees money as buying opportunity, and Emily eyes it as power. So spot on. If power corrupts and money is certainly a form of power, then the argument can be made that the entire show is about money corrupting Rory. If she had been a scholarship kid at Harvard, rather than a legacy at Yale, she would have had to BRING IT when she was challenged. Fill disclosure, I went to an Ivy later in life and it was such a shock. Not only did a lot of the kids have rich parents,but their ignorance of how others lived was incredible. People wrote things online about me “thinking she’s poor.” I’m not sure where that came from, except that there was pressure to go out all the time or maybe I expressed concern about being able to graduate, etc. Not everyone’s going to Paris for Spring Break. Heck, I was grateful I could work 40 hours and get some extra money for the rest of the semester. My friend was organizing a fundraiser and someone on the committee suggested she get a former POTUS to speak. My friend, from the hood, scoffed. How would she even get in touch with him? The girl said, “I can have my dad call him.” Like, NBD. Talk about A Different World! Rory goes from a small town girl, where she had moral support, to a privileged girl whose grandfather could make a call or write a check to solve any problem she had *cough* created.
I think that they should’ve focused more on Rory falling into a perfectionist mindset instead of her sleeping with Dean. Her sleeping with Dean was just a weird conflict that ultimately went nowhere and did nothing but harm her character development. If they wanted to show Rory struggling or having a curveball to offset her “Mary sue” ness, they should’ve focused on the fact that she felt she couldn’t fail. They should’ve shown her overworking herself and struggling to keep up with her studies and NOT succeeding, failing a test because she didn’t have enough time to properly study or being burnt out because of all the work she had to do. They should’ve showed how she feared disappointing those who built her up.
Oh my god. I just realized how you’ve formatted your videos to look at the screen ar key points and I am so grateful. I rarely look at the video or I’m multitasking on the phone and the screen is so small that I can’t tell what I should be paying attention to. THANK YOU!!! I wish more ppl did this
I personally think what Mitchum said was kinda right in a way, she would have made a great assistant or manager. When she plans the D.A.R party etc she has great organisational skills and it shows in other scenes. Or would make a great teacher, I never saw her as a journalist it seemed like a poor fit for her. To me she seems like more of a person who loves learning and knowledge, that would rub off on her students. But she looked down upon that in the revival 🙄
i hated how she constantly denied her privileged background and in a way resented it, but actively used it to get what she wanted, only to deny that it was because of her privileged background that she got a majority of her opportunities. she grew up being a golden girl in her town and was constantly told she could do no wrong, causing her to think she was above everyone else which we would literally see when she denied multiple jobs simply because she thought she was so much better. we see so much of this through out the show where she thinks she is so much better than everyone else and deserves only the best. when logan called her out that was one of the first times she was actually snapped back into reality, she was living in a luxury penthouse rent free and had her grandparents and eventually her dad paying for her yale tuition, but despite all of this she never wanted to admit to herself that any of this was true. she was so entitled and got everything handed to her, but despite all of this she had the nerve to once again, deny her privilege. when mr huntzberger gave her constructive criticism in a field that is a very competitive and consists majorly of criticism, she lost her mind and ran away from her responsibilities, essentially burning out. to me, this was clearly the result of her being snapped back into reality, in the real world, she is not going to get things handed to her, she has to work her way up to the top, people like mr huntzberger aren’t going to see her the way stars hollow did or the way her grandparents did. she actually has to work for something. it truly broke my heart watching her go from a humble and hard working student at chilton, to an entitled and privileged brat in the revival. this is what happens when a person is convinced their whole life that they can do no wrong, that they deserve only the best and that they are better than everyone else. another thing i noticed in the show was how much the entire town would do to convince her she could do no wrong, whenever something happened between her and her boyfriends, the entire town would rip them to shreds which we saw with dean, and even drive them out of town which we saw with jess. no wonder she was so convinced she deserved everything because she grew up in an environment that constantly told her just that. it really breaks my heart because i would’ve really liked to see rory succeed.
I get that Rory’s been smothered her whole life by the strong, impressive Gilmore women. That she was burdened by their expectations practically from birth and yet will forever be viewed as Emily’s granddaughter/ Lorelai’s daughter by everyone around them, with Emily the queen of high society and Lorelai the unofficial goddess of Stars Hollow. Lane being her only friend made this worse because Lorelai then used this friendship to contrast helicopter mom Mrs. Kim with herself to assert she was the “good” parent and to force their peer rather than parent-daughter relationship. With no real outlet from all this growing up, it makes sense that Rory could only ever become a lesser version of either/both women. However, Revival Rory only makes sense if Rory never left Stars Hollow. But she did, which means she’s experienced separation from the umbrella of support of Stars Hollow and the shared views of its residents. Sure, Gilmore money made traveling cushier, but it also let Rory take a breather away from her family’s suffocating expectations, to be around completely different perspectives and to become a fuller person. So her not doing that and actually becoming a worse version of herself will never ring true to me
You mentioned something important... It would be impossible to graduate at the same time of her friends , she didn't even took no clases on summer or something like that. Also my fav scene with Jess is on the kiss when she said 'can you imagine if braces were involved in this interaction?' and he answer 'will be a bloodbath'
Before the Bracebridge dinner Rory jokingly promises Lorelai that she will work on becoming more cynical and self-absorbed. Then she actually followed through on that promise.
Love watching these breakdowns. This is my second time watching this one 😆. If you’d like another Gilmore girl video idea (or an excuse to rewatch) please address Rory’s hair evolution and impressionability. Seasons 1 & 2: I akin Rory’s hair to either that of Lane or Lorelei, and of course she’s a quiet version of Lorelei but I feel there’s a sense of Lane mixed in there. Season 3: though subtle, Rory begins to draw her hair back similar to how Paris always does, and while she’s understandably concerned about getting into Harvard, the stress I believe could also be Paris rubbing off on her. Season 4: she gets her Bob similar to Lindsay around the same time she and Dean marry and the affair happens Season 5: I feel like she’s mimicking her perception of Lorelei. Her hair looks like how Lorelei’s worn it, she makes the moves on Logan after Chris to her the Lorelei story etc. Season 6: I think she’s exuding a younger version of Emily Gilmore, and this would be around the time she’s living in the Gilmore pool house. By season 7 it seems she’s gone full circle but with bangs
I really wish the revival covered more of the early post-yale scenes. For some reason, I had hoped they would at least flashback to the 'post Obama Campaign first job' time period that probably had her riding high for a bit, especially if she was still financially comfortable. Was she able to find a second job right away? Was she more open to jobs not related to her field? Or even her desired writing genre? I have entirely too many questions. Rory and Lorelai are such fascinating characters for me to look at. In some ways, they mirror my mother and I. But, they also help as a guidepost of maybe things I would do differently with my own child. That's what I find so fascinating about analysis videos. People find something to connect to in the media they enjoy and sometimes that can be a useful thing
Yessssss I felt the same way! I think that's part of why I felt such a disconnect to Rory's plot in the revival, because I needed more info on how she went from that experience to really stagnating in her field. I would have loved to learn more about the in between
I think that the writers wanted Rory in this trajectory since the beginning of the show. But you can’t have an audience hating on a child, that’s awful. So they waited for Yale. Hence the Easter Egg they left for us when Rory met the Harvard alum’s daughter who was working several jobs her parents disapproved of.
Love the content! My only recommendation would be to have less reading screens, and instead, just read it out loud for the video. Your comments on those pages are awesome, but sometimes I'm listening when I can't look at the screen and I miss out 🙈 Please keep making this content though!
Gilmore girls is just a story that eventhough sometimes it seems like we can have it all, we can’t. But someone like rory in real life will actually got somewhere.
I find it interesting that like nobody believes Dean or Jess were good enough for rory(besides lorelai with dean) but in the revival they both seem to be doing better than rory- probably because they didn't have the same sense of entitlement as rory. It still bugs the shit out of me that rory and Logan didn't end up together bc I truly believe they were good for each other(before the revival) but by the end they were both shitty people who never seemed to learn from their mistakes, and that's infuriating. Also rory never learns from her mistakes, like she literally has cheated on or with every person she's ever dated. She was taught from a young age that she's the best and grew to really believe it, so when things don't go her way she doesn't know what to do. Idk, the revival really bothered me. It's almost like even though it's been ten years, nothing about her has grown in any capacity and she still acts exactly the same(if not worse) than she did at 22. I'm on team rory sucks, sorry not sorry.
I don't think it's her upbringing that led to the final scene. She wasn't a teenager who had sex the first time and got pregnant. Rory at that point should have been grown up in a way taking responsibility for the life choices she made. Not only is she still acting like a spoiled child, but has no morals. Sleeping with a married dean and later with an engaged Logan. Her career: basing it on a book of more or less her mother's life without her consent...not ok. And why would being a teacher so bad ? Bc she felt offended be offered a "low" job. No, without the pink glasses of the TV series, I don't like Rory anymore.
I dislike how her becoming the Editor of the Stars Hollow Gazette in AYITL is presented as a failure? Like is it in journalism? is it in your beloved hometown? is it writing for a paper you love? do you get complete control? don't get me wrong she needs to get paid for doing this job but I wish that had been presented a bit more favorably instead of Well look where she ended up what a colossal failure! She has more than the tools and know how necessary to upgrade and turn that all around. Hell ask Colin or Logan or Emily to buy the building and cut her a check for a decent salary and let her modernize it. Hire a few paper children on cute little bikes to deliver the papers around town. Taylor would love that. You're right she has cushions. She has options. Honestly sometimes I wish she were a tiny bit more manipulative and took advantage of them.
I wouldve wirtten that rory and logan did get married like 2 or 3 years later and (in that scene where she meets dean in doose's market and he tells her about the kids and stuff, she tells him that she is married to logan) we get a flashback and a little backstory of how they fixed it and got married Also i wouldnt have made her completely broke, i would've made her working and still trying to come after her dreams (she wouldn't have reached her exact goals yet), while being with logan and building a life together I think there wasnt a going back to babyface rory, because she grew up and was an adult now, but i would've in some way made her go back to her Principles of working hard for your goals I would also have had her in sooommee way aknowledge her priviledge and just kinda like thanking the people around her for everything (like she never even thanked anyone for being able to send her stuff to them because she was frickin homeless) I wouldn't have made her go back to the perfect young adult or the perfect wifey material, i wouldn't have deleted all the flaws they gave her, but i would've made her come to terms with how she messed up earlier and how lucky she was to be this priviledged. Like just get her to the ground again yk But enough of that cuz the comment could be so much longer if i would get into what i also would change about the revival Stay safe everyone!
Kierra i love your approach to things!! i would love to see you talking about anything spongebob related, the way you view things and the way you explain is wonderful i would love to see your takes on it, whatever it might be
Amy Sherman Palladino openly admitted to not watching Season 7. I often wonder how that might have changed things. I think she might have written Logan and Rory differently. I think an interesting take might have been if they did get married. Rory went off to do her Presidential campaign job after Season 7. Then at some point her and Logan get back together and married. Maybe the security of Logan's money leads her to just freelance and then she starts just supporting his career? Maybe they are heading toward divorce in the revival because they want different things? Logan has reverted to his cheating ways because this Rory is more like his mother than the Rory he fell for.
i So appreciate you saying that it's richard and lorelai who put rory in the habit of lying - ive seen a lot of people put that solely on jess and ive never thought that's entirely fair, i really like your take on it
I think Rory should have realized that she didn't really want to be a journalist anymore. She could have had a a life crisis while still attending Yale. She could have meltdowns over not knowing what she wants to do with her life. I personally think that Rory should've gotten her PhD in Literature or something similar and become a professor. She also could write on the side.
