To be fair Lorelai does lampshade that by saying something like “of course we have tote bags, every woman who’s ever bought $75 worth of Clinique products has tote bags!”
I could not believe my eyes when I saw the pool scene with the poor Pat (fat). Who thinks it’s funny? How the actress managed to follow that dialogue is beyond me. Might as well made fun of some people with limited mobility or kids with developmental issues.
I believe it tbh
You ever seen Instagram comments ? People are QUICK to attack someone's appearance and weight for no other reason than daring to wear something cute and not frumpy
You’re right. But I don’t need to see that kind of vitriol on my show. I was (probably naively then) hoping actors would be aware of this being a faux pas.
Oh no, I completely agree
I'm just explaining why I think people weren't too quick to call it out, because it's normal for some of them to still act like that
Honestly, from what I remember, 2016 was only the very very beginning of when there was any awareness that being fat phobic was bad. For some reason this concept was hard for people to get.
Right? It would be bad enough if it was one random line. But it was a whole dialog and it ended with them actually flinching when he approach them. Simply horrible.
I get this feeling when Janet says something about exercising and runs off, and Paris says some quippy remark to her, then turns to Rory and says, "I hate that she's thin." As if Paris wasn't also thin, and Rory was probably skinnier than Janet!
The thing that got me is they had sookie, who’s obviously a bigger women and they treated her fairly progressivly and then had so much body shaming around every corner
" we aren't making fun of larger women ! See, our token non-conventionally attractive/not white/not straight character among a very white and conventionally attractive cast "
Doesn’t lorelai say something about sookie too? That she doesn’t have dating experience because of looks or something
Edit: I don’t remember the episode number but ir was before she dated Jackson. It did happen because lorelai apologized after u goofy ass mfs. Lorelai glazing goes crazy
No, Sookie is giving her love advice and Lorelai says something like “how are you an expert, what’s the last time you dated someone?” and immediately realises what a rude and hurtful comment that was so she apologises. (As she should have.)
There’s a number of fat jokes in the show in general (especially in Daniel Palladino episodes) but I don’t believe Sookie was ever on the receiving end of them. She’s also dressed well, early 00s costume departments often did fat actresses very dirty and GG is one of the nice exceptions.
I agree with all of this with the exception of what they made her wear and how they did her hair on her and Jackson's first date! 😭 That giant updo and the style and cut of that dress were redonkulously gaudy given how many amazing outfits and cute pieces and hairstyles they gave her before that episode / for a few more seasons after
[Edit for typo, albeit for an unofficial word]
I see. I just assumed so because I wouldn’t be surprised if a joke like that existed, since I realize that Gilmore girls was at a time where the beauty standard and body goals were very mean and preferred extremely skinny girls. I don’t get why people dislike stuff instead of just commenting like you did. Thanks.
I also naturally assumed sookie wasn’t having a lot of bfs because of her weight, since the show is old and because of the fucked up standards back then. I see some older tv shows where a normal sized girl will be called “plus sized” and so just for having some arm fat. Forgive me
Yes. I think because it comes from a place of social/financial class and wasn't explicitly about hatred of race and ethnicity that has people trying to minimize it. But classism definitely intersects with racism, misogyny, and xenophobia and I think we do ourselves a disservice if we believe only the worst of the worst engage in problematic behavior.
America is kind of special in that our racism and classism are so tied together because of chattel slavery and anti-Black/racist laws that are slowly being removed (sorta, but not really as we are seeing with this corrupt govt). It just happens that the laws created by the upper echelon happened to have been broad enough (by design) that it hit some white people as well and thus our class system is occupied by many races and ethnicities. It's not unique to America, of course, but our slavery system did something special to it.
Is it that special? I feel like it's kind of built into capitalism - which is not exclusive to America over say, England. I do think because America took so long to abolish slavery that we do see it differently, but I would argue that the intersection of forms of bigotry is not exclusive to the US and almost a design of pure capitalism.
Our slavery was indeed special compared to other forms ofnslavery around the world. I'm notndaying america is exclusively racist but racism in America is built into the core of the country. Racism literally built the country and is the foundation of the country. Not every country has the perigee that we do.
Exactly- just like when she keeps referring to Lane as "Rory's Asian friend" and Rory keeps looking at her with a furrowed brow and says "Lane" each time Emily says it.
Thank you for proving my point that people don’t want to acknowledge that of her.
If anyone in real life talked about “foreign” people the way Emily does, they would be considered racist. If someone makes racist comments, but then says “I’m not racist, I have a black friend,” they’re still racist.
Seriously. There's the whole thing with Rory's 21st where Emily refers to Lane as her "Asian friend". She can somehow remember Dean/Jess/Paris/etc in various conversations, but Lane is the "Asian friend". This on top of all of the stuff with the maids.
I feel like they tried to remedy this in AYITL with Emily letting Berta's *entire* family live with her and her only complaint is "no one knows what she's saying"
Romania\*
And yes, Emily was definitely racist. Also, fun fact: the name "Draguta" doesn't exist in Romania. The word "draguta" just means "cute" or "pretty" or "nice"
> Emily equates a negative trait with being foreign
it aged just fine because it wasn't glorified. It was always portrayed as her negative trait.
Even in today's world, if a character did the same it wouldn't have been wrong to portray that. And no, it doesn't have to be spelled out to a viewer that 'this is bad,' viewer should be able to understand that from the context its portrayed in. The current trend of spelling everything out for a viewer is dumbing down content.
This ^ Emily would also be racist if it were written now. It’s not the show saying “these views are acceptable” but a realistic part of her character. It shouldn’t take too much media literacy to understand this.
Finally, someone who gets it. I remember Luke’s reaction to breastfeeding and Lorelei saying he’d remain a bachelor if the sight of a woman’s breast freaked him out. Comments like “that would never be shown today” were exhausting. A shitty character trait doesn’t mean the show condones the behavior or promotes narrow-minded views. I don’t want to watch infallible characters with no growth potential.
Right! I totally agree. Good writing does not have be literal and should show-not-tell. But I also think it's interesting to think about when and how the writers made other characters in the scene react to problematic lines and opinions. Whether it's our main characters or someone else entirely, they usually used the tension of a different opinion to tell the viewer which opinion is (in their opinion) the good/better/ethical/reasonable one.
Like with @Cheesecake2027's example, Lorelai and Rory's eye rolls at Luke affirm for the audience that Luke's reaction to the breastfeeding is immature. Lorelai telling Emily that it was "heinous" of her to associate with a known Nazi (which if you don't remember, Emily then replies "No, dear, *that* was a joke") is meant to affirm for the viewer that Nazism is bad (which is such a lacklustre way of putting that, but anyway), etc., etc.
Soo all if this to say! -- When I think of some jokes and scenes where there *isn't* that tension, where there isn't a character being posed as foil in response to the "problematic" language or choice... Then do I really trust the writers' have included it as commentary and critique of a character or issue? (Spoiler: not usually)
Perhaps, but I honestly can’t think of an example like that where Emily is racist (the point we are discussing here) where it’s included just to give “colour”. I also think given the wider reaction to Emily’s character, we have have enough context to understand that her views on this aren’t acceptable, without another character literally having to spell it out for us each time.
I think I agree with this take. They aged fine and well because Emily is racist and classist. (Because racism is about the meaning you assign to a person's racialization)
What I don't know is how brazen the writers would be today because I think the difference is that the writers *still felt comfortable writing her racist jokes in that they believed most of those jokes were still funny*, even if they wrote them as racist jokes to critique or affirm Emily's racism and classism.
Came here to say this!
"LORELAI: You can evaluate a significant experience that’s had an impact on you…or you can write about a person who has had a significant influence on you.
RORY: You?
LORELAI: Or one of your authors, Faulkner or…
RORY: Or Sylvia Plath.
LORELAI: Hm, might send the wrong message.
**RORY: The sticking her head in the oven thing?**
**LORELAI: Yeah. Although she did make her kids a snack first, shows a certain maternal instinct. (Episode 3.3)"**
I loooove seeing those kinds of things- the pagers, telephones with cords, typewriter 😂, DSL, phone books, blackberry phones, calling yourself to leave a voicemail, etc. it’s all soo nostalgic!
"Well, we like our Internet slow, okay? We can turn it on, walk around, dance, make a sandwich. With DSL, there's no dancing, no walking, and we'd starve."
As a young Indian girl who was in love with the show at the time, I remember being weirdly defensive of that joke, idk why. Like some kind of coping mechanism. I didn’t want my white friends to see me as different than them, I wanted to be “one of the good ones” so I’d laugh alongside the racist jokes and be like “lol ya omg so true, Indian food is so gross hahaha see! I can take a punch accept me please!”
