Gilmore Girls: another why we come back to GG time and time again

 

 

Hi there,

This is my perspective on the show Gilmore Girls, how it has impacted my life, and why so many come back to the show even after almost two decades after it stopped its original run. So many have watched this show already when it initially aired and are still putting it back on every fall to bring back those cozy Stars Hollow vibes. I need to now admit that I as a person who was born as the show was over half-way through its original run, I found gilmore girls, fittingly, in 2019 fall when I was a 13 year-old who loved to spend her time watching tv shows and this one popped on her Netflix page. To be honest I had not heard of the show ever before but as I had developed an extreme interest for academics around that time with a dream to go to a top university somewhere in the world, what would have been better than following the life of Rory Gilmore through her time at Chilton and Yale, for a while becoming my inspiration for what I wanted to be.

Now I need to intersect that to be honest I am nothing like Rory Gilmore. I have never been a big reader, and though I did well at school, I would argue my approach was very different to that of Rory's. Especially as I've grown older, not to say I would be that old or wise yet either, I have understood Rory's flaws more and began to look at the show more as what it is. A silly tv show that gives you that feeling of home.

 To go back to that little 13 year-old me in this random city in Finland who had a dream of going to law school in in a top university, I was so inspired by Gilmore Girls and to be honest I think it did play in a way a significant role in my academic career. Back then I remember going to my local city library and borrowing everything from classic Finnish poetry to Shakespeare trying my best to be what Rory Gilmore was to me. A smart, bookish quiet girl with great academic potential. I would argue about half of that statement applied to me, bookish and quiet not included. I had everyday about an hour-long bus ride to school and back, I started similar to Rory, bringing a bunch of different books to read on my way to school and at school to emulate her as well as I could. Did I actually end up reading those books or did I still manage to spend my time on the bus listening to music and staring out the winow? I would argue the latter is a more accurate description.

I went through the show quickly, the same way I always did, and back then I was not much a fan of Rory in college as I felt she broke that perfect image I had of her and what I wanted to be. At the same time I would say even during my final two years of middle school I came to understand the story from a different perspective, representing something realistic because if you really think about it Rory's arc in the original show made a lot of sense for how her character was built. I think already around this time I came to enjoy the show as more of a show rather than idolizing Rory and aiming to be her, I think I quit that quite quickly because I am well... both a very different person than she is as well as a real person, not a fictional character.

 However I would argue this is just my introduction to the show, I watched it for the first  time in that 2019 fall but I rewatched the show probably at least a couple of times between ages 13 and 15. I remeber at 15 being on winter holiday at home and one night I just decided to put some peanut butter on toast and start rewatching gilmore girls, I remember the moment vividly because I had had a very hard winter and puttig the show on just gave me that instant cozy feeling in that moment. So I proceeded to rewatch probably pretty much the whole show again.

Fast forwards to the second year of high school I gave my mom a proposition, let's watch this silly show I have watched like a million times already, I feel like it will be fun mother-daughter bonding. So we started our journey, now together, following the lives of Rory and Lorelai Gilmore. I was now around the same age as Rory at the start of the show which brought me and my mom to many interesting conversations. I was still considering applying to university even in the Ivy Leagues possibly so Rory stressing over her extracurriculars, the application anxiety episode among many others were very fun for us to watch thinking that oh that's what I'll be doing next year. I eventually ended up applying to a few Liberal Arts and Sciences programs in the Netherlands which are similar to the Liberal Arts college experience in the US which was still a very strange idea to me and my mom so we started to pick up things from the show to keep in mind for my application process and going to univeristy. About a year ago when I finished my final IB exams, the evening that day I asked mom to watch the Gilmore Girls Chilton graduation episode together. Over the summer we continued from there and tried to take note of the moving to Yale episode and what I should maybe also have moving into a dorm setting abroad. 

I remember all those times with my mom watching the show together and getting even her to want to watch another and another episode in a row. Dad sometimes came into the room to see how we were doing and just thought out loud, are you guys again watching this show? And we just sat there happily following what was going on. I remember also getting always so excited when Jess, Dave, and Logan made their first appearances that oh mom this is going to be so much fun this character is amazing. May I have spoiled her sometimes a bit too much? might be, forgive me mom.

So what's my point with all of this? Gilmore Girls was first there for me at a time when I was quite young and wanted a role model to follow, then the show was there for me as I was going through those same hurdels as Rory regarding university admission and moving into a college setting. Furthermore the show offered me immense comfort at very difficult times and I have some amazing memories of time spent with my mom watching the show. In a way I feel like especially since tv shows have been such a large part of my life since my teens... I think finding such a mother-daughter show to watch with my mom was just wonderful. Noticing together with her those two short references to Finland or realizing that Lorelai was actually born the same year as my mom. She lived through those early 2000s in a very different life situation than Lorelai but I find these deatils somehow fascinating. I was born in 2005, I do not remember anything from that time, so to see my mom remember the phones and us both actually catching Dean's Nokia cellphone was just so much fun.

Going from the personal to the general reasons why people come back to this show year after year for decades, I think the two are very related. My experience is my experience, but the show essentially is a slice of life show with cozy vibes present throughout. There are characters and situations you can reflect your own life on because the show is about everyday life. However, as I have heard many say, I truly believe it is the overall vibe of the show, the feeling of home and comfort it gives automatically almost no matter what episode is on, that makes it so rewatchable and such a source of comfort in the boring mundane of it all. The show overall is well written, witty, smart, funny, and can handle more serious conversations but maintains a light-heartedness that allows the show to be enjoyed by the young and the old, the mothers and daughters, and everyone else.