It kinda makes sense to how she turns out since it's realistic. But I think her being pregnant wld finally get her to finally get her shit together and realize she was wrong and needs to atone for the better for her and her kid raising.
I believe is exactly what you said, she Laks independence, I have a life very similar to Rory in some aspects, my mom divorced, my grandparents help me to pay my university and postgraduate, we lie a lot between us (just because we are use to it to avoid fights ) or not lies but not saying stuff to avoid arguing, what Im saying is that I like the show because it reminds me of my family but I'm married, have a good carrer and I'm independent even though that my family always supported me financially speaking, but I was a little adult, because my mother is like Lorelai I started to do my own gorceries, go to the bank and even the doctor alone as I said to avoid arguing because the different thing about me is that my mother and I are more like Emily and Lorelai we always use to fight, so yes I believe to make Rory better she needed to go to therapy, I went and now I understand better my family and feel happy with my life
I think it would be a great episode to see, for you to break down the writing of the show and the characters. I think the Fandom gets passionate and all caught up in the characters and we often forget to pull back and say hey, this is a character written by someone else. They are under a ton of pressure by producers and studios and bureaucracy to deliver their story in just the right way. So I'd like to break the 4th wall and discuss the fact that maybe ASP intentionally disrupted Rory's character arc as an act of rebellion or maybe her storyline doesn't really make sense because it was being fabricated by humans with conflicting visions and intent. I'd eat that episode up. Great video, as always.
There is time for a season that will give us a Rory that finally got it right. Script-Writers can give us that. Rory has all her potential intact, even if has been hidden for a decade. The _Deus Ex Machina_ tool has been used by since Ancient Greek Dramaturgy to solve much worse and difficult problems in a plot.
I relate to the Gilmore girls a lot. All of them. My mom was always trying to be better than her parents- her dad was physically abusive in particular to the kids, and her mom allowed it but was a perfect mom otherwise. I know she loved caring for others and I try to channel that. She was a perfect mom when I was young but she never really knew what she was doing because her mom had an aneurism when she was 5 and was swiftly replaced with a mistress who would lie to her dad about things being my mom's fault so he would be angry with her instead. She didn't know how to be a mom in a functional, sustainable way. Always struggled with her identity as a mom, I think, and as the years have shown, my mom is bipolar. She only decided to share that with us kids recently. I think we all are the gilmore girls like we are all pure madonnas and tainted. I was a perfect kid when I was young. Excellently behaved and on the honor roll. As my mom deteriorated not being medicated, and I was blamed for things that were not my fault or my responsibility- say, doing my mom's housework for her, despite not getting an allowance, which was probably her doing- the whole family was breaking down. My mom was in a psych hospital, she did time in jail, she would sleep until we got home from school and not cook dinner or clean the house. Came home drunk. Crazy thing is none of these things seemed strange until it got really bad. She would just say she was tired, and the charges were at least mostly for weed. Now, about breaking the law when you have kids at home; well, no comment needed. Anyway, one day she outright left in the middle of the night. I was angry. For years. My sister was only 10. I really struggled to step into the motherly role at 12 and so did my dad and I kept everything bottled particularly at school. I felt it was my personal business and I guarded it so fiercely that I struggled to write those papers you wrote about yourself and never asked for leniency from my teachers. I began to be guarded with everything personal at all like that kept the not normal things away. Emotionally, this started a storm in me of turmoil and doing things like deep diving research (not school work) to cope, social withdrawl. My grades dropped and I began to fail and skip class out of overwhelm and I graduated a semester late with summer school. I also had issues sleeping well for years, it would take me hours to try to do my homework and it would just get worse. I also have shaken out to be the least angry child. I have forgiven her. I knew she was struggling but I thought she ought to be trying harder for us. She made us and if she had to crawl through the trenches, she should. We didn't need to be caught up in what she was doing at the time- and we still were, as she had a new bf but still constantly stole from dad, which meant from us, and our college funds, while threatening divorce and taking his assets, like the house we live in. In some sense, I do not think it is her fault but her disease. I could be angry at her disease but what's the point? It keeps her from accepting medication. Still, my mama is trying to be a better mom but my sisters will hardly speak to her and as far as I know, she refuses to take her medication. It's difficult to work up the courage to visit her, and there aren't any presents or visits on special days. My dad has stepped into both pairs of shoes. I try to do what I want in my life and also do right. I know firsthand how hard it is, but I try. I have had a much better relationship with my dad as of late but I have also really clung to my in laws, admittedly, who are in some lights a perfect family- by which I mean loving and caring. I identify with these moms and daughters so much so I don't think I could mother right. This is only helped by the fact I have a genetic disorder and I am an interesting combination of healthy and sickly. I am not having my own children. I have had to be pretty self concerned to survive, I like to tend to myself first. I might be able to do it but I definitely do not want to care for young children, I might adopt older children one day. My heart aches for them and I also want to give them a life they deserve. And the love I suddenly stopped getting.
if gilmore girls is taken off netflix,.... i will just watch my old dvds again instead👼thank you for sharing your opinion. I like Rory the more I grow older, but in the revival... eeeh not so much
Mitchum was right she didn't have the right personality for journalism and when she was back at Chilton in the revival talking about her experiences and her music class she lit up and I think that she should have taken Head Master Charleston's helping hand into making her career a teacher while she was writing her book and of course writing it in Richard's Study, that would have been a better outlet for her and she would have at least a decent job and not have her focus on cheating again with Logan and all of that.
I love exploring this idea! Personally I feel like one of the big turning points for Rory starts with her going to Yale over Harvard - plot-wise I get it, and it's interesting to see how her grandparent's influence affects her and her college experience, but I think it definitely kneecapped her development. To me, she didn't even have to go to Harvard instead necessarily - just anywhere other than Yale. There are SO many colleges with amazing journalism programs, and I'd loved to have seen her somewhere where she could really exercise her independence and make messy mistakes and actually learn from them [which is a huge part of what college is for, imo]. Actually - if I was trying to fix two birds with one plot change, I'd have her and Lane wind up as roommates somewhere outside of stars hollow [the way Lane's story develops has always bothered me SO much]. I'd love to see them both come into their own.
I love your videos :) One request, can you please narrate your notes/additions? I listen to your videos while I work and I need to keep taking breaks to open my phone again to read the additional insights during the video. Again, love your videos! Very insightful and well thought out.
If I were to be included in writing of the the revival... So we end Gilmore Girls the series with Rory going off as a writer for politics, basically fulfilling her dream. Well, I find it odd that there is so much time spent at Chilton and at Yale, working toward this goal, and in the Revival it isn't even mentioned. Her writing is featured of course, but we ultimately have no idea what happened from that first job, even though we revisit Chilton, and see Paris, who(m) Rory spent Yale years with. To me it just seems very odd.
Girl i love you but please dont write on your videos if you are not saying out loud what is written 😭😭😭 i love listening your videos while doing my makeup and having to pause to read is awful 😭
For the revival something I think would be a little clarity for Rory would be if they had a new Rory in stars hallow like there’s a girl who is just like Rory in certain ways she grew up there she has a single mum who left her family and has a best friend and is very smart and wants to go to ivy leagues but she didn’t go to chilton instead she stay in stars hallow high school and she get into all the ivy leagues and Rory try’s to talk to her give her some notes but the new Rory gives her a talk
Just want to preface, I haven’t watched the revival yet so perhaps my feelings for Rory may change. That said, Rory is relatable to me, even more so when she changed during her Yale years. So I have empathy for her during that time. No empathy for her sleeping with Dean though lol. Perhaps I am wrong on this, but whenever I listen to analysis on Rory’s so-called downfall there are various reasons listed, but her being fatherless isn’t one of them. Although Rory had her grandfather Richard and Luke, her real dad Christopher was largely absent from her life. Father absence does have a negative effect on a child. And for some you may not see the detriment of their absence until the child is grown up. This doesn’t solely justify the choices she made in leaving school, in the men she dated, etc but I think this could be examined. Just my two cents. Love your channel Kierra!
So my question is; did ASP know? Did she set out to write an entitled, overly pressured "gifted child" who was doomed to fail? Or, was her trajectory in those seasons kind of by accident? I'm aware that ASP isn't solely responsible for Rory's arc, I'm just using her name for brevity.
ASP was ousted after a few seasons. You can tell because the Gilmore Girls all of a sudden get pimped out wardrobes and a house remodel. ASP also knew from the very start that the original series she had in mind would eventually close out with 3 words said from Rory, to Lorelei: “mom, I’m pregnant”. If ASP was kept on with the original run, it would have been very different. In my opinion, better.
I never put it together before how much Rory changed after having more influence from and exposure to hrt grandparents. But YOU’RE TOTALLY RIGHT! How did I not see it. I loved the first few seasons. But after season 4, Rory was insufferable. The miniseries was (for me) unwatchable. You made so many excellent points in this video. ❤
9:38 when asked what I would do if the show was taken off Netflix my first thought was buy dvds. Then I remebered there were actually some at the thrift store the other day. Then I realized there was really no need as I can rent them from the library. Public libraries for the win!
Omg I recently pointed out the ballerina review vs Mitchum criticism hypocrisy! Thank you for mentioning this! You’re right on all points here! Rory started out mature and ended up…not mature in the Revival.
If I could rewrite the revival, I think I would've preferred Rory's storyline to explore the pitfalls of success. Even though she stumbles REALLY bad with those first failures during the original show, she does (eventually) put things back together & dives back into her journalism career, and the end of the original show makes it seem like her career is set - she has this great gig covering Obama's campaign trail, which would put her in position to build a really solid network of journalist contacts very early on. To me, it would have made sense if they built off that trajectory in the rival and had Rory be really successful in her career, because then they could make her character's identity crisis more built on the question of what happens when you achieve everything you wanted to and "made it" in your field, but you still aren't satisfied. I think it's so common for so many young people - especially high achievers - to work incredibly hard and to be focused on the next goal and the next goal and the next goal that they never stop to actually ask *why* they have that as their goal in the first place or if that goal is really right for them. As a consequence, some people pour years of their life into a particular career or path only to realize they still aren't satisfied. For some people, that translates into a sense that they wasted the best part of their young adult years or into ruminating on the paths not taken. To me personally, that would have been a lot more of a satisfying plot line for revival Rory, especially given some of the choices she makes at the end of the original show (like turning Logan's proposal down). I think that particular kind of a crisis would have been interesting because unlike in the revival (where Rory can potentially shift the blame for her floundering to external circumstances), the curse of success is much more of an internal crisis - if you are "successful" and "have it all" but are still unhappy or feel lost, it's much harder to blame external circumstances rather than yourself. I also think that would have been a more compelling angle because I think a lot more people could relate to that kind of a scenario vs the having privilege but wasting it scenario of the revival. Definitely comes down to personal taste though, so that's just me!