Now I look back on it and cringe lmao, the joke was just flat racist. And I’m not quick to call things racist but it is. Indian food is objectively delicious and enjoyed by such a huge global population. And it’s not like they’re cooking the damn food in the house, they’re just eating it! The smell isn’t that strong 🤦♀️
I think what hurt the most about that joke was that it was coming from Lorelai and Jess, who we’re supposed to look to as the cultured, knowledgeable characters with great taste. If the comment had come from Emily and Richard I honestly wouldn’t have minded it at all because that kind of ignorance is expected from them.
I don’t think they are suggesting it is “gross” as far as the taste, just that it smells more pungent than American food due to the spices used? Either way, it’s not racist to not like a type of food or to point out if a type of food smells stronger than others. Like it literally has nothing to do with someone’s skin, just observable reality.
I happen to enjoy Indian food and Thai food, but it is true that when I cook those types of food the smell is much, much stronger than most other foods I cook. As a result, I usually cook them with the windows open if I can, and don’t do it all that often, and plan not to if I don’t want my house to smell. Growing up I went to a dayhome run by an Indian woman and the home always smelled very strongly of Indian food and had a distinctly different smell than my other friend’s homes who were not Indian.
The reason I personally thought the joke was weird was because if it’s takeout it’s not going to have the same effect on your house as it would if you were personally cooking it.
GG is always using random hyperbole as humor. I really don’t think we need to read that much into it. If you or someone else is personally offended or upset because it happens to be your culture and then you feel a sense of embarrassment or something about it, that doesn’t mean it’s “racist”. It just doesn’t. We need to start being intellectually honest about these topics.
I commented on this below but there are racial undertones imo.
Burning the house down definitely implies it has a bad smell. I've been in many white homes that also have food smell but i'd never joke about it.
OK, so I actually agree with you on a lot of points. I do agree that it’s not racist to not like a type of food, 100% on the same page there. It’s a weird concept for me because I am a huge foodie so I love all global cuisines. There are of course certain ingredients or perhaps certain dishes that I don’t love, but it would never occur to me to wholly group an entire cuisine by saying something like “I don’t like Vietnamese food!” because I find something I like in every cuisine. I think grouping a whole country/culture’s cuisine and saying you don’t like it as a whole with such disgust is a little bit insensitive and impolite, but I totally agree in that I don’t think that in itself isn’t racist at all whatsoever.
The stereotype of Indian food (and Indians themselves) smelling pungent and off putting has been a common one applied to us. Honestly I remember being so paranoid about smelling that I showered obsessively, applied deodorant obsessively, perfume, mouthwash, altoids, etc. And family didn’t even cook Indian food often at all lol, it was actually a rare treat in our house because my parents worked so much.
The thing about Indians being smelly had been this stereotype that most Indian Americans are very aware of and sensitive too. I never even brought lunch to school (I always ate school lunches) but I remember my Indian friends ostracized “EWWWW your lunches are so gross!!” It was a pretty pervasive part of the Indian-American experience.
And by the way, I say all of this as someone who totally enjoys racial humor and all kinds of comedy lol. I loved Apu on the Simpsons, all the Indian jokes on The Office and New Girl, Russell Peters calling us cheap, the list goes on. If the joke is funny, I’ll laugh. The running gag of Indian food on the GG episode felt weirdly hurtful to me because I think it came at a time when many young Indian Americans felt that they didn’t have any identity other than being curry-smelling punchlines. And I was kind of sad to see it coming from a show I loved so much and from characters I looked up to so much.
I never saw race growing up as a 90s latchkey kid. I’m not one of those people who’s like “I wish I could see people who look like ME” on television because I actually hate that mentality, I see people for more than what they look like or how they superficially relate to me. I related so hard to Lorelai and Rory despite us being from completely different worlds. So the running gag felt like this subtle rejection that if I were ever in their lives, me and my household would become a punchline in theirs.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into it. 🤷♀️ maybe it was just a joke I didn’t find funny. Maybe I’m partially annoyed because canonically I feel Jess and Lorelai would actually love Indian food lmao, ESPECIALLY Jess being from New York lol
I can respect your point of view and experience for sure, and really appreciate that you’re not coming from a standpoint of trying to find offense wherever possible - a mark of a lot of today’s online culture, sadly.
Thank you, yes! I argued this with someone on this sub not too long ago and a small army of Redditors jumped on me to tell me I was exaggerating and it was not offensive to say "the truth"
I am Indian myself and growing up at that time eating that kind of food made me feel very ashamed of my culture. Now I have people telling ME all about it and what I should try.
It’s not like simply eating the takeout in your home is gonna waft up your house lol. Cooking it in your home definitely has a much stronger smell but many households cook Indian food in their homes every day. You can open the windows lol
Burning the house down implies it has a bad smell tho, which is not the case imo. You wouldn't see that kind of joke for homes that smell like soup or casserole. And I certainly didn't make comments or jokes about that when I was younger.
It does smell though 😂 I mean it smells yummy and delicious but it’s not exactly a smell you want lingering any more than cigarette smoke. As someone who grew up in a cosmopolitan city and around all those aromas I’d say it’s a fairly harmless joke coming from Jess but I’m not one for political correctness to an extreme 🤷🏻♀️
Luke’s toxic but fragile masculinity, homophobia, the way he wanted girls play soccer “like girls” meaning graceful or some other shit.
Emily’s treatment of maids being played for laughs
The show basically has no diversity I get that’s a show about privileged white people but it looks very weird that Michel is the only black character in the whole show who’s also a stereotypical gay person (as well as stereotypical French person) even though he spent most of his time in the closet.
Mrs Kim being a stereotypical Asian mother. Saying that there is no electricity in South Korea and some other dumb shit.
The vasectomy plot line!!!!
The list goes on and on and on…
I liked Luke so much more in the earlier seasons; it didn't feel like he had those traits initially but they slid him more into early 2000's "stereotypical dude" nonsense as time went on.
Me too! I hate Luke and I’ll stand by it with you 🙌🏻
I don’t understand how people overlook so much crappy behavior from him. He beats up minor and his customers. He’s a freaking threat to society and a POS
I definitely feel like his behaviour is problematic and is a harmful stereotype. It's dangerous for young impressionable people thinking that someone with that much explosive anger has a heart of gold underneath that molten hot temper the will never be used against the ones they love. I don't think Luke the character is abusive towards Lorelai, but real people like Luke tend to be abusive. I still like them together and I think he's a good guy underneath the shitty behavior, but I wish they had addressed it and had him work on it instead of making it seem endearing. But every time I say anything to that effect on this sub I also get downvoted and comments about how lots of people like Luke exist and they get a bad wrap. Lol.
You’re are so right!
If his shitty behavior got addressed and he change even a little bit he’s character would’ve been so much better.
But the way they never did that I can’t even root for him and Lorelei
I thought that was the direction they were heading when he was reading the self help books and started being more open with Lorelai about how he was feeling. Then season 7 came along and set fire to all the progress he had made.
Yeah the self help book plot line kinda when nowhere and I got really disappointed. They could’ve pick it up in AYITL. Especially since they’ve got Lorelei to therapy sort of. He could’ve and should’ve gone to therapy too. It didn’t look like they “fixed” any issues with their relationship with Lorelei…
Oh yeah, I forgot about how actually disturbing I found it when he said (I got this quote from a website because 8 couldn't remember it verbatim so feel free to fact check) “Before this thing goes on, you gotta realise: the only way out is in a body bag.”.. And she just breezed past it and was like "I think we should get married" da fuq? How is that not a conversation??? How is that not terrifying? It worked out because she wasn't going to leave him, but like... That's straight up threatening.
I wouldn’t say that’s a case of things not ageing well. I think some men are just weird like that 😂 my gay best friend once asked me if “I’m gonna leave that there” he was referring to a pregnancy test which I’d thrown away in the bin of an airbnb we were renting 😂
>the way he wanted girls play soccer “like girls” meaning graceful or some other shit.
devil's advocate here. He thought that at first but was put in his place and accepted his mistake. I think that's appropriate portrayal of someone who believes in something wrong and is corrected.
> The show basically has no diversity I get that’s a show about privileged white people
not everything has to be diverse. We are allowed to have shows with all white/black/hispanic/asian cast. It's perfectly okay.
Plus, the show was fairly diverse for a small CT town which would've been fairly white. You've got black and asian characters, gay character, etc.
> Saying that there is no electricity in South Korea and some other dumb shit.
it was a massive plothole. For a long time, it sounded like it was implied that Kims were from North Korea (the way it was described) so when Lane was going to visit, it was just weird because it didn't make sense. They portrayed South Korea as North Korea. So odd.
on the diversity thing, i live in a very small charming Ontarian town just like stars hallow, and there is about the same amount of diversity in SH as here lol, and this is 2024 so 🤷♀️
and really it was 20 years ago, the fact that we can look back and call certain things out like this shows how much our society and views have changed. So i don't think we should focus on how decades old shows "missed the mark", and instead probably focus on just creating more diverse shows now. No point complaining about something that has long since passed... shows now, however, we can definitely ask for more diversity i think
Ok he did realize he was kinda wrong but he’s revelation that GIRLS CAN PLAY SPORTS TOO is still way too patronizing.
