From Perfection to Downfall: Gilmore Girls’ Rory Gilmore

Gilmore Girls is one of the series that I wish I started to watch earlier and is one of my comfort series as probably most of us feel the same way. The characters Lorelai and Rory Gilmore are so loved that they become an aesthetic in social media, especially Rory. There have been many aesthetics called “Rory Gilmore reading” or “Rory Gilmore studying” which inspire people, especially young girls. Rory seems to be a good and beneficial source of inspiration because she is depicted as the perfect, well-behaved, and hardworking young lady. But is Rory the perfect and dutiful young girl as perceived? People who watched the show would answer it with a big no answer. While I have been continuing to watch the series on these cold and sweet winter days with a hot chocolate in my hand, I wanted to touch on the life journey of Rory's character from perfection to downfall.

The show starts in a small and sweet town called Stars Hollow where everybody knows each other. As a young member of this small community, Rory was raised as a girl who has always been loved and admired by the other locals of the town. Rory is an extremely kind and the type of person who can’t say no to other people to please them. Her mother, Lorelai, is a young woman who breaks away from traditional child-rearing methods and always approaches Rory as a friend. Lorelai always sees Rory as a special kid and raises her as an independent girl who makes her own decisions because she trusts her infinitely.

Despite all these nice girl images of Rory, there are some conspicuous scenes in the show discomforting the audience. For example, Rory doesn't seem to show the attention she should to her friend Lane and even argues with her about it in one episode. Because Rory is buried in her own world filled with her sweet boyfriend Dean, Chilton School, her mother, and her success. Moreover, Rory and Dean's turbulent events, and the huge reaction the entire town shows to Dean after their first break up show how much Rory is actually taken care of and lives in a protected sphere in the town. Even after Rory cheats on Dean with Jess, she doesn’t seem to face any reaction from others as Dean has had to face.

We can say that Chilton School is the first place where Rory goes from the town to the outside world, the real world. She experiences some friendship and adjustment problems, and we can see that her perfectionism flares up even more there. Upon acceptance into Chilton, Rory becomes a member of the elite group thanks to her grandparents who support her financially and meets different kinds of people. At Chilton, Paris becomes an image for Rory that she is not the only smart and intelligent person, and they mostly compete with each other. Even though Paris has some beef with Rory at first, even Paris starts to like Rory afterward.

Most viewers of the series agree that Rory's biggest problems begin after she is accepted to Yale. Rory steps into adulthood, a bigger, tougher, and more real world. Becoming a member of the Yale Daily News is a big step for her career but when she also makes mistakes there and is criticized by her editor, she faces the reality that she is not as perfect as she was led to believe. Rory, who is consumed by the love of success and admiration, writes a critique of a lead ballerina's abilities and even her body, and the people around her appreciate her for the success of this critique. What I see from Yale-era Rory is that she could do anything to get back the tag of “successful girl” even though this could cross out that polite, “people pleaser” girl tag. Besides, one of her professors advises her to drop the course because she can't handle the course load and will get a low grade on her paper. In this scene, we see Rory's emotional collapse and how her perfectionist image collapses with her. Furthermore, Rory actually becomes so selfish and self-centered that she sleeps with her married ex-boyfriend and makes excuses to justify it.

All these sequences of events are the result of having been raised and labeled as the perfect and nice girl tags. If we approach it more empathetically and look from Rory's perspective, I can say that it is very natural for Rory to make mistakes and be shaken. Because she is a 16-year-old girl who grew up in a bubble, and when she is suddenly thrown into the outside and real world, all of her reality and everything she knows fall apart and transform. This reminds me of lyrics from one of Taylor Swift’s songs called Nothing New which is “How can a person know everything at eighteen but nothing at twenty-two?” Rory thought that she knew everything about life at 16 and could handle it but she realized it was not the case as she grew older.

The fact that the series reflects such a reality is one of the reasons why it is one of my favorite series. Because while we tend to feel more free, knowledgeable, and courageous when we are young, we may feel lost after facing reality and in need of help as we step into adulthood. Thus, while watching the show, we may empathize with Rory and get upset at her at the same time.