I think once Rory was in college living on her own. Lorelai shouldn't be a reason life didn't go as planned. During that time rory made her own choices and mistakes. I was actually in favor of her dropping out of yale given how shaken to her core she was after the Mitchum situation which made alot of sense to me. I just wish rory had gotten the chance to figure out who she was outside of the bubble she was placed in during those 6 month.
There's this saying called " good intentions but bad ideas" I think both Lorilai and Emily had them both but in different ways. There was times where Emily had it right, like when rory started Yale and she wanted her to have a party to introduce her to new boys. The party was weird. Yes. But there intentions were in the right place because her life was going passed what Dean could give her, especially because that was after the cheating scandal. They'd it in the wrong way but there was always a hint of truth.
Next Revival: Rory saves that dying local paper with a huge journalistic piece about a nearby plant/business being corrupt and harming Stars Hollow. Rory saves the day and grows successful/famous, as a result of being humble and helping the town of her roots instead of chasing after wanting to be the next Christiane Amanpour.
Hello! I love your content. My only critique and take it with a grain of salt but I like having your videos on as background while I’m getting ready for work or I’m doing something else. If at all possible I’d love for you to not have so much where we have to read vs listening to you read what’s on the screen. Ok take care! Love the vids ❤
Tbh, I do think she didn't really want to be a journalist she just said "I just want to see something" when asked why she wanted to be like amanpour... Hence she failed in the revival and mitchum was right And honestly you don't have to go to a prep school to go to Yale or do all that to be a journalist lol. And the fact that she had that Yale stuff as a smaller kid is odd. Even Lorelei admitted "ever since she was going I wanted her to go to Yale"- so I think her mom probably planted that early because she used to want to go as Richard revealed. Her background was always going to set her up to fail rather than one exact moment
Rory worked so hard, plus she has all the money in the world if she wanted too. Yeah that can make a person a bit intitled, but those are character flaws, they do not break rory
Gilmore Girls is near and dear to my heart. When it premiered, I had just graduated from college, and was on my own. I was smack in the middle of Rory and Lorelei. For years I would watch and rewatch as new seasons came out, and never liked some of the decisions that Rory made. But it was when she stopped talking to Lorelei, quite Yale, and became a full dependent of her grandparents that it really hit me. Rory is exactly what Richard and Emily wanted Lorelei to be - a stuck-up, entitled rich socialite. Once Rory got a taste of rich elitism, she embraced it. Rory “fit” in Stars Hollow afterwards because of Lorelei, and that’s it. I really loved hearing your perspective that she changed solely with the involvement of her grandparents. I agree.
I feel like the show says you can only be friends with your mom if you have no rules but that is necessarily true. Having to many strict rules doesn’t make raise good kids or good relationships with family but not having no rules makes it so the kid doesn’t know how to handle being disliked or told no. Lorelai tried to hard to be the fun mom that she didn’t always put her foot down enough.
my favorite Jess scene is from the revival: when ve looks at Rory through the window of her house also when he tells her: i know you better than anyone
I think we also have to remember Rory isn't real and sometimes writers just...mess up a character. A lot of her change happened when a man took over the show, but that aside, Rory wasn't the only character that changed and suffered for either badly created plots or shticks.
exactly, I think there's a difference between a good/well-developed character that is immoral and a poorly written character that is also immoral. Rory's downfall felt pointless, Luke's marriage to Nicole felt pointless, Lorelai's marriage to Christopher felt pointless, Luke having gotten a girl pregnant felt pointless, Emily's breaking up Luke and Lorelai felt pointless, all these mistakes the characters made felt pointless. That's why they're poorly written. If Rory was better written with the same type of downfall then more people would like her. But she wasn't, so we don't.
And i think how you get into something is a huge factor to how you will behave while you are there. I think Rory changed when she's in yale because of how she got in. she's accustomed to it now.
My ideas for a second revival. Rory should get her Masters and teach at Chilton while living in Stars Hollow raising her child. I know the most likely father is Logan but I think it would be better if the father would be unknown (perhaps the one night stand). This is so Rory can find a partner she truely loves.
I hear you guys loud and clear about the reading of the screens. Noted for next time and I appreciate you guys being nice about it. I only added the screens bc as I was finishing up editing I realized I had more to say but with my program I edit the audio first and then add scenes on top and once the 30 minutes of audio is edited and broken down if I add ANY new audio afterwards it practically makes me start over. Here’s hoping for getting a better editing program soon
da vinci resolve is a great editing software and it's free i believe, if you're looking for anything new :)
@@user-iz3ss5rb3z thank you!
Did you know about Carole King's appearance? The woman who owned the shop that sold the drums to Lane? I just found out! Season 2, episode 20
My favorite Jess-scene is the "Whyy did you drooop out ouf YAAALe?!" because it was the necessary reality check that Rory needed and no one faced her with
The reason Jess is able to get his life together is Luke, specifically the plotline in season 4 when Luke makes Jess come to his mother's wedding, and spends three episodes offering him a combination of accountability, encouragmement to think of his impact on others, a dorky self-help book and unconditional love and acceptance. Lorelai occasionally attempts to impose accountability with Rory, but is always undercut by her parents (both after sleeping with Dean and after dropping out of Yale, the grandparents intervene take her away from the conseqences of her actions.) This is why Jess is the only person who can offer Rory what Luke gave him: "Whyyy did you drooop out of YAAAALE!" ... and then later hey I'm not going to be the person you cheat on Logan with. Each time it's accountability mixed with unconditional love. (This happens later in the revival too.) Jess may not be Rory's best boyfriend, but he is one of her true friends.
YES! I loved that part. It shows that Jess cared enough to not tip toe around her so she could reach her full potential.
Totally! It´s my favorite too because Jess understood her and it´s what she needs to listen to go back to Yale. I love that moment. I also love when she says: "You wrote a book. You sat down and wrote a book".
This is true, but bear in mind he was telling Rory to leave Yale with him the previous year.
@@bef9612 That´s right! The writers had a lapsus hehehe
Also, Rory seemed to go into cruise mode after university thinking her Yale background would carry her through.
Yes, this exactly
@@jsmith8904 i don't think she thougth that in that moment she was just hurt and wasn't thinking straight, this actually happened to me i was the academic gifted child who drop out of college, the difference is i did it because i got ill, and then i had deppression, but at that time i was feeling so bad i would have done anything like hurting myself, she stole a yatch because she wanted to get out of the world she wanted to stop being her.
I feel like Rory started spiraling when she took on too many classes which lead to her failing and looking for comfort in a familiar place like Dean. She tried to go back to the last time she felt successful and on track and that was when she was in high school, with her ‘perfect’ boyfriend who worshipped her. I feel like Yale opened her eyes to the fact that she wasn’t extraordinarily gifted beyond compare like she had been told and instead of accepting that and adjusting she ran from it.
I don't disagree that Rory's environment definitely influenced her behavior. It is interesting you bring up therapy though because she actually does go to therapy after she returns to Yale.
She does start trying to be independent by living with Paris and taking the initiative to get a job at a different newspaper along with catching up to graduate at the same time as Paris. She even turns down offers from her dad and Logan to live in a nicer place.
If I were to change the revival, it would be to have her live with Paris again because while she cares for Rory, she doesn't coddle her. She pushes her to be better, and Rory does the same for her. They don't lie to each other unlike every other person in the show
Paris was an awful person. No one would be a friend of her.
She goes to therapy as far as we know once. The scene was also portrayed in a very comical way with no real depth or self reflection. It would have way more interesting to have seen Rory continue therapy but really have some accountability. It would have been refreshing in the revival for her to have maybe gone to therapy with Loralei and Emily bc she was one who needed it just as much if not more. Maybe then we could have had a breakthrough as to how she got to where she was. It wouldn’t have fixed things but man, it would have been a start.
@@michaelstone5298 wait, who's married to Jonathan?
I would have liked for Rory to have the epiphany that she is allowed to be a rich housewife and she could use that power to help others. She would be like on therapy (I agree she needs it) and be like omg! I should marry Logan! And for Jess to find someone better for him who he loves even more than Rory. The way she treated Jess was 🤯 and he deserved better.
@@mary-janereallynotsarah684 no I wouldn't want that.
A really interesting video, but I've noticed that, in a lot of these videos analyzing Rory's privileged and coddled life (which is a definite fact, not trying to deny that), people tend to really overlook the first 16 years of her life and how that might affect her privilege-blindness. The show starts when she's 16 and the Gilmores enter her life, but it's made very clear often enough that, for the first years of her life, she was the child of a teen mother, living in a potting shed behind a hotel, while her mother worked as a teen maid for said hotel (not really gonna even comment on the child labor law violations involved with that). It's played for quirkiness and fondness in the show, but that is single-parent *poverty.* We're told often enough that her father is utterly absent and doesn't fulfill his obligations, both financially and parentally, regarding Rory. All of these things (poverty, familial and financial instability, borderline-if-not-outright homelessness) absolutely take a toll on children, especially during those formative early years. We, as an audience, see Rory/Lorelai later in life, when Lorelai is older, more mature (although still immature when it comes to relationships) and more settled. She has risen through the ranks to settle into a more comfortable income and eventual home-ownership. We are introduced to them as "comfortable" and eventually, with the introduction of Emily and Richard, and particularly in Rory's case, "cushioned".
I can totally see how a character like Rory can look back on her early years and think "No, I'm not privileged! I'm the child of a teen mom! We grew up in a shed and lived off of cast-offs and charity", completely blind to the fact that she can no longer claim that disadvantage anymore. If anything, I can see why it would make Rory cling to the comfort and shelter she perceived in Emily and Richard.
Not trying to defend Rory (I've been thoroughly over her character since Season 6, honestly) but I think this is a big oversight in these debates about Rory and her privilege that I've never really seen discussed in great depth in the videos I've come across. Rory is discussed as this middle-class girl thrust into an upper-class world and how it ruined her. And that's fair. But we also really forget that she did, in fact, grow up poor and homeless in her early years and all of the ways THAT lifestyle might have affected her in the long-term.
Great video! Love the insight! Gonna check out your others!
Probably because it’s like…an out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing. Great point though!
I actually know someone like this. She's so set in her mind with herself as poor from the past she hasnt been able to internalize that her situation is different now.
@@krose6451 yes, i think it is a realistic 'scarcity mindset' thing, if you have grown up with a traumatic loss, you can't accept internally that the hole may be filled now, instead people psychologically 'store-cupboard' in case it all gets taken away tomorrow again. So, in a way, Rory has been brought up in the shadow of Lorelai's lost life, and she wants as much of it as she can get, bc tomorrow it might all be gone.
1. Have you ever heard of the lottery? Do you know what most lottery winners do once they hit it big? It doesn't matter what most of their life experience was, they'll become a completely different person once they're super rich and they'll splurge their wealth and power until their broke.
2. Everything before the age of 10 is irrelevant. Everything between age 10 and 13 is semi-irrelevant. Since she wasn't being tortured by her mother at a young age, those memories even if they were non-privileged don't weigh much on her personality because she's not traumatized from abuse or living on the street, so it's all water under the bridge that's irrelevant to how she turns out as an adult. Only the lived experience of her teens has any significance and that was a very short period before she got spoiled.
i agree w/ you, but my nick-picking ass wants to point out that Lorelai was 18 when working at the hotel (she god pregnant at 16, had rory, and waited a year before running away.) a year + 40 weeks, she was more than likely 18 when she ran away--At least that's if memory serves (going off that flashback episode where sherry has her baby)
I think something major that people often overlook is that although Rory is coddled and has a lot of safety nets, she’s never truly been given space or been allowed to be truly independent. As much as Lorelai tried to be not like Emily, she did kinda become like Emily. Lorelai didn’t smother Rory like Emily smothered her growing up, but she didn’t exactly give Rory space either.