Ok I don’t live in a small town in Connecticut so I don’t know how diverse the neighborhoods are but it’s still looked weird to me.
Maybe the writers didn’t care enough to specify which Korea it was. In my mind it could’ve never been North Korea as they could not have go back or visit family and or keep in touch.
But the no electricity line looks dumb as fuck🤦🏼♀️ even for North Korea.
I don’t know much about North Korea but I’m guessing they do have at least the ability to have electricity. I imagine most people living in rural areas do not have stable electricity or enough money to pay for it but they do know what it is. Basing my option on North Korea on some books of “defectors” I’ve read a while ago.
>Ok he did realize he was kinda wrong but he’s revelation that GIRLS CAN PLAY SPORTS TOO is still way too patronizing.
the thing is that he was proven wrong.
People/Characters have these opinions and it's okay to show them that way. It would've been outdated if he wasn't proven wrong. What makes it not outdated is that he changes his opinion and his opinion is shown as wrong.
> In my mind it could’ve never been North Korea as they could not have go back or visit family and or keep in touch.
that's literally what I said. That at first they implied North Korea's condition to later change it to South Korea. Which is why it's a major plot hole.
> But the no electricity line looks dumb as fuck🤦🏼♀️ even for North Korea. I don’t know much about North Korea but I’m guessing they do have at least the ability to have electricity.
Then I would suggest you don't make assumptions because if you knew anything about North Korea you would know it's not a crazy claim to make even today. Even in more developed African countries, electrical cuts for long periods of time during the day are not uncommon in today's world.
So much fragile masculinity and homophobia!! And nearly exclusively homophobia toward gay men!!!
Like Rory gossiping with Richard at the club about how "Mr Neville likes all things frilly"? And Richard's disturbance, because "good god, he's my broker"??
Lorelai telling Rory "well, then he's gay" because Dean apparently told her something her eyes and a sweater (idfk it's when she's tryna throw away a bunch of stuff after the first break up with Dean and Lorelai's trying to convince her not to)
Max sarcastically telling Lorelai (after a quip about how being a girl is hard, but at least she doesn't need to be in a gay pride parade to wear a skirt) that she should be open to the world changing, how when that change does happen he'll applaud "those who do" (i.e. gay men dress femme or who in general express themselves freely), "and then"... "and then" he'll ...... "cross the street really quickly so no one sees [him] with them"?
Michel being appalled by the drag queens at Lorelai's bachelorette party (which EYE have a fun gay head canon about, in which Michel's reaction is just toxic masculinity and hatred for femme-ness that is still rampant in queer and gay men culture).
Idk there's so much more. There so so much. It's so annoying. I so love this show and I'm so so gay and it's *so* so annoying to hear over and over again.
I know! Me too! So annoying and upsetting. I love 00s shows for their comforting analog life vibe but the homophobia and fragile masculinity and transphobia is all other them. And little by little it chips away from the experience🥺
Personally I don’t care if jokes age well or not. GG wouldn’t be what it is, nor would any other show of the past, if it was made with modern sensibilities in mind. In 20 years people are going to be asking the same question about shows made in present day.
yepp. And, not that this is right, but a lot of this stuff was just normalized. And that is why people keep talking about it because as society and cultures change we look back on the past with disgust and cringe- we have literally always done it. Even back to the 13th century or whatever. We should focus on how much better things have gotten, it isn't perfect, no, but the fact we can look back and call these things out, shows how much we have changed over the last 20 years 🤷♀️ And as you said, people will ask the same questions in the next 20 years lol
“I need to find a r*tarded kid and teach him how to play softball!”
“like ‘stop eating the paste’ special?”
Are two lines that immediately came to mind
Edit to add: “the red head has fat thighs” oooof
It’s when a parent hovers over their kid and doesn’t respect boundaries, wanting to be in all their business and be involved in all their decisions. It happens a lot with college students, with parents trying to do everything for them, and find out about their grades and things from admissions even when their kid doesn’t want them to.
The way Dean being angry that time Jess crashed Rory’s car was played for laugh and it was supposed to be “oh its just boys being boys, the testosterone”. Also Jess SA Rory for “plot” reasons, the scene is suppose to show Jess hitting rock bottom by hurting even the ones he loves, but this just makes SA be about the abuser instead of the victim, the show barely acknowledged that Rory was assaulted, they just focus on how this affected Jess
Oh and the vasectomy storyline with Sookie
Thank you for mentioning this!! The jess plot has alwaysss annoyed me and no one says anything about it on this sub.
And the vasectomy storyline was such a violation of trust swept under the rug.
Yessss! I hate how no one ever says anything about Jess trying to SA Rory! Everyone loves to hate on Dean but no one points out Jess and Logan did their fair share of shitty things as well.
I think all the male fights in general. Dean and Tristan, Dean and Jess, Luke and Chris, Luke and Dean. Its like the only way they think men can express themselves is with anger and violence.
Also Luke beating up a car, the way Dean treated Rory and Lindsay. Its major red flag behaviour and a little scary ngl
whenever i’ve brought it up ppl get extremely defensive and claim she wasn’t SA’ed just bc they love jess—the mental gymnastics they do to justify what happened is truly concerning like babes this goes BEYOND a tv show. please recognize this isn’t normal behavior and watch out for the red flags in case (god forbid!) you’re ever in danger?!
I literally rewatched this episode two nights ago. The last time I saw it was probably years ago, before I was a mom. Now I'm like "wow, Luke. Not cool at all"
Idk this is more like I grew up but I never thought it was weird that Rory came home all the time when she was in college or that she went to Friday night dinners.
Once I was in college I realized that is so unrealistic and low key unhealthy. I get that they had to do it for the sake of the show but all I can think about is how everyone at Yale must think she is weird for going home all the time.
Maaaaaybe unrealistic - although we could argue that Rory wasn't very sociable, so typical student weekends of partying and whatnot were not her thing - but why unhealthy? I was 4 hours away from home when I went to university and lots of people I knew used to go home at least once a month, to see their family and friends back home.
Yeah it’s definitely in line with her character. I think it is borderline unhealthy because an important part of college and that time of life is gaining independence and forming new bonds. She struggles with this and often runs home when things are hard.
I wish we could’ve seen Rory find her people at Yale because you just know there were plenty of folks who there who also loved to sniff old books lol.
I have a friend in university who goes home all the time (~2 hour drive) and I don't think it's weird. I'm curious as to why you think going home to see your family so often is strange?
Also Friday night dinners were a requirement for her getting money to go to Yale. Not exactly weird.
I think it’s super weird that her grandparents had that rule because irl they would’ve known that one of the main reasons to go to Yale is for the connections, which are generally formed outside of class. In fact, the way residential colleges work at it would be odd for someone to missing dinner so frequently as that’s a big aspect of the culture. The dining hall isn’t 24/7 and dinner is at a set time.
I guess I’m biased here because I went to Yale and it was common fodder that it was so unrealistic and weird lol.
You act as if Richard and Emily actually think of anything past their own wants and needs. Yes, they wanted Rory to make connections, but they would just expect her to do that any other time. When they wanted something, like FND, that was the most important thing and everything else came second
Nah. I went to school 8 hours away and was home every other weekend. It’s normal. Just because you leave doesn’t mean you can’t be independent while maintaining your relationships. She’s like 45 mins away, you totally go home because you need to get away from your roommates and just because you’re in college, that doesn’t mean you give up on your responsibilities, which Friday Night Dinner was.
I don't think it's unrealistic at all. Heck, A lot of kids live at home and go to college. Granted, that's much more common now because of the economy, but it definitely wasn't unheard of in the early 2000s. If kids went to college close to home, and actually got along with their family, they would visit often to see friends, family, do laundry, have a home cooked meal. The show kind of implies that Rory goes home about once a month or so, which I don't think is all that strange. The FND was a must for her though, so she really had no choice
Meh. It depends on how far away you live and what kind of college/university you went to.
There was a popular university about an hour and a half from my hometown, which was also in a small town itself. Because so many people from the university frequently made the trip for some kind of occasion (family members or Friends birthday, random parties / events) a lot of people would car pool if they didn't have anything else going on in particular. A lot of them retained friends from home that stayed, were in their last year of high school, coming home for a break from a different university, etc. Also doing laundry and eating at their parents usually was cheaper and way better then campus stuff, especially if they had roommates.
