Gilmore Girls was a quirky-yet-popular series when it initially hit the airwaves. It’s lived on thanks to some major streaming runs and also a spinoff series Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life –a program you can still catch with a Netflix subscription. However, while the series has lived on, not everyone is a fan of the show. In fact, a tweet recently went viral absolutely ripping on Lauren Graham’s Lorelei and Alexis Bledel’s Rory, and I have to to admit it rings true.
In a tweet that has a whopping 119K+ likes and more than 6,000 retweets, Gilmore Girls watcher Ellie Schnitt revealed exactly why she feels the series is the worst. (Tweet text updated with capitalization.)
Gilmore Girls is an incredibly stressful show. I do not know why people gear up to watch it every fall like? Do you enjoy watching Lorelei yell at her parents for just wanting to help her? Do u like seeing Rory make every bad decision possible?? This is fun for you???
A few things: I am a giant fan of Gilmore Girls and all of its drama, to the point where I do have a favorite of Rory’s boyfriends (despite Amy Sherman-Palladino telling me not to.) However, despite my deep appreciation of the quippy dialogue and the juicy storylines, the show is built around characters who can often be selfish and in moments deeply distressing because they are not making choices that are the healthiest. Life is messy, but I see why some people are not here for the drama, at all.
While there are a lot of likes on the post, there were plenty of people offended by the Tweet’s premise. A lot of the responses focused on loving the side characters — some of whom blew up after Gilmore Girls wrapped — and small town feel of Stars Hollow. Others said they liked the dramatic vibe and the tweet ripping on the show just does not get the appeal of the series. A few samples:
- Flaws and all, I just want to move to Stars Hollow and attend a town meeting, gossip at Luke’s Diner, and dance under twinkly lights in the gazebo at an adorable town festival. Since I can’t really do that, I’ll rewatch the series a million times and pretend.
- I think it’s the town that’s so comforting. I think we all long for a community like that.
- YES IT IS A CHAOTIC RIDE THAT I ENJOY EVEN IF IT FEELS IM GONNA CRASH EVERY TWO SECONDS.
So the viral tweet’s main case is that Lorelei and Rory are constantly making toxic decisions for themselves, but just in case you wondered, Schnitt also says she’s not giving Lorelei’s parents Richard and Emily a pass.
OK, stop yelling at me I know Richard and Emily are shitty too it just makes me feel sad sometimes when Lorelei assumes bad things about them.
Here, here. I think the basic gist of this series is that most of the main characters are complicated. They have major pros and cons that can lead them to make dramatic (and sometimes bad) choices, which is probably how Gilmore Girls managed to make it to a 20+ episode count every season during its network TV run. (A Year in the Life is only four episodes.)
Lorelei makes dramatic decisions in regards to her relationships, and she’s kind of a jerk to her parents, who by the way, help her out majorly through the events of the series. This is particularly true in regards to Rory, whose schooling is paid for by them. And in exchange all they have to do is show up once a week for dinner, which Lorelei also complains about. She’s constantly picking fights and pushing people away who are close to her, a fact some others have commented on in the same viral Twitter thread.
When you get older and realize Lorelei is the bad guy 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃September 4, 2023
Rory shouldn’t get a pass here, either. She’s inherited some of her mom’s reckless decision-making genes. When it comes to the grandparents, the running joke on the series is that Emily is so finicky she constantly fires her housekeeper and has to replace her. She’s also not prone to being open about her emotions, which makes her come off as hard.
Don’t even get me started on Dean, Jess and Logan’s issues. I’m just saying the crux of this viral tweet is true. Wholeheartedly so, in fact, but that hasn’t deterred me as a fan in the least. I love how complicated the characters are and how they get some moments right and botch others completely. It’s endearing, it’s enduring and I can’t wait to see if there are more stories from Stars Hollow in the future.