When Rory wanted to drop out of Yale bc of Mitchum’s comments, nobody was supportive of that. Lorelai literally told Rory “not an option”. But the thing is, Rory never really had options. I get it, kids have dreams. Rory wanted to be a journalist since she was 5, but also did she really? She had pretty much always been on that trajectory but never explored any other options. And even when she dropped out of Yale, Emily got Rory a job at the D.A.R. Nobody ever gave her options. Heaven forbid she works in fast-food or retail like the rest of us college-dropouts.
And whenever Rory made independent decisions, such as her romantic partners, people constantly criticized her. Emily and Richard constantly disapproved of Dean and Jess, Lorelai constantly disapproved of Jess and Logan.
I also feel like Rory was constantly expected to be perfect. A lot of times in society, children of single parents are called “b*st*rds” and are shamed for even existing, just look at season one of the show. Christopher’s parents, Rory’s grandparents, insulted her for just simply existing. And so many people, Emily and Richard included, like to constantly hold Lorelai’s “accidental teenage pregnancy” over her head, and by extension Rory possibly felt that she was responsible for being perfect so that Lorelai wasn’t deemed a “failure” by society. Or maybe just so that she didn’t feel like a failure herself. And I think that, unintentionally, Lorelai pressured Rory into “perfection” as well, so that Lorelai wouldn’t feel like a failure as well.
By me saying this, I’m not trying to say that Rory has no part in any of this, she definitely has A LOT of accountability to take. But “gifted” children, or children who are people-pleasers, or people who are expected to be “perfect” “good girls” eventually face burnout and when not given the time or space they need, will eventually act out. Hence, her stealing a yacht, getting into other shenanigans, etc. Even in earlier seasons, she skipped school to visit Jess in NYC because everyone around her forbade her from being with Jess.
Idk if any of this makes sense, but this is why I think Rory eventually turned out the way she did 🤷♀️
P.S. Great video btw!! ❤️
on the topic of "did she really?" i have a feeling if rory was ever to say growing up "you know, maybe i don't want to be a journalist..." her mother would swoop in with the whole "oh but of course you do sweetie!!" or "what are you talking about? of course you want to be a journalist! it's your dream!!!" and growing up rory idolized her mother so of course in turn she'd probably say "omg you're right! that was so silly of me to say otherwise." like imagine that. when i was 5 i wanted to be all kinds of things, and they eventually fell to the wayside and got replaced with other dreams and aspirations. but for rory, her dream at five remained "her dream" throughout her entire life. it's like loreli got on this one track thing when it came to rory. rory is a smart kid. later, rory struggles with a subject or keeping up with grades and it's "what do you mean you're struggling?? you're so smart!! you'll ace this!" and rory throws herself into studying all night to try to live up to that. she was never really allowed to be imperfect. if she diviated from the preset "dream" that wasn't okay. if she struggled in her classes, her mother would just tell her how brilliant she was but what did she do to actually help? it just is so wild watching it back as an adult and seeing things in a new light.
@promisemochi I agree with you for the most part! The only thing is, Lorelai did help Rory a LOT with her school and her goals. She even stayed up all night with her to help her study when it seemed necessary. But imo, that kind of makes it worse. Rory felt so much pressure to make her mom proud. And that can be a positive thing for people, but not if it's constant and you never get space. I agree with Kierra that Lorelai only had good intentions, but she really should have gotten some therapy or something.
I agree. I never really thought about it like that but I agree about all of this
Definetly makes alot of sense I hate to admit it but I do see Emily in Lorelai even when she tries not to be like her it’s like she can’t control it which makes sense bc that’s reality alot of us pick up traits both good and bad from our parents, definetly agree
@@Aelffwynn !!!!
In my opinion Rory's "downfall" began not when she dropped out of Yale, it was when she decided to *go* to Yale. I know that Harvard didn't allow them to film but i think it would have been way better if she actually would have went to Harvard. The way in the show she just changed her mind that quickly is honestly kind of sad and how much she is influenced by her grandparents. But maybe that's exactly the point of the show, to see a relatble character with big opportunities just for them to fail and to look right into the eye of the harsh reality
I raise you on that. I think the first cracks can be actually seen in the very first episode - she meets a cute boy and she is immediately ready to give up Chilton?
@@lenusniq_9746 oooooh interesting point
THIS!!!!
@@lenusniq_9746 that's a really good point you have there!!
Her changing her mind about harvard was a betrayal of everything she and her mother had worked for. I get that its her life… but they had worked towards that goal for years- of course lorelai wanted that for rory from birth.
Even her punishment for stealing the boat was ridiculously light. 300 hours of community service? she could knock that out in less than 2 months if she was serious about it, yet she acts like she has to go to Azkaban or something.
What disappointed me about the revival was her needing a job and then wasting her opportunities. The star's hollow newspaper is a good example. After she makes this big deal about the newspaper, she doesn't use her degree in journalism or connections to do anything to actually help the newspaper. She's just kind of Goofing around. Then Chilton generously offers her a position if she gets her masters (which is a pretty good gig) and she turns them down without even saying "let me consider this before I get back to you." She goes to her interview completely unprepared because she assumes she's better than that job, when she has no job at to speak of. She complained but did nothing to actually improve her situation. She acted like anything that she didn't specifically want was beneath her whike showing little if any work ethic. And while writing a book is impressive, she dragged her mom into it without consulting her first.
Ultimately, the only interesting thing about Rory (maybe the only redeeming thing about her)... is her mother. So she found a way to use that for herself too.
Also on the note of Rory's hypocrisy re:ballerina article, that season Doyle tries to provide Rory criticism and she was aghast at the fact that he was criticizing her paper or providing feedback on it at all.
This! Even at Chilton, she refused to take criticism. She was late for an exam and still felt entitled to take it. When she was told to take extracurriculars or to make friends, she acted like she was above it.
@@Cal-c-u-later to an extent that was understandable, she really didnt have controll over the fact a damn deer hit her car. But the way she reacted was messed up, she shouldve camly collected herself to an extent and filed some sort of student misadventure report thing (no idea what their called in the us) so she would be allowed to take it
@@Cal-c-u-laterim assuming youre talking about the puff episode and she wasnt upset bc she was above making friends she was upset because the school officials had told her she wouldnt get into a good university if she didnt make friends even tho she did have friends and she did extracurriculars outside of school
OK, here's the thing about Rory, she was sheltered her entire life and unlike her mother never had to practice any real world responsibilities. Yes she's well read but literary knowledge doesn't necessarily translate to any skills other than expanding intellect or possibly landing her a career in writing or publishing or teaching, which she never really pursued (possibly cuz she burned herself out at Chitlin). Plus, she only ever read highly dramatic works of fiction, which is maybe why she's been prone to making dramatic, rash decisions like the whole cheating with Dean saga and dropping out of Harvard. ALSO I feel like she only ever wanted to go to an Ivy League for the prestige. She never had a real goal other than getting in. All of her academic success seemed only to serve her Harvard dream, which is fine enough but of course when she gets there she has this huge identity crisis because her entire identity up until that point was to be smart in order to get into Harvard. She's hanging onto this thread of an identity as a writer/journalist and then the Mitcham situation happens and it completely destroys her. She's left with no personality and no goals which plummets her into a crisis she never really recovered from. It's honestly tragic and super common. Also if she weren't the main character there's no way she'd be valedictorian over Paris I mean come on.
The show really did Paris dirty there. She deserved to get into Harvard and definitely valedictorian.
Yale*
True... but let’s remember Paris called it that, statistically, salutatorians do better in life than valedictorians. And that’s exactly what happened in the show.
Rory is peak "I want the thing i can't have. I'm at my happiest when it's within arms reach but not wholly mine".
I'm glad you mentioned how similar Rory and Jess are. I have been thinking for a while now that it really seems like Rory sees a lot of herself in Jess when they first meet, and views him and his journey as mirroring her own in a lot of ways, and I don't think that perception of herself in relation to him fully updates until she reconnects with him while living with E&R. I think it's only then that she becomes aware of how unlike him she's become, of how much Jess has grown in ways that are authentic to the person she knew then while she's strayed far away from that, and of how skewed her perception of herself and her own privilege has become. I really do wonder if anyone else could've made her see that so effectively.
I believe that Rory didn’t know how to fail. There was always somebody there to help her like her mom her grandparents. They all see her as this perfect little girl
I would like to think that if I saw my trust account getting smaller and smaller, I would make better choices because I would want to be independent. I had a very codependent relationship with my parents, I was an only child and we had zero family around, it was literally just the 3 of us. I know it was codependent, I know that even now as a married adult with kids in her 30's I could go running back to them if I needed help and while yes its a nice safety net, it's not what I want. I don't want to be reliant on them. What I am getting at is that I would have liked to have seen Rory grow past being a teenager and actually take some responsibility for her life, not be a damn cheater (I can't stand cheaters) and show through her growth that she can handle things on her own, instead of not thinking of the consequences and knowing she will be coddled the moment she drives over the town line.
YES
Yes, that would have been nice. But it feels like while Rory wants to be responsible for her successful moments she always runs to her mother or grandparents. I understand her in a way. I did that myself. But I never wanted to and I try really hard not to use my safety net because I want to be able to be independent, something Rory only seems to try when she directly benefits from it. But when things are getting hard she immediately turns to her family instead of trying it on her own first. I guess that’s okay for a very young adult, but at some point it seems like an adult would have too much pride to run to their family as a first option. It’s easy, yes, but it should only be the last resort.
However, as sad as it is, it makes sense for Rory with her storyline and with how her family thinks of her and treats her.
I also have a lot to say about the dropping-out-of-yale plotline lol. I read a post that brought up how both lorelai and rory have self destructive tendancies, Especially when it comes to relationships. Viewed through this lense, Rory / Logan's relationship makes sense as a sort of spiral, culminating in her leaving Yale. My view of Rory has changed a lot over the years lol - I think she's a deeper character than a lot of people give her credit for. Love the videos btw just sharing my views!!
For sure, overtime I find my opinion on her evolving into something else. The more I rewatch I see more things that I didnt realize before
I think a few things would have made Rory’s story land better for me. If she had gotten pregnant just after college and was raising her child as a single mother in her thirties, struggling with a career that had to be put on indefinite hold, and a disappointed family the way lorelai did (if asp was so married to Rory mirroring lorelai), and Rory admitting that maybe she did need serious therapy. Rory is my age, and the revival was around the time I realized that I needed more professional help than I was getting. They gave that story to lorelai, but I think it would have been more interesting and more generationally accurate for a millennial.
Yeah its so sad they just continued to write the story for a 10 years younger Rory. She does not feel like 30, she feels like 20.
That was the plan from the original writer but she left before the seventh season and came back in the revival which is why they feel so disjointed
@Spicy Bees oh yeah I know. It's why I'm so nervous for the last season of Mrs. Maisel. Asp has already proven she's willing to sacrifice narrative for what she wants. 😅
@@happytofu5 I think it would have made more sense for the revival to take place about 3 years later. But about 10 years is just too much for what they did.