It's a jump to just immediately assume something is unhealthy when it can also just be convenient. Some people are also just close with their family. I can't relate but I have a hard time labeling someone unhealthy because they want to see their family and do laundry for free and use a dishwasher instead of scrubbing everything by hand in their cheapass apartment.
Yale is in a college town canonically like a couple hours away from her small hometown. That is almost a 1 to 1 of what I witnessed a lot of my friends go through. Sure there were a lot of them that were a little too connected and tethered and weird about it, but like, I'm not going to say an 18-21 year old is acting unhealthy by visiting their parents/hometown friends frequently if it's only a hour or so drive. Not visiting when you live so close is actually the weird thing that points to an unhealthy dynamic, it implies running away and hating your parents/hometown. I did when I left, but I'm not going to judge others who have normal loving relationships with their parents and a good feeling about their hometown, that's kind of the ideal.
Her mom says before she goes to Yale that she’ll be spending her weekends at home when Sherri mentions they’re place is 2 Mi from Harvard (when Harvard was still the plan). She literally comes home because Loralai demands it. Once a month / holidays isn’t abnormal but most weekends is and while maintaining her friendship with Lane would be reasonable, she should have made more friends at Yale.
FND was over pretty early - especially when you’re in college. We see her have plans after - it was probably over by 8 or 9 and and the night is just getting started.
https://preview.redd.it/np4oyjeuob9d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=934b05b0a46a54bb432f505dd824dfb95aa0452d
In Season 7, where Lorelei “recreates Asia” in their own home for Rory after Rory’s trip to Asia with Logan gets canceled. That whole getup makes you laugh and shudder at the same time lol.
This coupled with the fact that Emily refers to Lane as “your Asian friend, Rory”. 😂🤣
Was this bad? I actually thought this was really sweet. Her mom was just having a bit of fun, and Rory wanted to see Asia for the culture (which obviously Lorelai couldn’t recreate).
It wasn’t bad at all. How plentiful would the “authentic” Asian decorating items be in small town Connecticut? And she wasn’t planning some big event, like Rory’s DAR shindig in season 6 was, she was throwing something together to make her kid laugh/feel better.
Yea, I can forgive Lorelai for this one because it feels like Lorelai is making fun of herself and pop culture, not actually implying that any of it is really representative of the actual countries.
Yeah I don’t think this was bad at all. It’s not like she would have access to authentic things from every Asian country. She tried to include elements from various countries Rory was set to visit so it’s not as though it would be accurate to strictly Japan or strictly Thailand or something.
People who are offended with these Asian decor are mostly non-asians... Being an Asian myself I can't care less about how other people decorate their homes let alone just a temporary themed party. What's the difference between that and decorating for Christmas if you're not religious?
I don’t quite agree with your analogy. I don’t think most Christians are offended over non-religious people using traditional Christmas decorations. I think for most folk, they realize that Christmas has become so commercialized that those religious symbols don’t have the same meaning anymore. Most people just view Christmas Trees, stockings and gift giving as non-religious symbols now.
As opposed to Lorelai’s outdated views of Asia. I realize that episode was a product of that time and people weren’t as sensitive to those things and I concede to that. It’s just find it funny how Lorelai always called Emily and Richard out on their outdated beliefs; this episode didn’t deeply offend me, just made me cringe.
Yes, Lorelei is quirky & and the gesture was nice.
Just looking at this scene through the lens as an Asian American. I did laugh but also cringed too. Just personally don’t think this scene would fly today. 🤷🏻♂️
Also an Asian American here and feel the same way you do… I found this fun and quirky when I was younger but now it just seems mega cringe.
Not sure how anyone in the comments responding to this doesn’t also find it cringe and distasteful
I wanna say "fat jokes" but I no longer consider them jokes... and although I don't think they aged well, the rest of Reddit (outside this sub) still seems to think they are legitimately funny
The fat shaming, the slight homophobia.
I really REALLY wish they kept Eco conscious liberal Luke , I would’ve loved to have more of those comments instead of just be grumpy about everything, cause some of the comments he made early on just hit so much harder now.
Haha I was just surprised to hear the midwife Bruce ask lorelai if she wanted sookie's baby to be retarded and lorerai said no I want it to be tarded.
Haha I completely forgot this exchange.
Just everything about Colin and Finn. I used to think maybe they were intentionally portrayed as unlikeable, but then they got that incredibly loving send-off in AYITL, which makes me think we were supposed to see them as lovable goofballs all along, and not as the probable sex pests they are
Came here to say they! Literally every "first time" they have written into the plotline is a disaster.
Also the scene where Lorelei overhears Rory & Paris talking about Paris having sex and she says "I got the good kid" Shudder
Naming a character after a racial slur. (G*psy) It was *everywhere* in the early 2000s, still gets used a lot today especially in witchy/"free spirit" spaces, unfortunately
the lack of diversity truly blows me. Like i know it’s the 2000s but damn, no black people fr? edit: yes michel exist i mean within the younger cast, it would’ve been nice to see a black person or more poc in general.
Have you been to Connecticut? And it’s way worse the lack of Asian people at Yale when Yale has a SIGNIFICANT Asian representation. There’s way more Asians in New Haven than black people.
I thought this was only in reference to the guy whose family's dogs were named after them? Or was there more? either way, yeah, totally didn't need to be there. Could have chosen any other pair of names.
The use of the r slur. The fat shaming. The homophobic jokes. The misogyny from the main characters despite them claiming to be feminist.
The "I got the good kid". Or on a less serious note, the pagers. What the heck even is a pager lol
When Lane says her parents are upset over the obscene portion sizes of American food. I watch a lot of K-dramas, they eat a ton. Not just the main dishes, but have you ever been to a Korean BBQ restaurant? They give you like 15 side dishes to go with it. My 9-year-old niece and I love to go get bulgogi when I get to pick her up from school. We get one order between the two of us, and still end up taking some home. It just makes no sense to me.
When they've come back from Europe and they don't have tote bags. Those women in 2024 would have thousands of tote bags.
To be fair Lorelai does lampshade that by saying something like “of course we have tote bags, every woman who’s ever bought $75 worth of Clinique products has tote bags!”
Lols
The body shaming Ik it was " of the era " but it's still there
Yeah and in AYITL it is still there even though it wasn’t that long ago
I'd argue is even worse in AYITL
I could not believe my eyes when I saw the pool scene with the poor Pat (fat). Who thinks it’s funny? How the actress managed to follow that dialogue is beyond me. Might as well made fun of some people with limited mobility or kids with developmental issues.
I don't understand this either. How come nobody objected to this in 20-bloomin-16 is beyond me
I believe it tbh You ever seen Instagram comments ? People are QUICK to attack someone's appearance and weight for no other reason than daring to wear something cute and not frumpy
You’re right. But I don’t need to see that kind of vitriol on my show. I was (probably naively then) hoping actors would be aware of this being a faux pas.
Oh no, I completely agree I'm just explaining why I think people weren't too quick to call it out, because it's normal for some of them to still act like that
Honestly, from what I remember, 2016 was only the very very beginning of when there was any awareness that being fat phobic was bad. For some reason this concept was hard for people to get.
Right? It would be bad enough if it was one random line. But it was a whole dialog and it ended with them actually flinching when he approach them. Simply horrible.
Just watched the season 7 episode where Rory says Lucy must weigh 16 pounds. It was so icky and a weird comment coming from Rory who is also very thin
I get this feeling when Janet says something about exercising and runs off, and Paris says some quippy remark to her, then turns to Rory and says, "I hate that she's thin." As if Paris wasn't also thin, and Rory was probably skinnier than Janet!
The thing that got me is they had sookie, who’s obviously a bigger women and they treated her fairly progressivly and then had so much body shaming around every corner
" we aren't making fun of larger women ! See, our token non-conventionally attractive/not white/not straight character among a very white and conventionally attractive cast "
Yup ALL THE FAT JOKES
Doesn’t lorelai say something about sookie too? That she doesn’t have dating experience because of looks or something Edit: I don’t remember the episode number but ir was before she dated Jackson. It did happen because lorelai apologized after u goofy ass mfs. Lorelai glazing goes crazy
No, Sookie is giving her love advice and Lorelai says something like “how are you an expert, what’s the last time you dated someone?” and immediately realises what a rude and hurtful comment that was so she apologises. (As she should have.) There’s a number of fat jokes in the show in general (especially in Daniel Palladino episodes) but I don’t believe Sookie was ever on the receiving end of them. She’s also dressed well, early 00s costume departments often did fat actresses very dirty and GG is one of the nice exceptions.
