Gabriella Bower

A truly one-of-a-kind, quick-witted dram-com that first aired in 2000, Gilmore Girls is more relevant than ever, even after 16 years.  The show centers on Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, a dynamic mother-daughter duo who are best friends first, parent and child second.  Their small Connecticut town of Stars Hallow, its quirky inhabitants, and the girls’ extended family members all play key roles in the lives of the Gilmore girls.  The show was created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, who was able to portray the nuanced lives of everyday women, a rare feature of Hollywood television at the time.  This was also one of the first shows to show a positive and strong bond between a mother and daughter.

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I grew up watching Gilmore Girls with my mom.  Every Tuesday night we would sit down and watch Rory read another book, Lorelai get her heart broken, Luke pine for Lorelai, and Lane sneak out of the watchful eye of her Christian mother to listen to rock and roll CDs.  We watched Rory grow up, from first boyfriends to the Ivy League, and envied Lorelai’s a-typical parenting style.  We empathized with the complexity of other mother-daughter relationships, such as the one between Lorelai and her own mother, Emily, or Lane and Mrs. Kim.  We learned that no family is perfect, and that that was okay.

All seven seasons of Gilmore Girls first came to Netflix on October 1, 2014.  Recently, in addition to these, Netflix announced the arrival of the long-awaited revival of Gilmore Girls, to be streamed exclusively on Netflix in a 4-part mini series.  The series will premier by the end of 2016.  Since the arrival of this news, every media outlet has been speculating about potential plot lines and rejoicing over the return of everyone’s favorite characters.

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This revival could not have come at a more perfect time: Gilmore Girls has been, and always will be, a feminist show.

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This revival could not have come at a more perfect time: Gilmore Girls has been, and always will be, a feminist show.  Gilmore Girls is a way of life just as the fourth wave of feminism.  The main characters are all strong nuanced women, who are just as flawed as they are witty.  Most importantly, the women in this show celebrate each other:

Lorelai and Rory are each other’s biggest fans; whenever they had news, they were each other’s first person to tell.  

While Emily Gilmore may rarely admit it, she was always proud of Lorelai and the life she made for herself, despite the fact that Lorelai made much of it without involving Emily.  (Spoiler: they fixed that.)

Mrs. Kim, the conservative Christian, eventually became Lane’s band manager and helped Lane’s band organize their first tour.

Lorelai and Sookie pushed each other into entrepreneurship when they opened their own inn together.

Paris and Rory competed as classmates from Chilton through Yale, while still remaining close friends.

This show effortlessly placed women in the center of every story line, complete with  witty banter, caffeine, and mistakes.  This show made it okay to like your mom at a time where every show depicted teen angst and mothers as enemies.  Moreover, this show exemplified the power of strong female role models and their impact on raising strong, independent women.  The Gilmore Girls revival is important for many reasons, but most importantly because it will remind the world of the power of women empowering women. 

 

Gabriella Bower is a student at New York University.  Her two passions have always been fashion and philanthropy and she works to incorporate both aspects into her life as often as she can.  Read more of Gabriella’s work ranging from current trends to short essays and social justice oriented posts on her blog Read Between the Hemlines

 

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