I agree with this, and as others have pointed out, the show’s creator, Amy Sherman Palladino, mentioned the revival is generally how they were planning to end the original show - I assume that means Rory getting pregnant in her early 20s, not long after college. If we followed that plot, I believe the revival showing Rory in her 30s could have been all about Rory reconnecting with her literary goals after years of feeling burned out by motherhood and perhaps a more monotonous job (like working at a local newspaper!)
You make a lot of wonderful points. At the same time, I can't help but feeling that Rory always must have had so much more capacity for developing sheer coldness than Lorelai ever imagined, or indeed knew to be actively guarding against her developing. And for me, the biggest moments aren't even any boyfriend stuff, at least not more than tangentially.
Like so many other viewers, despite not having been born into DAR-WASPy New England Elite wealth privilege, Rory was initially extremely relatable to me. In some of the obvious ways she was relatable to probably a million other girls, but also, I actually did have a grandparent relationship where I got some stuff given to me pretty lavishly even while there were some pretty unhealthy dynamics going on with my her and my mother (her mother-in-law in this case).
I definitely always saw the problems--and as you've shown, the manipulations--in Richard and Emily's place in Lorelei and Rory's lives. At the same time...I just cannot wrap my head around Rory just sending Logan's buddies to get her stuff like it's some joke rather than showing up to tell them in person she's going back to Yale. It's not that they deserve better as like, universal karma, it's that I can't understand how she herself didn't feel any degree of guilt not paying them any kind of courtesy of, thank you for everything but I'm ready to go back to school now, when they not only bankrolled her life and took her on another trip to Europe, but literally kept her life from being destroyed after she blithely stole a yacht (tbh this seems to be the permanent point-of-no-return with me and Rory).
Rory's coldness is also imo evident to me in her and Paris's relationship, which, let me make it clear, I wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to be friends with Paris. But the last we see of them in the series, Rory 's body language is kinda acting like Paris is a weirdo for hugging her at graduation. This is after moments like other students at the Yale paper assuming Paris is Rory's best friend and Rory correcting them on that even though she didn't actually have more of a best friend at Yale. Then fast forward to the revival and we know through dialogue that although Paris is married (divorced?) with two kids she has literally given Rory a key to her home in New York (I think) that Rory uses to stay whenever she wants. Rory just increasingly comes off like such a cold person who's very comfortable being a user with zero guilt about using people she doesn't even like/would be very happy to ditch.
I’m friends with my mom and get away with saying things to her that has others giving me horrified looks when I say them. The difference though is there was/still is a line I wouldn’t cross. Rory is believable trust me. I was Rory(minus romantic drama...and minus money bags, I mean her grandparents) school came very very easy😂Then real life hit. Rory could’ve recovered like the rest of us if she didn’t have Emily and Richard to fall back on. She knew she was going to inherit a lot of money.
The people who hate on Rory are missing the point-the entire show is an indictment of generational wealth and class differences, and Rory is intended to demonstrate how those forces change people. I absolutely agree that environment makes a big difference, and that’s why Rory is a good person at the start and changes as they go. they often overlook the impact of generational wealth in the show for some reasons There’s a reason the story starts with the grandparents and Chilton being introduced as elements in the girls’ lives. Every time Rory turns around, Emily and Richard are creating loopholes and helping her evade consequences for her behavior and promoting an idea that she’s entitled to a higher class simply due to birth or money. I’m not exempting her from the choices she makes, but putting this on Lorelei is baloney. She doesn’t believe she’s better than everyone at the beginning, when Lorelei and everyone has been supportive since she was born. That’s always been there, and Lorelei does hold her pretty accountable when things get tough-more than once, she confronts Rory on how she’s treating others and she plays the mom card when Rory forces her to. The problem starts when the consequences for her failures and choices stop costing her and the grandparents allow her a route to escape consequences.
The whole show wants to demonstrate that when your world allows you to be selfish and avoid consequences and allow you to obtain things without putting in hard work, you’ll begin to think that you’re really entitled to things. Not to mention that her hard work doesn’t help her get the internship with mitchum, but she’s instead foiled by class differences (something Logan later points out does when he disapproves of that piece she writes, that she doesn’t want to acknowledge that she belongs to an entitled class-once again, there’s a focus on her social class that implies that class seems to matter more than her actual work).
The revival is fantastic thematic storytelling-some people just want characters to SAY things that are clear in the subtext. Rory’s downfall IS the accountability that the show is delivering, if you pay attention. The revival shows the actual consequences of class and money enabling you to avoid everything. I love that Rory’s problem the whole show is that she entirely loses her ability to work for things she wants instead of resting on generational wealth, and at the end of the show, she’s at exactly the same place Lorelai is at the start of the show: being forced to step up and return to her roots in Lorelai’s initial spot as a single mother, which emphasized the idea that that is what will finally force her to change, because she IS like Lorelai, and having Rory was what made Lorelai into a good person. It’s a subtle way to show that doing things the hard way has merit, even in a flawed system of social class and money. I hate the way people talk about Rory and Lorelai about whether they’re likeable or not because Rory and Lorelai don’t exist so we’ll like them-they exist to create a message, and I’ll always love Rory for that if nothing else. I was the same age as her when the show aired and I went from trying to mimic her to trying to do the opposite of her and I thought that was proof of a very well-done character arc that taught me something about taking the easy way out. What a lot of people miss about Rory is that you’re not supposed to like her-that she becomes so difficult to respect is THE WHOLE POINT. Wealth and class change you, and not for the better. Edited to add-excellent video :)
Rory's personality "change" should be blamed on her alone. For a counter-example, there are plenty of wealthy and well known people in hollywood that are still mentally down to earth
Do yall think things would’ve been different if she had gone to Harvard? I feel like she really needed some distance from stars hollow and her grandparents. It feels like a small insignificant change but it just makes sense to me. I feel like her grandparents had a lot of access to Rory during this time because of their alumni ties and connections. So it just makes me wonder what that distance would’ve done for her.
That's a really interesting question! Because Harvard is also an ivy league school, maybe the result still would have been similar, but I feel like there could have been potential for her to have a different trajectory for the reasons you mention. Harvard would have been her own world (more than her grandparents'), and maybe that literal and metaphorical distance would have made the difference. Interesting to think about!
Ok hear me out. Lorelai hears the words "Mom, I'm pregnant" and everything freezes. All sound and Rory in the background saying "Mom, .... Mom?" fade out and you can hear Lorelai's heartbeat. Then a montage of black and white scenes flicker past all edited depicting the past. When Lorelai told her parents, when Christopher found out, etc. And then Richard yells "You're going to (insert college)". Then it goes back to Lorelai shouting "You're going to Chilton, end of story" from episode 1 season 1 (whatever the line was), and then it zooms through Rory's proudest moments. Her graduating Chilton, Yale, making speeches, getting her acceptance letters, talking in the Harvard lecture room when they visited, etc. Then it all zooms back out, the sound fades in, and you have a close up shot of Lorelai's face. The intro begins playing.
It occured to me randomly that there is one change they could have made in the revival that would have made all the difference for me. If they had made the Stars Hollow Gazette a real job, either because it had a small modest salary or because Rory took the rest of her trust fund/inheritance and used it to turn the newspaper around. I think it doesn't make her a bad person or a bad journalist to be unable to make a real living in the current media enviornment. Lots of people can't. But if that piece of the story was turned into Rory giving up the big Christiane Amanpour dream and realizing that you could do something worthwhile with your education (and/or money) by reviving your home town paper - that would have changed the ending a lot. Instead they made it a sad little joke of a volunteer job and said hey, instead of coming back home to serve your community you're going to write a book using Lorelei's story against her will and then emotionally blackmail her into consenting - yuck. I mean you could have the book still in the revival, you could even have the whole messed up thing with Logan, but I'd have loved a story where we see her hit bottom and realize, like a Frank Capra movie, I love this town I grew up in, I can do something that would be in service to it. It would have been large and deep instead of entitled and shallow.
I honestly thought that was the direction they were going to go and was disappointed when it turned into a joke.
I think my biggest gripe with AYITL is that the original writer wanted to tell the ending she envisioned so much that they didn’t take into account that Rory was 30 and that her story line seemed to have been something that should have happened right after college when she was first entering the “real world” versus when she was already a journalist for 9 years.
I feel like it would be different if she was like this isn’t the life I want now I need to figure out a different path instead of being this floundering person. Also her being pregnant at the end didn’t have the same effect as it would have had at the end of the original series.
I would love to see how Rory takes on the curveball of parenting, and how Lorelei handles being a grandma.
Yeah it would be interesting to watch that
I hope they bring back another revival 10 yrs from a year in the life…2026❤
She didn't just feel entitled to giving her opinion on a ballet performance, that's not that big of a deal. She felt entitled to giving her opinion on another woman's body. That's the issue
even though i sometimes hate rory’s decisions, i can’t help but also like her and smile when she’s onscreen and i think it’s because she seems like such a real person because of her flaws
Really enjoyed the chatting part. I do think the similarities between Rory and Jess are getting more. Because Jess might not have a support system throughout his live but Rory definitely has less of an support system at the end of the revival. Her grandfather is dead and Emily moved away. The trust fund was gone. Logan proposed and she turned him down. Rory also turned down the opportunity of child support and being the second woman. So Rory could only turn to Lorelei.
I’ve thought a lot about where the series should go after the revival 😅 so I heard the show designer said Rory had to reach rock bottom to be like her mother which is why they were so awful to her in the revival. Therefore I can conclude that like Lorelei, they want her to go on an upward path now. I envision Rory and Lane starting a school for the arts in Stars Hollow to help the next generation of kids reach their goals without needing the privilege of rich grandparents to do it. I think it would be very similar to how Lorelei and Suki started their own inn. I also think Rory being a mom would take some of the focus off herself and would result in her being less selfish.
Rory outgrew journalism path in college but the tv writers didn’t pivot her, that’s why everything in late college and revival see Rory just floundering. A perfect example of this is when Paris is waiting on her acceptance to law school and medical school. She had shit planned and was willing to through everything at the wall and hustle. Rory simply wanted to twiddle her thumbs and wait for her golden opportunities to find her, which they did(thanks writers for unrealistic expectations) but they rang so false. Rory is a writer not a journalist. And the longer she clinged to that childhood career the worse she got overall. She also never ever ever learned or grew from her mistakes. We like to watch flawed characters but don’t like to watch dumb choices being made over and over and the character being shocked by the outcome.