I agree with all of this with the exception of what they made her wear and how they did her hair on her and Jackson's first date! 😭 That giant updo and the style and cut of that dress were redonkulously gaudy given how many amazing outfits and cute pieces and hairstyles they gave her before that episode / for a few more seasons after [Edit for typo, albeit for an unofficial word]
I see. I just assumed so because I wouldn’t be surprised if a joke like that existed, since I realize that Gilmore girls was at a time where the beauty standard and body goals were very mean and preferred extremely skinny girls. I don’t get why people dislike stuff instead of just commenting like you did. Thanks. I also naturally assumed sookie wasn’t having a lot of bfs because of her weight, since the show is old and because of the fucked up standards back then. I see some older tv shows where a normal sized girl will be called “plus sized” and so just for having some arm fat. Forgive me
How often they use the word r*tard or Emily equates a negative trait with being foreign
To be fair, Emily is racist and it was supposed to be offensive. I think people just don’t like acknowledging that about her because they like her.
Yes. I think because it comes from a place of social/financial class and wasn't explicitly about hatred of race and ethnicity that has people trying to minimize it. But classism definitely intersects with racism, misogyny, and xenophobia and I think we do ourselves a disservice if we believe only the worst of the worst engage in problematic behavior.
America is kind of special in that our racism and classism are so tied together because of chattel slavery and anti-Black/racist laws that are slowly being removed (sorta, but not really as we are seeing with this corrupt govt). It just happens that the laws created by the upper echelon happened to have been broad enough (by design) that it hit some white people as well and thus our class system is occupied by many races and ethnicities. It's not unique to America, of course, but our slavery system did something special to it.
Is it that special? I feel like it's kind of built into capitalism - which is not exclusive to America over say, England. I do think because America took so long to abolish slavery that we do see it differently, but I would argue that the intersection of forms of bigotry is not exclusive to the US and almost a design of pure capitalism.
Our slavery was indeed special compared to other forms ofnslavery around the world. I'm notndaying america is exclusively racist but racism in America is built into the core of the country. Racism literally built the country and is the foundation of the country. Not every country has the perigee that we do.
I agree - I just think racism is more baked into other western world powers than you're giving them credit for.
Slavery built Damm near every country in the world. It is not unique to America.
Slavery is not unique to America, but slavery based solely on race is.
No, it isn't. Ffs it wasn't even Americans who brought slaves over here initially.
https://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-02-12.htm
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/19/magazine/history-slavery-smithsonian.html
https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/historical-foundations-race
Yes, it was.
Exactly- just like when she keeps referring to Lane as "Rory's Asian friend" and Rory keeps looking at her with a furrowed brow and says "Lane" each time Emily says it.
[удалено]
Thank you for proving my point that people don’t want to acknowledge that of her. If anyone in real life talked about “foreign” people the way Emily does, they would be considered racist. If someone makes racist comments, but then says “I’m not racist, I have a black friend,” they’re still racist.
Seriously. There's the whole thing with Rory's 21st where Emily refers to Lane as her "Asian friend". She can somehow remember Dean/Jess/Paris/etc in various conversations, but Lane is the "Asian friend". This on top of all of the stuff with the maids.
Heck, Rory corrects her and she says it again a minute later. It was definitely intentional and yes racist
I feel like they tried to remedy this in AYITL with Emily letting Berta's *entire* family live with her and her only complaint is "no one knows what she's saying"
firing the maid who spoke spanish and hiring one from Romenia just because Rory was making conversation with her...
Romania\* And yes, Emily was definitely racist. Also, fun fact: the name "Draguta" doesn't exist in Romania. The word "draguta" just means "cute" or "pretty" or "nice"
> Emily equates a negative trait with being foreign it aged just fine because it wasn't glorified. It was always portrayed as her negative trait. Even in today's world, if a character did the same it wouldn't have been wrong to portray that. And no, it doesn't have to be spelled out to a viewer that 'this is bad,' viewer should be able to understand that from the context its portrayed in. The current trend of spelling everything out for a viewer is dumbing down content.
This ^ Emily would also be racist if it were written now. It’s not the show saying “these views are acceptable” but a realistic part of her character. It shouldn’t take too much media literacy to understand this.
Finally, someone who gets it. I remember Luke’s reaction to breastfeeding and Lorelei saying he’d remain a bachelor if the sight of a woman’s breast freaked him out. Comments like “that would never be shown today” were exhausting. A shitty character trait doesn’t mean the show condones the behavior or promotes narrow-minded views. I don’t want to watch infallible characters with no growth potential.
Right! I totally agree. Good writing does not have be literal and should show-not-tell. But I also think it's interesting to think about when and how the writers made other characters in the scene react to problematic lines and opinions. Whether it's our main characters or someone else entirely, they usually used the tension of a different opinion to tell the viewer which opinion is (in their opinion) the good/better/ethical/reasonable one. Like with @Cheesecake2027's example, Lorelai and Rory's eye rolls at Luke affirm for the audience that Luke's reaction to the breastfeeding is immature. Lorelai telling Emily that it was "heinous" of her to associate with a known Nazi (which if you don't remember, Emily then replies "No, dear, *that* was a joke") is meant to affirm for the viewer that Nazism is bad (which is such a lacklustre way of putting that, but anyway), etc., etc. Soo all if this to say! -- When I think of some jokes and scenes where there *isn't* that tension, where there isn't a character being posed as foil in response to the "problematic" language or choice... Then do I really trust the writers' have included it as commentary and critique of a character or issue? (Spoiler: not usually)
Perhaps, but I honestly can’t think of an example like that where Emily is racist (the point we are discussing here) where it’s included just to give “colour”. I also think given the wider reaction to Emily’s character, we have have enough context to understand that her views on this aren’t acceptable, without another character literally having to spell it out for us each time.
I think I agree with this take. They aged fine and well because Emily is racist and classist. (Because racism is about the meaning you assign to a person's racialization) What I don't know is how brazen the writers would be today because I think the difference is that the writers *still felt comfortable writing her racist jokes in that they believed most of those jokes were still funny*, even if they wrote them as racist jokes to critique or affirm Emily's racism and classism.
This is part of Emily tho, she’s always shown some of her racist side, so I don’t think this counts since it’s a character trait.
Any mention of mental health, including Rory’s therapy session and how she talks about it. Jokes about psychiatric meds, etc.
And it doesn't get better. They were mocking in in AYITL which was 2016
Came here to say this! "LORELAI: You can evaluate a significant experience that’s had an impact on you…or you can write about a person who has had a significant influence on you. RORY: You? LORELAI: Or one of your authors, Faulkner or… RORY: Or Sylvia Plath. LORELAI: Hm, might send the wrong message. **RORY: The sticking her head in the oven thing?** **LORELAI: Yeah. Although she did make her kids a snack first, shows a certain maternal instinct. (Episode 3.3)"**
Sookie’s baby pager lol. A confusing concept to people born after a certain era
I loooove seeing those kinds of things- the pagers, telephones with cords, typewriter 😂, DSL, phone books, blackberry phones, calling yourself to leave a voicemail, etc. it’s all soo nostalgic!
"Well, we like our Internet slow, okay? We can turn it on, walk around, dance, make a sandwich. With DSL, there's no dancing, no walking, and we'd starve."
😆 it’s so true.
My favorite thing was when Lane was working and she said she left her cell phone at home on purpose.
I’m actually nostalgic for that stuff
The Indian food, you'll have to burn the house down comments are just... yuck.
it was so weird how multiple characters acted like Rory was a crazy person for enjoying Indian food
As a young Indian girl who was in love with the show at the time, I remember being weirdly defensive of that joke, idk why. Like some kind of coping mechanism. I didn’t want my white friends to see me as different than them, I wanted to be “one of the good ones” so I’d laugh alongside the racist jokes and be like “lol ya omg so true, Indian food is so gross hahaha see! I can take a punch accept me please!” Now I look back on it and cringe lmao, the joke was just flat racist. And I’m not quick to call things racist but it is. Indian food is objectively delicious and enjoyed by such a huge global population. And it’s not like they’re cooking the damn food in the house, they’re just eating it! The smell isn’t that strong 🤦♀️ I think what hurt the most about that joke was that it was coming from Lorelai and Jess, who we’re supposed to look to as the cultured, knowledgeable characters with great taste. If the comment had come from Emily and Richard I honestly wouldn’t have minded it at all because that kind of ignorance is expected from them.
I looooveee Indian food. But the smell is definitely strong lol
I don’t think they are suggesting it is “gross” as far as the taste, just that it smells more pungent than American food due to the spices used? Either way, it’s not racist to not like a type of food or to point out if a type of food smells stronger than others. Like it literally has nothing to do with someone’s skin, just observable reality. I happen to enjoy Indian food and Thai food, but it is true that when I cook those types of food the smell is much, much stronger than most other foods I cook. As a result, I usually cook them with the windows open if I can, and don’t do it all that often, and plan not to if I don’t want my house to smell. Growing up I went to a dayhome run by an Indian woman and the home always smelled very strongly of Indian food and had a distinctly different smell than my other friend’s homes who were not Indian. The reason I personally thought the joke was weird was because if it’s takeout it’s not going to have the same effect on your house as it would if you were personally cooking it. GG is always using random hyperbole as humor. I really don’t think we need to read that much into it. If you or someone else is personally offended or upset because it happens to be your culture and then you feel a sense of embarrassment or something about it, that doesn’t mean it’s “racist”. It just doesn’t. We need to start being intellectually honest about these topics.
I commented on this below but there are racial undertones imo. Burning the house down definitely implies it has a bad smell. I've been in many white homes that also have food smell but i'd never joke about it.
OK, so I actually agree with you on a lot of points. I do agree that it’s not racist to not like a type of food, 100% on the same page there. It’s a weird concept for me because I am a huge foodie so I love all global cuisines. There are of course certain ingredients or perhaps certain dishes that I don’t love, but it would never occur to me to wholly group an entire cuisine by saying something like “I don’t like Vietnamese food!” because I find something I like in every cuisine. I think grouping a whole country/culture’s cuisine and saying you don’t like it as a whole with such disgust is a little bit insensitive and impolite, but I totally agree in that I don’t think that in itself isn’t racist at all whatsoever. The stereotype of Indian food (and Indians themselves) smelling pungent and off putting has been a common one applied to us. Honestly I remember being so paranoid about smelling that I showered obsessively, applied deodorant obsessively, perfume, mouthwash, altoids, etc. And family didn’t even cook Indian food often at all lol, it was actually a rare treat in our house because my parents worked so much. The thing about Indians being smelly had been this stereotype that most Indian Americans are very aware of and sensitive too. I never even brought lunch to school (I always ate school lunches) but I remember my Indian friends ostracized “EWWWW your lunches are so gross!!” It was a pretty pervasive part of the Indian-American experience. And by the way, I say all of this as someone who totally enjoys racial humor and all kinds of comedy lol. I loved Apu on the Simpsons, all the Indian jokes on The Office and New Girl, Russell Peters calling us cheap, the list goes on. If the joke is funny, I’ll laugh. The running gag of Indian food on the GG episode felt weirdly hurtful to me because I think it came at a time when many young Indian Americans felt that they didn’t have any identity other than being curry-smelling punchlines. And I was kind of sad to see it coming from a show I loved so much and from characters I looked up to so much. I never saw race growing up as a 90s latchkey kid. I’m not one of those people who’s like “I wish I could see people who look like ME” on television because I actually hate that mentality, I see people for more than what they look like or how they superficially relate to me. I related so hard to Lorelai and Rory despite us being from completely different worlds. So the running gag felt like this subtle rejection that if I were ever in their lives, me and my household would become a punchline in theirs. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it. 🤷♀️ maybe it was just a joke I didn’t find funny. Maybe I’m partially annoyed because canonically I feel Jess and Lorelai would actually love Indian food lmao, ESPECIALLY Jess being from New York lol
I can respect your point of view and experience for sure, and really appreciate that you’re not coming from a standpoint of trying to find offense wherever possible - a mark of a lot of today’s online culture, sadly.
Thank you, yes! I argued this with someone on this sub not too long ago and a small army of Redditors jumped on me to tell me I was exaggerating and it was not offensive to say "the truth"
I am Indian myself and growing up at that time eating that kind of food made me feel very ashamed of my culture. Now I have people telling ME all about it and what I should try.
god wypipo so predictable it’s actually boring
To be fair Indian food (my fave) has a very strong smell that lingers for hours. That’s what he meant. Same goes for Thai food
It’s not like simply eating the takeout in your home is gonna waft up your house lol. Cooking it in your home definitely has a much stronger smell but many households cook Indian food in their homes every day. You can open the windows lol
Yeah like buying Indian takeout does not make your home smell lol. Cooking it, sure. But just buying it? Definitely not.
And also to be fair ...Indian food was NOT prevalent in that time period, especially in CT
Why must it be prevelant ? Stars hollow has a reputation for being quirky it’s very possible that a small town would have one exotic cuisine
Burning the house down implies it has a bad smell tho, which is not the case imo. You wouldn't see that kind of joke for homes that smell like soup or casserole. And I certainly didn't make comments or jokes about that when I was younger.
It does smell though 😂 I mean it smells yummy and delicious but it’s not exactly a smell you want lingering any more than cigarette smoke. As someone who grew up in a cosmopolitan city and around all those aromas I’d say it’s a fairly harmless joke coming from Jess but I’m not one for political correctness to an extreme 🤷🏻♀️
Luke’s toxic but fragile masculinity, homophobia, the way he wanted girls play soccer “like girls” meaning graceful or some other shit. Emily’s treatment of maids being played for laughs The show basically has no diversity I get that’s a show about privileged white people but it looks very weird that Michel is the only black character in the whole show who’s also a stereotypical gay person (as well as stereotypical French person) even though he spent most of his time in the closet. Mrs Kim being a stereotypical Asian mother. Saying that there is no electricity in South Korea and some other dumb shit. The vasectomy plot line!!!! The list goes on and on and on…
I liked Luke so much more in the earlier seasons; it didn't feel like he had those traits initially but they slid him more into early 2000's "stereotypical dude" nonsense as time went on.
Yeah by season 6, I was actually over him and Lorelai.
also Luke being weird out by woman breastfeeding on the dinning
AYITL reports in: Hold my beer The Luke surrogate thing. Sheesh.
Omg YES!!! It just looks sooo weird like WTF is wrong with this man. That weird 00s writing is why I hate his character so much.
Found my people. I don't like Luke either, and I always get downvoted for it on this sub.
Me too! I hate Luke and I’ll stand by it with you 🙌🏻 I don’t understand how people overlook so much crappy behavior from him. He beats up minor and his customers. He’s a freaking threat to society and a POS
I definitely feel like his behaviour is problematic and is a harmful stereotype. It's dangerous for young impressionable people thinking that someone with that much explosive anger has a heart of gold underneath that molten hot temper the will never be used against the ones they love. I don't think Luke the character is abusive towards Lorelai, but real people like Luke tend to be abusive. I still like them together and I think he's a good guy underneath the shitty behavior, but I wish they had addressed it and had him work on it instead of making it seem endearing. But every time I say anything to that effect on this sub I also get downvoted and comments about how lots of people like Luke exist and they get a bad wrap. Lol.
You’re are so right! If his shitty behavior got addressed and he change even a little bit he’s character would’ve been so much better. But the way they never did that I can’t even root for him and Lorelei
I thought that was the direction they were heading when he was reading the self help books and started being more open with Lorelai about how he was feeling. Then season 7 came along and set fire to all the progress he had made.
Yeah the self help book plot line kinda when nowhere and I got really disappointed. They could’ve pick it up in AYITL. Especially since they’ve got Lorelei to therapy sort of. He could’ve and should’ve gone to therapy too. It didn’t look like they “fixed” any issues with their relationship with Lorelei…
Oh yeah, I forgot about how actually disturbing I found it when he said (I got this quote from a website because 8 couldn't remember it verbatim so feel free to fact check) “Before this thing goes on, you gotta realise: the only way out is in a body bag.”.. And she just breezed past it and was like "I think we should get married" da fuq? How is that not a conversation??? How is that not terrifying? It worked out because she wasn't going to leave him, but like... That's straight up threatening.
I wouldn’t say that’s a case of things not ageing well. I think some men are just weird like that 😂 my gay best friend once asked me if “I’m gonna leave that there” he was referring to a pregnancy test which I’d thrown away in the bin of an airbnb we were renting 😂
Came here to say this 🚩
>the way he wanted girls play soccer “like girls” meaning graceful or some other shit. devil's advocate here. He thought that at first but was put in his place and accepted his mistake. I think that's appropriate portrayal of someone who believes in something wrong and is corrected. > The show basically has no diversity I get that’s a show about privileged white people not everything has to be diverse. We are allowed to have shows with all white/black/hispanic/asian cast. It's perfectly okay. Plus, the show was fairly diverse for a small CT town which would've been fairly white. You've got black and asian characters, gay character, etc. > Saying that there is no electricity in South Korea and some other dumb shit. it was a massive plothole. For a long time, it sounded like it was implied that Kims were from North Korea (the way it was described) so when Lane was going to visit, it was just weird because it didn't make sense. They portrayed South Korea as North Korea. So odd.
on the diversity thing, i live in a very small charming Ontarian town just like stars hallow, and there is about the same amount of diversity in SH as here lol, and this is 2024 so 🤷♀️
Exactly. So over the diversity discourse in SH, lmao.
and really it was 20 years ago, the fact that we can look back and call certain things out like this shows how much our society and views have changed. So i don't think we should focus on how decades old shows "missed the mark", and instead probably focus on just creating more diverse shows now. No point complaining about something that has long since passed... shows now, however, we can definitely ask for more diversity i think
Ok he did realize he was kinda wrong but he’s revelation that GIRLS CAN PLAY SPORTS TOO is still way too patronizing. Ok I don’t live in a small town in Connecticut so I don’t know how diverse the neighborhoods are but it’s still looked weird to me. Maybe the writers didn’t care enough to specify which Korea it was. In my mind it could’ve never been North Korea as they could not have go back or visit family and or keep in touch. But the no electricity line looks dumb as fuck🤦🏼♀️ even for North Korea. I don’t know much about North Korea but I’m guessing they do have at least the ability to have electricity. I imagine most people living in rural areas do not have stable electricity or enough money to pay for it but they do know what it is. Basing my option on North Korea on some books of “defectors” I’ve read a while ago.