I think that you are correct that Rory was influenced by R&E and seeing her mother spar with them. I also think that her dropping out of Yale was her turning point. It would have been amazing if she dropped out and found an inner passion and pursued it and somehow made a life for herself beyond Yale. Instead the writers chose the narrative that she had to get back to Yale. Meanwhile Logan was a totally terrible boyfriend during that time. He never pushed her to be better. It would have made more sense for her to have ended up with Jess because they could have inspired eachother to find that path and be creative together. He becomes a writer and makes an actual name for himself without a college degree. He goes down the path of hard work and perseverance. Wish I saw more of that in Rory (and honestly wish they showed us more of Jess and his journey. I can’t stand that the writers kept her with Logan and his life of privilege. I actually think that he became more of a cushion for her than R&E were once she was in Yale. I guess to sum up - Rory was never allowed to hit rock bottom and have to pick herself up.
even as just a friend, jess could've been an important influence on her if he became a regular character in the latter seasons. he's someone who reached rock bottom at a worse time and was still able to pick himself up and become better. rory needed someone who wasn't part of the wealthy world and someone who could ground her when she would become too entitled or selfish as well as someone inspiring her.
logan is from a world where he's not actually supported by his family so his way of supporting someone is just letting them do whatever they want. some of that is good BUT the issue is that he sees rory's mental breakdowns (like wanting to steal a yacht) and her self-destructive behaviours as fine and not something worth talking about. logan may have grown from their relationship but rory never did and just became worse as the years went on
One thing I noticed in my recent rewatch of the series is whenever Rory does something wrong and 'takes accountability,' she repremand's herself so much and is so hard on herself that the person who she hurt (Like when she missed Lorelei's graduation to go to NY to see Jess) starts to feel bad because she feels so terrible and feels the need to be hard on herself. She inadvertently guilts people into being hurt by her bad decisions, which I think she could have learned from watching Lorelei feud with her mother.
yup, in a way it feels like she is suddenly very isolated from the group and a 'bad person', it is interesting to think where that comes from. I wonder if it is bc she hasn't had access to enough of a male role model - I know she had Luke up to a point, but he isn't her 'dad' as a young girl - so she hasn't experienced a different kind of discipline. Lorelai is very protective and loving of Rory, but I wonder if she tended to plead with her more than discipline her i.e. I need you to be good or we won't be able to eat, and she views her as a best friend rather than a daughter, which is understandable when she had her so young.
I got to a point where I just read that as her narcissism and making it all about herself.
I feel like when talking about Rory and college, it’s also worth mentioning that in choosing the most “elite” i.e. brand name school, she maybe did not get the best educational experience. A lot of people at unis like Yale and Harvard are there because of a legacy, be it theirs or the school’s - they want the degree with a shiny name even if they aren’t necessarily learning from it.
Massive universities are not always great for getting real experience, because you spend more time listening than anything else. What’s more, because Rory had the Gilmore name and wealth to rely on, I feel she wasn’t really pushing herself once she got her college acceptance letters. She stopped growing after she was done with Chilton. Rory’s first real job, and accordingly the first real world criticism she faced, was with Mitchum.
In my humble opinion, Rory would have been better off at a small college with small classes, in a truly academic setting. It seems to me that Yale did not really change from Chilton in education or environment, and so Rory became stunted at a time where she was supposed to grow.
Heýyyy... I will have to say I agree with you for the most part but I think Lorelai asking Richard and Emily for the loan for Chilton was not a bad idea. Rory was not academically challenged at Stars Hollow High and I think she needed that competition.
I think the issue is that Rory seemed to fit into Emily and Richard's world perfectly but she wanted to pretend she didnt. I think Rory just gravitated towards that world more. Lorelai seems to resent the privileged life she grew up with so I think by extention Rory did not want to think she was a part of it for that sake, but I think deep down her character wanted to live a life of privilege.
I think Lorelai should've let Rory see that a privileged life has its advantages and the positive side of it as well. That 'rich people' are not all spoiled and a horrible person but some are kind... Lorelai thought that leaving privilege made her better but she was always a good person even though she grew up 'rich'. I am like Logan, I see privilege as a good thing, however I think it should be acknowledged. I think Rory's relationship with Logan has helped her to see that not all that has money, are terrible. I think we tend to have this idea that someone that's privileged whether its beauty standards, money etc, they're nasty which is not true.
Sorry its so long... 😅
Yeah thats why I said I understand it I know why she felt it was necessary but I feel like Emily and Richard’s involvement (even at a restricted level) and Rory’s exposure to their lifestyle was a huge part of what went wrong bc she wasn’t like that in season one, yk? And you’re fine I love having these discussions
@@kierralovestv I 100% agree, they had a major influence on how she's turned out. She had a taste of 'the good life' and loved it! 🤣
My questions to you is? If you can rewrite any Gilmore girl season would you? if yes What season would you change? Would you change Rory character if you had the opportunity? If you can any reliving character for a day who would you been?
I would only change the affair with Dean. She would have to face the town and the shame they would heap on her. She would apologize to his wife and her mother. She would have pushed Dean away and grown from the experience.
In the revival, they did not address all the money Rory was supposed to have. Her dad gave her money after his grandfather died and grandma Gilmore had a trust set up for her, and I’m sure she got an inheritance from her father when he died. What happened to all that money? And then the revivable, she was broke. What’s that all about
I bet that’s how she was able to afford rent and frequent travel to London WHEN Logan didn’t offer.
She must have spent it all on rent and flights to London and wherever else she was. It’s actually quite realistic, I know people who spent all their inheritance on a nice (but not completely over the top) lifestyle, (I assume) thinking it would be okay because it was enough, until they realized they had to sell their house or something other of value. Rory probably never worried too much about it when she spent money because she seemed to have enough for years and was sure she would land a great job eventually…
I’m studying TV writing. Of course, the pilot sets up the arc and themes for the show. What happens? Lorelei can’t solve a problem due to tons of $$$, so she breaks her own rules and goes to her parents. Emily uses Lorelei’s need for $$ to emotionally extort her for time. As pointed out in the video, Lorelei sees money as buying opportunity, and Emily eyes it as power. So spot on.
If power corrupts and money is certainly a form of power, then the argument can be made that the entire show is about money corrupting Rory. If she had been a scholarship kid at Harvard, rather than a legacy at Yale, she would have had to BRING IT when she was challenged.
Fill disclosure, I went to an Ivy later in life and it was such a shock. Not only did a lot of the kids have rich parents,but their ignorance of how others lived was incredible. People wrote things online about me “thinking she’s poor.” I’m not sure where that came from, except that there was pressure to go out all the time or maybe I expressed concern about being able to graduate, etc. Not everyone’s going to Paris for Spring Break. Heck, I was grateful I could work 40 hours and get some extra money for the rest of the semester. My friend was organizing a fundraiser and someone on the committee suggested she get a former POTUS to speak. My friend, from the hood, scoffed. How would she even get in touch with him? The girl said, “I can have my dad call him.” Like, NBD.
Talk about A Different World!
Rory goes from a small town girl, where she had moral support, to a privileged girl whose grandfather could make a call or write a check to solve any problem she had *cough* created.
I think that they should’ve focused more on Rory falling into a perfectionist mindset instead of her sleeping with Dean. Her sleeping with Dean was just a weird conflict that ultimately went nowhere and did nothing but harm her character development. If they wanted to show Rory struggling or having a curveball to offset her “Mary sue” ness, they should’ve focused on the fact that she felt she couldn’t fail. They should’ve shown her overworking herself and struggling to keep up with her studies and NOT succeeding, failing a test because she didn’t have enough time to properly study or being burnt out because of all the work she had to do. They should’ve showed how she feared disappointing those who built her up.
I 100% agree it would've been very interesting and it's a subject not a lot of tv writing seems to explore imo
Oh my god. I just realized how you’ve formatted your videos to look at the screen ar key points and I am so grateful. I rarely look at the video or I’m multitasking on the phone and the screen is so small that I can’t tell what I should be paying attention to. THANK YOU!!! I wish more ppl did this
I personally think what Mitchum said was kinda right in a way, she would have made a great assistant or manager. When she plans the D.A.R party etc she has great organisational skills and it shows in other scenes. Or would make a great teacher, I never saw her as a journalist it seemed like a poor fit for her. To me she seems like more of a person who loves learning and knowledge, that would rub off on her students. But she looked down upon that in the revival 🙄
i hated how she constantly denied her privileged background and in a way resented it, but actively used it to get what she wanted, only to deny that it was because of her privileged background that she got a majority of her opportunities. she grew up being a golden girl in her town and was constantly told she could do no wrong, causing her to think she was above everyone else which we would literally see when she denied multiple jobs simply because she thought she was so much better. we see so much of this through out the show where she thinks she is so much better than everyone else and deserves only the best. when logan called her out that was one of the first times she was actually snapped back into reality, she was living in a luxury penthouse rent free and had her grandparents and eventually her dad paying for her yale tuition, but despite all of this she never wanted to admit to herself that any of this was true. she was so entitled and got everything handed to her, but despite all of this she had the nerve to once again, deny her privilege. when mr huntzberger gave her constructive criticism in a field that is a very competitive and consists majorly of criticism, she lost her mind and ran away from her responsibilities, essentially burning out. to me, this was clearly the result of her being snapped back into reality, in the real world, she is not going to get things handed to her, she has to work her way up to the top, people like mr huntzberger aren’t going to see her the way stars hollow did or the way her grandparents did. she actually has to work for something. it truly broke my heart watching her go from a humble and hard working student at chilton, to an entitled and privileged brat in the revival. this is what happens when a person is convinced their whole life that they can do no wrong, that they deserve only the best and that they are better than everyone else. another thing i noticed in the show was how much the entire town would do to convince her she could do no wrong, whenever something happened between her and her boyfriends, the entire town would rip them to shreds which we saw with dean, and even drive them out of town which we saw with jess. no wonder she was so convinced she deserved everything because she grew up in an environment that constantly told her just that. it really breaks my heart because i would’ve really liked to see rory succeed.
I get that Rory’s been smothered her whole life by the strong, impressive Gilmore women. That she was burdened by their expectations practically from birth and yet will forever be viewed as Emily’s granddaughter/ Lorelai’s daughter by everyone around them, with Emily the queen of high society and Lorelai the unofficial goddess of Stars Hollow. Lane being her only friend made this worse because Lorelai then used this friendship to contrast helicopter mom Mrs. Kim with herself to assert she was the “good” parent and to force their peer rather than parent-daughter relationship.
With no real outlet from all this growing up, it makes sense that Rory could only ever become a lesser version of either/both women. However, Revival Rory only makes sense if Rory never left Stars Hollow. But she did, which means she’s experienced separation from the umbrella of support of Stars Hollow and the shared views of its residents. Sure, Gilmore money made traveling cushier, but it also let Rory take a breather away from her family’s suffocating expectations, to be around completely different perspectives and to become a fuller person. So her not doing that and actually becoming a worse version of herself will never ring true to me
You are right the Gilmore family just loved to avoid talking about their feelings much
Ooooooo thank you for that! I didn’t even realize what Rory did to the ballerina was no different than Mitchum did. Wow!
You mentioned something important... It would be impossible to graduate at the same time of her friends , she didn't even took no clases on summer or something like that. Also my fav scene with Jess is on the kiss when she said 'can you imagine if braces were involved in this interaction?' and he answer 'will be a bloodbath'
She did take more classes than necessary during her first year, which was mentioned. Maybe that's why she was able to graduate when she did
Before the Bracebridge dinner Rory jokingly promises Lorelai that she will work on becoming more cynical and self-absorbed. Then she actually followed through on that promise.
LMFAOO I’m cracking up rn
Love watching these breakdowns. This is my second time watching this one 😆. If you’d like another Gilmore girl video idea (or an excuse to rewatch) please address Rory’s hair evolution and impressionability.
Seasons 1 & 2: I akin Rory’s hair to either that of Lane or Lorelei, and of course she’s a quiet version of Lorelei but I feel there’s a sense of Lane mixed in there.
Season 3: though subtle, Rory begins to draw her hair back similar to how Paris always does, and while she’s understandably concerned about getting into Harvard, the stress I believe could also be Paris rubbing off on her.
Season 4: she gets her Bob similar to Lindsay around the same time she and Dean marry and the affair happens
Season 5: I feel like she’s mimicking her perception of Lorelei. Her hair looks like how Lorelei’s worn it, she makes the moves on Logan after Chris to her the Lorelei story etc.
Season 6: I think she’s exuding a younger version of Emily Gilmore, and this would be around the time she’s living in the Gilmore pool house.
By season 7 it seems she’s gone full circle but with bangs
This absolutely amazes me!
I really wish the revival covered more of the early post-yale scenes. For some reason, I had hoped they would at least flashback to the 'post Obama Campaign first job' time period that probably had her riding high for a bit, especially if she was still financially comfortable. Was she able to find a second job right away? Was she more open to jobs not related to her field? Or even her desired writing genre? I have entirely too many questions. Rory and Lorelai are such fascinating characters for me to look at. In some ways, they mirror my mother and I. But, they also help as a guidepost of maybe things I would do differently with my own child. That's what I find so fascinating about analysis videos. People find something to connect to in the media they enjoy and sometimes that can be a useful thing
Yessssss I felt the same way! I think that's part of why I felt such a disconnect to Rory's plot in the revival, because I needed more info on how she went from that experience to really stagnating in her field. I would have loved to learn more about the in between
I think that the writers wanted Rory in this trajectory since the beginning of the show. But you can’t have an audience hating on a child, that’s awful. So they waited for Yale. Hence the Easter Egg they left for us when Rory met the Harvard alum’s daughter who was working several jobs her parents disapproved of.
Love the content! My only recommendation would be to have less reading screens, and instead, just read it out loud for the video. Your comments on those pages are awesome, but sometimes I'm listening when I can't look at the screen and I miss out 🙈 Please keep making this content though!
I also think that getting valedictorian at Chiltern sent Rory into Yale feeling like an elite elite, the 1% of the 1%.
Gilmore girls is just a story that eventhough sometimes it seems like we can have it all, we can’t.
But someone like rory in real life will actually got somewhere.
I find it interesting that like nobody believes Dean or Jess were good enough for rory(besides lorelai with dean) but in the revival they both seem to be doing better than rory- probably because they didn't have the same sense of entitlement as rory. It still bugs the shit out of me that rory and Logan didn't end up together bc I truly believe they were good for each other(before the revival) but by the end they were both shitty people who never seemed to learn from their mistakes, and that's infuriating. Also rory never learns from her mistakes, like she literally has cheated on or with every person she's ever dated. She was taught from a young age that she's the best and grew to really believe it, so when things don't go her way she doesn't know what to do. Idk, the revival really bothered me. It's almost like even though it's been ten years, nothing about her has grown in any capacity and she still acts exactly the same(if not worse) than she did at 22. I'm on team rory sucks, sorry not sorry.
I think she only didn't cheat on Jess which is interesting
I don't think it's her upbringing that led to the final scene.
She wasn't a teenager who had sex the first time and got pregnant. Rory at that point should have been grown up in a way taking responsibility for the life choices she made. Not only is she still acting like a spoiled child, but has no morals. Sleeping with a married dean and later with an engaged Logan. Her career: basing it on a book of more or less her mother's life without her consent...not ok. And why would being a teacher so bad ? Bc she felt offended be offered a "low" job. No, without the pink glasses of the TV series, I don't like Rory anymore.
I dislike how her becoming the Editor of the Stars Hollow Gazette in AYITL is presented as a failure? Like is it in journalism? is it in your beloved hometown? is it writing for a paper you love? do you get complete control? don't get me wrong she needs to get paid for doing this job but I wish that had been presented a bit more favorably instead of Well look where she ended up what a colossal failure! She has more than the tools and know how necessary to upgrade and turn that all around. Hell ask Colin or Logan or Emily to buy the building and cut her a check for a decent salary and let her modernize it. Hire a few paper children on cute little bikes to deliver the papers around town. Taylor would love that. You're right she has cushions. She has options. Honestly sometimes I wish she were a tiny bit more manipulative and took advantage of them.
I think she would have, but jess showed up and sabotaged everything before she could recover from her ego being crushed
I wouldve wirtten that rory and logan did get married like 2 or 3 years later and (in that scene where she meets dean in doose's market and he tells her about the kids and stuff, she tells him that she is married to logan) we get a flashback and a little backstory of how they fixed it and got married
Also i wouldnt have made her completely broke, i would've made her working and still trying to come after her dreams (she wouldn't have reached her exact goals yet), while being with logan and building a life together
I think there wasnt a going back to babyface rory, because she grew up and was an adult now, but i would've in some way made her go back to her Principles of working hard for your goals
I would also have had her in sooommee way aknowledge her priviledge and just kinda like thanking the people around her for everything (like she never even thanked anyone for being able to send her stuff to them because she was frickin homeless)
I wouldn't have made her go back to the perfect young adult or the perfect wifey material, i wouldn't have deleted all the flaws they gave her, but i would've made her come to terms with how she messed up earlier and how lucky she was to be this priviledged.
Like just get her to the ground again yk
But enough of that cuz the comment could be so much longer if i would get into what i also would change about the revival
Stay safe everyone!
Kierra i love your approach to things!! i would love to see you talking about anything spongebob related, the way you view things and the way you explain is wonderful i would love to see your takes on it, whatever it might be
Amy Sherman Palladino openly admitted to not watching Season 7. I often wonder how that might have changed things. I think she might have written Logan and Rory differently. I think an interesting take might have been if they did get married. Rory went off to do her Presidential campaign job after Season 7. Then at some point her and Logan get back together and married. Maybe the security of Logan's money leads her to just freelance and then she starts just supporting his career? Maybe they are heading toward divorce in the revival because they want different things? Logan has reverted to his cheating ways because this Rory is more like his mother than the Rory he fell for.
i So appreciate you saying that it's richard and lorelai who put rory in the habit of lying - ive seen a lot of people put that solely on jess and ive never thought that's entirely fair, i really like your take on it
I think Rory should have realized that she didn't really want to be a journalist anymore. She could have had a a life crisis while still attending Yale. She could have meltdowns over not knowing what she wants to do with her life. I personally think that Rory should've gotten her PhD in Literature or something similar and become a professor. She also could write on the side.
It kinda makes sense to how she turns out since it's realistic. But I think her being pregnant wld finally get her to finally get her shit together and realize she was wrong and needs to atone for the better for her and her kid raising.
I believe is exactly what you said, she Laks independence, I have a life very similar to Rory in some aspects, my mom divorced, my grandparents help me to pay my university and postgraduate, we lie a lot between us (just because we are use to it to avoid fights ) or not lies but not saying stuff to avoid arguing, what Im saying is that I like the show because it reminds me of my family but I'm married, have a good carrer and I'm independent even though that my family always supported me financially speaking, but I was a little adult, because my mother is like Lorelai I started to do my own gorceries, go to the bank and even the doctor alone as I said to avoid arguing because the different thing about me is that my mother and I are more like Emily and Lorelai we always use to fight, so yes I believe to make Rory better she needed to go to therapy, I went and now I understand better my family and feel happy with my life
I think it would be a great episode to see, for you to break down the writing of the show and the characters. I think the Fandom gets passionate and all caught up in the characters and we often forget to pull back and say hey, this is a character written by someone else. They are under a ton of pressure by producers and studios and bureaucracy to deliver their story in just the right way. So I'd like to break the 4th wall and discuss the fact that maybe ASP intentionally disrupted Rory's character arc as an act of rebellion or maybe her storyline doesn't really make sense because it was being fabricated by humans with conflicting visions and intent. I'd eat that episode up. Great video, as always.
This is an amazing idea. Seriously thinking about this. If I find a way to do it, I’ll definetly get on this and shout you out
@Kierra loves TV that's dope, thank you so much 🙏
No problem
There is time for a season that will give us a Rory that finally got it right. Script-Writers can give us that. Rory has all her potential intact, even if has been hidden for a decade. The _Deus Ex Machina_ tool has been used by since Ancient Greek Dramaturgy to solve much worse and difficult problems in a plot.
I relate to the Gilmore girls a lot. All of them. My mom was always trying to be better than her parents- her dad was physically abusive in particular to the kids, and her mom allowed it but was a perfect mom otherwise. I know she loved caring for others and I try to channel that. She was a perfect mom when I was young but she never really knew what she was doing because her mom had an aneurism when she was 5 and was swiftly replaced with a mistress who would lie to her dad about things being my mom's fault so he would be angry with her instead. She didn't know how to be a mom in a functional, sustainable way. Always struggled with her identity as a mom, I think, and as the years have shown, my mom is bipolar. She only decided to share that with us kids recently.
I think we all are the gilmore girls like we are all pure madonnas and tainted.
I was a perfect kid when I was young. Excellently behaved and on the honor roll. As my mom deteriorated not being medicated, and I was blamed for things that were not my fault or my responsibility- say, doing my mom's housework for her, despite not getting an allowance, which was probably her doing- the whole family was breaking down. My mom was in a psych hospital, she did time in jail, she would sleep until we got home from school and not cook dinner or clean the house. Came home drunk. Crazy thing is none of these things seemed strange until it got really bad. She would just say she was tired, and the charges were at least mostly for weed. Now, about breaking the law when you have kids at home; well, no comment needed.
Anyway, one day she outright left in the middle of the night. I was angry. For years. My sister was only 10. I really struggled to step into the motherly role at 12 and so did my dad and I kept everything bottled particularly at school. I felt it was my personal business and I guarded it so fiercely that I struggled to write those papers you wrote about yourself and never asked for leniency from my teachers. I began to be guarded with everything personal at all like that kept the not normal things away. Emotionally, this started a storm in me of turmoil and doing things like deep diving research (not school work) to cope, social withdrawl.
My grades dropped and I began to fail and skip class out of overwhelm and I graduated a semester late with summer school. I also had issues sleeping well for years, it would take me hours to try to do my homework and it would just get worse.
I also have shaken out to be the least angry child. I have forgiven her.
I knew she was struggling but I thought she ought to be trying harder for us. She made us and if she had to crawl through the trenches, she should. We didn't need to be caught up in what she was doing at the time- and we still were, as she had a new bf but still constantly stole from dad, which meant from us, and our college funds, while threatening divorce and taking his assets, like the house we live in.
In some sense, I do not think it is her fault but her disease. I could be angry at her disease but what's the point? It keeps her from accepting medication.
Still, my mama is trying to be a better mom but my sisters will hardly speak to her and as far as I know, she refuses to take her medication. It's difficult to work up the courage to visit her, and there aren't any presents or visits on special days. My dad has stepped into both pairs of shoes.
I try to do what I want in my life and also do right. I know firsthand how hard it is, but I try. I have had a much better relationship with my dad as of late but I have also really clung to my in laws, admittedly, who are in some lights a perfect family- by which I mean loving and caring.
I identify with these moms and daughters so much so I don't think I could mother right. This is only helped by the fact I have a genetic disorder and I am an interesting combination of healthy and sickly. I am not having my own children.