>Ok he did realize he was kinda wrong but he’s revelation that GIRLS CAN PLAY SPORTS TOO is still way too patronizing. the thing is that he was proven wrong. People/Characters have these opinions and it's okay to show them that way. It would've been outdated if he wasn't proven wrong. What makes it not outdated is that he changes his opinion and his opinion is shown as wrong. > In my mind it could’ve never been North Korea as they could not have go back or visit family and or keep in touch. that's literally what I said. That at first they implied North Korea's condition to later change it to South Korea. Which is why it's a major plot hole. > But the no electricity line looks dumb as fuck🤦🏼♀️ even for North Korea. I don’t know much about North Korea but I’m guessing they do have at least the ability to have electricity. Then I would suggest you don't make assumptions because if you knew anything about North Korea you would know it's not a crazy claim to make even today. Even in more developed African countries, electrical cuts for long periods of time during the day are not uncommon in today's world.
I love Luke but calling things or people out as gay made me cringe so much 😔
So much fragile masculinity and homophobia!! And nearly exclusively homophobia toward gay men!!! Like Rory gossiping with Richard at the club about how "Mr Neville likes all things frilly"? And Richard's disturbance, because "good god, he's my broker"?? Lorelai telling Rory "well, then he's gay" because Dean apparently told her something her eyes and a sweater (idfk it's when she's tryna throw away a bunch of stuff after the first break up with Dean and Lorelai's trying to convince her not to) Max sarcastically telling Lorelai (after a quip about how being a girl is hard, but at least she doesn't need to be in a gay pride parade to wear a skirt) that she should be open to the world changing, how when that change does happen he'll applaud "those who do" (i.e. gay men dress femme or who in general express themselves freely), "and then"... "and then" he'll ...... "cross the street really quickly so no one sees [him] with them"? Michel being appalled by the drag queens at Lorelai's bachelorette party (which EYE have a fun gay head canon about, in which Michel's reaction is just toxic masculinity and hatred for femme-ness that is still rampant in queer and gay men culture). Idk there's so much more. There so so much. It's so annoying. I so love this show and I'm so so gay and it's *so* so annoying to hear over and over again.
I know! Me too! So annoying and upsetting. I love 00s shows for their comforting analog life vibe but the homophobia and fragile masculinity and transphobia is all other them. And little by little it chips away from the experience🥺
Just watched the episode where Kurt is watching Lulu's dog. And Luke refers to his 'gay bag'. It bugs me every time.
The article about the ballerina that Rory wrote. How everyone thought it was hilarious, when it was gross body shaming and bullying.
This bugs me more than her having an affair with Dean or Logan or dropping out of Yale
Personally I don’t care if jokes age well or not. GG wouldn’t be what it is, nor would any other show of the past, if it was made with modern sensibilities in mind. In 20 years people are going to be asking the same question about shows made in present day.
Thiss 👐
yepp. And, not that this is right, but a lot of this stuff was just normalized. And that is why people keep talking about it because as society and cultures change we look back on the past with disgust and cringe- we have literally always done it. Even back to the 13th century or whatever. We should focus on how much better things have gotten, it isn't perfect, no, but the fact we can look back and call these things out, shows how much we have changed over the last 20 years 🤷♀️ And as you said, people will ask the same questions in the next 20 years lol
“I need to find a r*tarded kid and teach him how to play softball!” “like ‘stop eating the paste’ special?” Are two lines that immediately came to mind Edit to add: “the red head has fat thighs” oooof
All the fat shaming and Lorelai’s helicopter parenting.
What’s helicopter parenting?
It’s when a parent hovers over their kid and doesn’t respect boundaries, wanting to be in all their business and be involved in all their decisions. It happens a lot with college students, with parents trying to do everything for them, and find out about their grades and things from admissions even when their kid doesn’t want them to.
Wow! This is my mother! Thanks for telling meee
The way Dean being angry that time Jess crashed Rory’s car was played for laugh and it was supposed to be “oh its just boys being boys, the testosterone”. Also Jess SA Rory for “plot” reasons, the scene is suppose to show Jess hitting rock bottom by hurting even the ones he loves, but this just makes SA be about the abuser instead of the victim, the show barely acknowledged that Rory was assaulted, they just focus on how this affected Jess Oh and the vasectomy storyline with Sookie
Thank you for mentioning this!! The jess plot has alwaysss annoyed me and no one says anything about it on this sub. And the vasectomy storyline was such a violation of trust swept under the rug.
Yessss! I hate how no one ever says anything about Jess trying to SA Rory! Everyone loves to hate on Dean but no one points out Jess and Logan did their fair share of shitty things as well.
I think all the male fights in general. Dean and Tristan, Dean and Jess, Luke and Chris, Luke and Dean. Its like the only way they think men can express themselves is with anger and violence. Also Luke beating up a car, the way Dean treated Rory and Lindsay. Its major red flag behaviour and a little scary ngl
whenever i’ve brought it up ppl get extremely defensive and claim she wasn’t SA’ed just bc they love jess—the mental gymnastics they do to justify what happened is truly concerning like babes this goes BEYOND a tv show. please recognize this isn’t normal behavior and watch out for the red flags in case (god forbid!) you’re ever in danger?!
A Vineyard Valentine is pretty much wall to wall some of the worst aspects of the show.
But that was always bad! No aging necessary😆
I guess it's only gotten *worse*, it aged like rotten eggs lol
Luke absolutely flipping out about public breastfeeding.
I read the scene as Luke obviously displayed as being in the wrong, since other characters are making fun of him for it, no?
yes i remember lorelai and rory making fun of him haha
I literally rewatched this episode two nights ago. The last time I saw it was probably years ago, before I was a mom. Now I'm like "wow, Luke. Not cool at all"
However we still have plenty of public breastfeeding shaming going on so still totally relevant
Idk this is more like I grew up but I never thought it was weird that Rory came home all the time when she was in college or that she went to Friday night dinners. Once I was in college I realized that is so unrealistic and low key unhealthy. I get that they had to do it for the sake of the show but all I can think about is how everyone at Yale must think she is weird for going home all the time.
Maaaaaybe unrealistic - although we could argue that Rory wasn't very sociable, so typical student weekends of partying and whatnot were not her thing - but why unhealthy? I was 4 hours away from home when I went to university and lots of people I knew used to go home at least once a month, to see their family and friends back home.
Yeah it’s definitely in line with her character. I think it is borderline unhealthy because an important part of college and that time of life is gaining independence and forming new bonds. She struggles with this and often runs home when things are hard. I wish we could’ve seen Rory find her people at Yale because you just know there were plenty of folks who there who also loved to sniff old books lol.
Wow downvotes for my opinion? This sub is so wild
I have a friend in university who goes home all the time (~2 hour drive) and I don't think it's weird. I'm curious as to why you think going home to see your family so often is strange? Also Friday night dinners were a requirement for her getting money to go to Yale. Not exactly weird.
I think it’s super weird that her grandparents had that rule because irl they would’ve known that one of the main reasons to go to Yale is for the connections, which are generally formed outside of class. In fact, the way residential colleges work at it would be odd for someone to missing dinner so frequently as that’s a big aspect of the culture. The dining hall isn’t 24/7 and dinner is at a set time. I guess I’m biased here because I went to Yale and it was common fodder that it was so unrealistic and weird lol.
You act as if Richard and Emily actually think of anything past their own wants and needs. Yes, they wanted Rory to make connections, but they would just expect her to do that any other time. When they wanted something, like FND, that was the most important thing and everything else came second
You act as if the dinners don’t just exist as a plot device to get all the characters in one scene
Nah. I went to school 8 hours away and was home every other weekend. It’s normal. Just because you leave doesn’t mean you can’t be independent while maintaining your relationships. She’s like 45 mins away, you totally go home because you need to get away from your roommates and just because you’re in college, that doesn’t mean you give up on your responsibilities, which Friday Night Dinner was.