I have had to be pretty self concerned to survive, I like to tend to myself first. I might be able to do it but I definitely do not want to care for young children, I might adopt older children one day. My heart aches for them and I also want to give them a life they deserve. And the love I suddenly stopped getting.
if gilmore girls is taken off netflix,.... i will just watch my old dvds again instead👼thank you for sharing your opinion. I like Rory the more I grow older, but in the revival... eeeh not so much
Mitchum was right she didn't have the right personality for journalism and when she was back at Chilton in the revival talking about her experiences and her music class she lit up and I think that she should have taken Head Master Charleston's helping hand into making her career a teacher while she was writing her book and of course writing it in Richard's Study, that would have been a better outlet for her and she would have at least a decent job and not have her focus on cheating again with Logan and all of that.
Okay this is my new favourite channel! The analysis was spot on! ❤
I love exploring this idea! Personally I feel like one of the big turning points for Rory starts with her going to Yale over Harvard - plot-wise I get it, and it's interesting to see how her grandparent's influence affects her and her college experience, but I think it definitely kneecapped her development. To me, she didn't even have to go to Harvard instead necessarily - just anywhere other than Yale. There are SO many colleges with amazing journalism programs, and I'd loved to have seen her somewhere where she could really exercise her independence and make messy mistakes and actually learn from them [which is a huge part of what college is for, imo]. Actually - if I was trying to fix two birds with one plot change, I'd have her and Lane wind up as roommates somewhere outside of stars hollow [the way Lane's story develops has always bothered me SO much]. I'd love to see them both come into their own.
I love your videos :) One request, can you please narrate your notes/additions? I listen to your videos while I work and I need to keep taking breaks to open my phone again to read the additional insights during the video. Again, love your videos! Very insightful and well thought out.
If I were to be included in writing of the the revival... So we end Gilmore Girls the series with Rory going off as a writer for politics, basically fulfilling her dream.
Well, I find it odd that there is so much time spent at Chilton and at Yale, working toward this goal, and in the Revival it isn't even mentioned. Her writing is featured of course, but we ultimately have no idea what happened from that first job, even though we revisit Chilton, and see Paris, who(m) Rory spent Yale years with.
To me it just seems very odd.
Kierra! Love the content as always, thank you 👏
Girl i love you but please dont write on your videos if you are not saying out loud what is written 😭😭😭 i love listening your videos while doing my makeup and having to pause to read is awful 😭
Got it, only did that bc I thought I needed to be clearer on what I was saying to avoid confusion
@@kierralovestv you are angel i literally love hearing your voice
For the revival something I think would be a little clarity for Rory would be if they had a new Rory in stars hallow like there’s a girl who is just like Rory in certain ways she grew up there she has a single mum who left her family and has a best friend and is very smart and wants to go to ivy leagues but she didn’t go to chilton instead she stay in stars hallow high school and she get into all the ivy leagues and Rory try’s to talk to her give her some notes but the new Rory gives her a talk
Just want to preface, I haven’t watched the revival yet so perhaps my feelings for Rory may change. That said, Rory is relatable to me, even more so when she changed during her Yale years. So I have empathy for her during that time. No empathy for her sleeping with Dean though lol.
Perhaps I am wrong on this, but whenever I listen to analysis on Rory’s so-called downfall there are various reasons listed, but her being fatherless isn’t one of them. Although Rory had her grandfather Richard and Luke, her real dad Christopher was largely absent from her life. Father absence does have a negative effect on a child. And for some you may not see the detriment of their absence until the child is grown up. This doesn’t solely justify the choices she made in leaving school, in the men she dated, etc but I think this could be examined.
Just my two cents. Love your channel Kierra!
Be prepared when watching the revival.
So my question is; did ASP know? Did she set out to write an entitled, overly pressured "gifted child" who was doomed to fail? Or, was her trajectory in those seasons kind of by accident?
I'm aware that ASP isn't solely responsible for Rory's arc, I'm just using her name for brevity.
ASP was ousted after a few seasons. You can tell because the Gilmore Girls all of a sudden get pimped out wardrobes and a house remodel. ASP also knew from the very start that the original series she had in mind would eventually close out with 3 words said from Rory, to Lorelei: “mom, I’m pregnant”. If ASP was kept on with the original run, it would have been very different. In my opinion, better.
I never put it together before how much Rory changed after having more influence from and exposure to hrt grandparents. But YOU’RE TOTALLY RIGHT! How did I not see it. I loved the first few seasons. But after season 4, Rory was insufferable. The miniseries was (for me) unwatchable. You made so many excellent points in this video. ❤
9:38 when asked what I would do if the show was taken off Netflix my first thought was buy dvds. Then I remebered there were actually some at the thrift store the other day. Then I realized there was really no need as I can rent them from the library. Public libraries for the win!
everytime you post i audibly go eeeeee
🥰 made my morning, thank you
Omg I recently pointed out the ballerina review vs Mitchum criticism hypocrisy! Thank you for mentioning this! You’re right on all points here! Rory started out mature and ended up…not mature in the Revival.
If I could rewrite the revival, I think I would've preferred Rory's storyline to explore the pitfalls of success. Even though she stumbles REALLY bad with those first failures during the original show, she does (eventually) put things back together & dives back into her journalism career, and the end of the original show makes it seem like her career is set - she has this great gig covering Obama's campaign trail, which would put her in position to build a really solid network of journalist contacts very early on. To me, it would have made sense if they built off that trajectory in the rival and had Rory be really successful in her career, because then they could make her character's identity crisis more built on the question of what happens when you achieve everything you wanted to and "made it" in your field, but you still aren't satisfied.
I think it's so common for so many young people - especially high achievers - to work incredibly hard and to be focused on the next goal and the next goal and the next goal that they never stop to actually ask *why* they have that as their goal in the first place or if that goal is really right for them. As a consequence, some people pour years of their life into a particular career or path only to realize they still aren't satisfied. For some people, that translates into a sense that they wasted the best part of their young adult years or into ruminating on the paths not taken. To me personally, that would have been a lot more of a satisfying plot line for revival Rory, especially given some of the choices she makes at the end of the original show (like turning Logan's proposal down). I think that particular kind of a crisis would have been interesting because unlike in the revival (where Rory can potentially shift the blame for her floundering to external circumstances), the curse of success is much more of an internal crisis - if you are "successful" and "have it all" but are still unhappy or feel lost, it's much harder to blame external circumstances rather than yourself. I also think that would have been a more compelling angle because I think a lot more people could relate to that kind of a scenario vs the having privilege but wasting it scenario of the revival. Definitely comes down to personal taste though, so that's just me!
0:17+0:45. 2:26. 3:05. 3:29. 3:44+3:49. 4:15. 4:33. 5:33. 7:24. 7:44+7:51. 10:49. 11:18+11:30+11:40. // 13:49+13:58+14:10
I think once Rory was in college living on her own. Lorelai shouldn't be a reason life didn't go as planned. During that time rory made her own choices and mistakes. I was actually in favor of her dropping out of yale given how shaken to her core she was after the Mitchum situation which made alot of sense to me. I just wish rory had gotten the chance to figure out who she was outside of the bubble she was placed in during those 6 month.
There's this saying called " good intentions but bad ideas" I think both Lorilai and Emily had them both but in different ways.
There was times where Emily had it right, like when rory started Yale and she wanted her to have a party to introduce her to new boys. The party was weird. Yes. But there intentions were in the right place because her life was going passed what Dean could give her, especially because that was after the cheating scandal. They'd it in the wrong way but there was always a hint of truth.
I love the Gilmore girls series. My teenage daughter and I started Watched it together.
Next Revival: Rory saves that dying local paper with a huge journalistic piece about a nearby plant/business being corrupt and harming Stars Hollow. Rory saves the day and grows successful/famous, as a result of being humble and helping the town of her roots instead of chasing after wanting to be the next Christiane Amanpour.
I aaaalways sing along to your "Oh yeah!"
Hello! I love your content. My only critique and take it with a grain of salt but I like having your videos on as background while I’m getting ready for work or I’m doing something else. If at all possible I’d love for you to not have so much where we have to read vs listening to you read what’s on the screen. Ok take care! Love the vids ❤
Thank you I added a pinned comment bc you’re not the only one who mentioned it I’ll remember this for next time thank you for being kind about it
Tbh, I do think she didn't really want to be a journalist she just said "I just want to see something" when asked why she wanted to be like amanpour... Hence she failed in the revival and mitchum was right
And honestly you don't have to go to a prep school to go to Yale or do all that to be a journalist lol. And the fact that she had that Yale stuff as a smaller kid is odd. Even Lorelei admitted "ever since she was going I wanted her to go to Yale"- so I think her mom probably planted that early because she used to want to go as Richard revealed.
Her background was always going to set her up to fail rather than one exact moment
Loved this analysis, i've watched the Gilmore girls like 4 times and never realized how mean Rory was with that ballerina
Rory worked so hard, plus she has all the money in the world if she wanted too. Yeah that can make a person a bit intitled, but those are character flaws, they do not break rory
Gilmore Girls is near and dear to my heart. When it premiered, I had just graduated from college, and was on my own. I was smack in the middle of Rory and Lorelei. For years I would watch and rewatch as new seasons came out, and never liked some of the decisions that Rory made. But it was when she stopped talking to Lorelei, quite Yale, and became a full dependent of her grandparents that it really hit me. Rory is exactly what Richard and Emily wanted Lorelei to be - a stuck-up, entitled rich socialite. Once Rory got a taste of rich elitism, she embraced it. Rory “fit” in Stars Hollow afterwards because of Lorelei, and that’s it. I really loved hearing your perspective that she changed solely with the involvement of her grandparents. I agree.
I adore your Gilmore Girls videos, your thoughts are very interesting, please make more!
I feel like the show says you can only be friends with your mom if you have no rules but that is necessarily true. Having to many strict rules doesn’t make raise good kids or good relationships with family but not having no rules makes it so the kid doesn’t know how to handle being disliked or told no. Lorelai tried to hard to be the fun mom that she didn’t always put her foot down enough.
my favorite Jess scene is from the revival: when ve looks at Rory through the window of her house also when he tells her: i know you better than anyone
I think we also have to remember Rory isn't real and sometimes writers just...mess up a character. A lot of her change happened when a man took over the show, but that aside, Rory wasn't the only character that changed and suffered for either badly created plots or shticks.
exactly, I think there's a difference between a good/well-developed character that is immoral and a poorly written character that is also immoral. Rory's downfall felt pointless, Luke's marriage to Nicole felt pointless, Lorelai's marriage to Christopher felt pointless, Luke having gotten a girl pregnant felt pointless, Emily's breaking up Luke and Lorelai felt pointless, all these mistakes the characters made felt pointless. That's why they're poorly written. If Rory was better written with the same type of downfall then more people would like her. But she wasn't, so we don't.
And i think how you get into something is a huge factor to how you will behave while you are there. I think Rory changed when she's in yale because of how she got in. she's accustomed to it now.
My ideas for a second revival. Rory should get her Masters and teach at Chilton while living in Stars Hollow raising her child. I know the most likely father is Logan but I think it would be better if the father would be unknown (perhaps the one night stand). This is so Rory can find a partner she truely loves.
Rory is an overachiever not a gifted child.
Logan did not manipulate her into quitting lol she left on her own