I don't think it's unrealistic at all. Heck, A lot of kids live at home and go to college. Granted, that's much more common now because of the economy, but it definitely wasn't unheard of in the early 2000s. If kids went to college close to home, and actually got along with their family, they would visit often to see friends, family, do laundry, have a home cooked meal. The show kind of implies that Rory goes home about once a month or so, which I don't think is all that strange. The FND was a must for her though, so she really had no choice
Meh. It depends on how far away you live and what kind of college/university you went to. There was a popular university about an hour and a half from my hometown, which was also in a small town itself. Because so many people from the university frequently made the trip for some kind of occasion (family members or Friends birthday, random parties / events) a lot of people would car pool if they didn't have anything else going on in particular. A lot of them retained friends from home that stayed, were in their last year of high school, coming home for a break from a different university, etc. Also doing laundry and eating at their parents usually was cheaper and way better then campus stuff, especially if they had roommates. It's a jump to just immediately assume something is unhealthy when it can also just be convenient. Some people are also just close with their family. I can't relate but I have a hard time labeling someone unhealthy because they want to see their family and do laundry for free and use a dishwasher instead of scrubbing everything by hand in their cheapass apartment. Yale is in a college town canonically like a couple hours away from her small hometown. That is almost a 1 to 1 of what I witnessed a lot of my friends go through. Sure there were a lot of them that were a little too connected and tethered and weird about it, but like, I'm not going to say an 18-21 year old is acting unhealthy by visiting their parents/hometown friends frequently if it's only a hour or so drive. Not visiting when you live so close is actually the weird thing that points to an unhealthy dynamic, it implies running away and hating your parents/hometown. I did when I left, but I'm not going to judge others who have normal loving relationships with their parents and a good feeling about their hometown, that's kind of the ideal.
Her mom says before she goes to Yale that she’ll be spending her weekends at home when Sherri mentions they’re place is 2 Mi from Harvard (when Harvard was still the plan). She literally comes home because Loralai demands it. Once a month / holidays isn’t abnormal but most weekends is and while maintaining her friendship with Lane would be reasonable, she should have made more friends at Yale.
FND was over pretty early - especially when you’re in college. We see her have plans after - it was probably over by 8 or 9 and and the night is just getting started.
https://preview.redd.it/np4oyjeuob9d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=934b05b0a46a54bb432f505dd824dfb95aa0452d In Season 7, where Lorelei “recreates Asia” in their own home for Rory after Rory’s trip to Asia with Logan gets canceled. That whole getup makes you laugh and shudder at the same time lol. This coupled with the fact that Emily refers to Lane as “your Asian friend, Rory”. 😂🤣
Was this bad? I actually thought this was really sweet. Her mom was just having a bit of fun, and Rory wanted to see Asia for the culture (which obviously Lorelai couldn’t recreate).
It wasn’t bad at all. How plentiful would the “authentic” Asian decorating items be in small town Connecticut? And she wasn’t planning some big event, like Rory’s DAR shindig in season 6 was, she was throwing something together to make her kid laugh/feel better.
Yea, I can forgive Lorelai for this one because it feels like Lorelai is making fun of herself and pop culture, not actually implying that any of it is really representative of the actual countries.
Yeah exactly this ☝️
Yeah I don’t think this was bad at all. It’s not like she would have access to authentic things from every Asian country. She tried to include elements from various countries Rory was set to visit so it’s not as though it would be accurate to strictly Japan or strictly Thailand or something.
People who are offended with these Asian decor are mostly non-asians... Being an Asian myself I can't care less about how other people decorate their homes let alone just a temporary themed party. What's the difference between that and decorating for Christmas if you're not religious?
I don’t quite agree with your analogy. I don’t think most Christians are offended over non-religious people using traditional Christmas decorations. I think for most folk, they realize that Christmas has become so commercialized that those religious symbols don’t have the same meaning anymore. Most people just view Christmas Trees, stockings and gift giving as non-religious symbols now. As opposed to Lorelai’s outdated views of Asia. I realize that episode was a product of that time and people weren’t as sensitive to those things and I concede to that. It’s just find it funny how Lorelai always called Emily and Richard out on their outdated beliefs; this episode didn’t deeply offend me, just made me cringe.
And take out Chinese food and hello kitty are not commercialized? Still not sure what is there to be sensitive about in that scene.
Yes, Lorelei is quirky & and the gesture was nice. Just looking at this scene through the lens as an Asian American. I did laugh but also cringed too. Just personally don’t think this scene would fly today. 🤷🏻♂️
lmao is that the woman from grey's anatomy on the wall? i literally just noticed this
Yes it is! It’s Canadian-Korean-American superstar, Sandra Oh.
This scene didn't bother me much. Emily's line did, though, considering she MET LANE before. Lol!
The Indian food comments are also not great.
Also an Asian American here and feel the same way you do… I found this fun and quirky when I was younger but now it just seems mega cringe. Not sure how anyone in the comments responding to this doesn’t also find it cringe and distasteful
the racism, the fat jokes, the r word jokes
What is the R word?
It rhymes with "He farted"
I wanna say "fat jokes" but I no longer consider them jokes... and although I don't think they aged well, the rest of Reddit (outside this sub) still seems to think they are legitimately funny
The fat shaming, the slight homophobia. I really REALLY wish they kept Eco conscious liberal Luke , I would’ve loved to have more of those comments instead of just be grumpy about everything, cause some of the comments he made early on just hit so much harder now.
Yes! I miss this version of Luke. I feel like they wanted to make him more stereotypical and thought this way, he would be funnier. Well, bad decision
Haha I was just surprised to hear the midwife Bruce ask lorelai if she wanted sookie's baby to be retarded and lorerai said no I want it to be tarded. Haha I completely forgot this exchange.
Man I must have blocked that out because I don't remember that at all
Yeh before the first baby was born
Just everything about Colin and Finn. I used to think maybe they were intentionally portrayed as unlikeable, but then they got that incredibly loving send-off in AYITL, which makes me think we were supposed to see them as lovable goofballs all along, and not as the probable sex pests they are
The body shaming, the food wasting, the shaming for having intercourse, Paris dating her professor, Jackson lying about vasectomy
The shaming for having intercourse yes 👏 think it’s a reflection of the time but wish they hadn’t if ASP really wanted to showcase feminism.
so i’m a redhead with thicker thighs so when rory was all “the redhead has fat thighs” i was like 🫠
"You and Christopher are like a poster for Aryan breeding."
100% the worst line in the whole show.
Body shaming, homophobia and transphobia.
“What’s with the gay bag?”
The very negative attitude to sex
Came here to say they! Literally every "first time" they have written into the plotline is a disaster. Also the scene where Lorelei overhears Rory & Paris talking about Paris having sex and she says "I got the good kid" Shudder
Naming a character after a racial slur. (G*psy) It was *everywhere* in the early 2000s, still gets used a lot today especially in witchy/"free spirit" spaces, unfortunately
the lack of diversity truly blows me. Like i know it’s the 2000s but damn, no black people fr? edit: yes michel exist i mean within the younger cast, it would’ve been nice to see a black person or more poc in general.
Um Michel?
It’s not many but… Mrs. Kim, Lane, Michel, Gypsy
Have you been to Connecticut? And it’s way worse the lack of Asian people at Yale when Yale has a SIGNIFICANT Asian representation. There’s way more Asians in New Haven than black people.
Where max makes the comment about seeing a guy in a dress. He'd salute them but cross the street to avoid them.
Every time they mention Leopold and Loeb in a joke like they didn’t murder a child.
I thought this was only in reference to the guy whose family's dogs were named after them? Or was there more? either way, yeah, totally didn't need to be there. Could have chosen any other pair of names.
They joke lorelai will have twins named leopold and loeb I think? They mention it multiple times and I’m like please stop.
Oh wow that must have gone over my head completely. That it was brought up even once in the show is gross.
I feel like Lorelei made a lot of “gay jokes” that always make me cringe when I hear them.
Sookie getting pregnant because Jackson lied about the vasectomy.
Lane being a self hating Korean is awful.
it’s quite representative of a lot of asian american experiences tho i would say
especially since she grew up in a white town
That’s unfortunate.
The use of the r slur. The fat shaming. The homophobic jokes. The misogyny from the main characters despite them claiming to be feminist. The "I got the good kid". Or on a less serious note, the pagers. What the heck even is a pager lol
most of it
When Lane says her parents are upset over the obscene portion sizes of American food. I watch a lot of K-dramas, they eat a ton. Not just the main dishes, but have you ever been to a Korean BBQ restaurant? They give you like 15 side dishes to go with it. My 9-year-old niece and I love to go get bulgogi when I get to pick her up from school. We get one order between the two of us, and still end up taking some home. It just makes no sense to me.
Jokes about homosexuality like when Lorelai says two women kissing each other looks funny
When Lorelai is on the phone with Rory the morning after Jess meets Emily. Rory explains that Jess had a black eye and Lorelai says, “a black guy”