Presenting Lorelai Planetar...uh, Gilmore!

[JayInChicago]

Shockingly we really don't seem to have a thread just for Lorelai Gilmore almost Medina Hayden Gilmore.

So I started one. Oy. With the poodles. Already. :)

[Taryn74]

Thanks, Jay!

How about a shallow question to start us off -

Which season (or even episode) do you find Lorelai most attractive?

For me it's probably Season 1.  She still had that "hot young mom" thing going on with her makeup and clothing and her hair was pretty and not-fried (Season 4, I'm looking at you).  Some of her outfits left something to be desired, but overall S1 was a good look for her.

[fitzcarraldo]

Season one, by far. She was the happiest. That she had Sookie as a sane bff still, Rory was not a snot yet.... the I need a man wasn't a thing and she was not lonely. I find her life in season one so appealing. 

[lulu1960]

I loved her in Love and War and Snow when she took her snow walk.

I also thought she was so pretty in the red dress a Rory's graduation.

[junienmomo]

Definitely season 1. I'm obsessed with the purple dress look from the twins wedding. That was also our introduction to the flippy skirt.

The thing about the first season was that she was a person wearing clothes for a rational reason, like looking professional. In later seasons it often looked like she chose 'costumes' trying to look extreme. It gave GG a quirky look, but pushed Lorelai away from human and more towards cartoon character.

Funny thing is, I felt that Rory mostly went in the opposite direction. The later seasons had her dressed prettier. Unless there was a hat involved. Can't remember a Rory hat tha I really liked.

Hated the red dress. It wasn't one of the cartoonish outfits, I just didn't care for it.

Edited July 4, 2016 by junienmomo
Flippy skirt! Not floppy skirt!

[Taryn74]

LOL funny how we're all different.  I hated the purple wedding dress.  It was so tight it looked like she couldn't even breathe and I really hate when sleeves come down over the hands.

[junienmomo]

1 hour ago, Taryn74 said:

LOL funny how we're all different.  I hated the purple wedding dress.  It was so tight it looked like she couldn't even breathe and I really hate when sleeves come down over the hands.

Yeah, but it's nice that we have different opinions. Makes me think.

Talking about tight, I don't know how she sat in some of those jeans or pants. Thank goodness now for stretch fabrics.

[lulu1960]

Well those jeans really worked for Luke. ;)

[fitzcarraldo]

Some of her blouses for work in season five are ill fitting and wrinkled. She looked professional for the Independence Inn.

[moonb]

Lorelai Gilmore, anti-hero? Well, we know she can be immature....

[junienmomo]

1 hour ago, moonb said:

Lorelai Gilmore, anti-hero? Well, we know she can be immature....

Awesome article, moonb. It never occurred to me that some people consider Lorelai to be an archetypal heroine.

Of course she's an antiheroine, mainly because archetypal heros, like Luke Skywalker in the first filmed Star Wars, are boring. Han Solo and Princess Leia, now they were more interesting. Archetypal heros are out, mainly because people are more sophisticated with respect to storytelling. They don't find perfect heros interesting.

Lorelai is an antiheroine, although not as far along on the depravity scale as Walter White of Breaking Bad, or Nancy Botwin of Weeds. Lorelai's troubled-ness lies in her unwillingness to accept her own flaws, not in a willingness to commit murder or deal drugs.

The author correctly identifies Emily as the villain, and not Lorelai, although lots of the villainy is influenced by Lorelai's unwillingness to acknowledge her mother's opinions and work for an improvement (both sides are at fault here.)

Love the statement "we find out that the wonderful, bohemian existence Lorelai makes for herself is actually built on unchecked privilege and the selfish idea that her mother and father are monsters."  Very true and insightful.

The article has some flaws, like giving Richard credit for saving the Dragonfly when all he did was find them a cheaper insurance package. I also don't agree that the attractiveness of vivacity is a sufficient reason to forgive her shortcomings, but we've discussed that here many times in other ways.

There are several conjectures (no spoilers that I can see) on the revival, but I'll take my comments on that over to the revival spoilers thread.

[moonb]

I think Lorelai as a character messes with several fictional tropes. The sacrificing, all-loving mother, for one. Yes, she does sacrifice for Rory in living in uncomfortable circumstances, at least initially, and in not going to a traditional 4 year college. But she also admits that she's happier in her "wonderful bohemian existence" than in her parents' life, and Rory was an obvious excuse to leave. She clearly loves Rory, but makes some destructive romantic decisions without regard for her. She's also self-absorbed and sometimes cruel as the article notes, something that makes people uncomfortable when it comes to fictional mothers. Cruel and narcissistic moms are all over fiction, but they tend to be monsters, and Lorelai is in many ways (arguably) a good mom.  The show makes her a fairy tale-like single former teenage mother, but other commenters have pointed out that we don't really know what she was rebelling against when she left her parents, other than she felt they were controlling and overbearing.  She's a self-made woman, except for being taken in by Mia in the first place, living at the Independence Inn, and having her parents' wealth to assist in helping her daughter become that Ivy League graduate.

Edited July 6, 2016 by moonb

[JaggedLilPill]

21 minutes ago, moonb said:

I think Lorelai as a character messes with several fictional tropes. 

I agree with this statement. As a whole, I don't think Lorelai can be classified as more anti-hero than hero or vice versa. I think if anything, she's just a real person who has some really great attributes and equally has shitty attributes. Yes, Lorelai can be selfish, self-absorbed, controlling at times. She tends to make judgments about people before really getting to know them. On the other hand, she's a good mom, a supportive friend*, and I do believe she has love for her parents. I think a majority of Lorelai's not-so-pleasant qualities - the ones we tend to get stuck on - come from the fact that emotionally, she was stunted at sixteen/seventeen. I think she did a pretty good job raising Rory, and she's a dependable employer/employee, hard-working, but in terms of her romantic relationships and her relationship with Emily and Richard, she responds more like someone who is a teenager. She's not entirely comfortable being emotionally vulnerable, hence why I think she jokes a lot, and when it gets too close for her, like in her relationship with Emily, she rebuffs the advances in a very misguided and therefore, hurtful way.

That being said, no one on this show is perfect and since Lorelai is one of the protagonists, it's probably easier to list her flaws. But being really honest, they all could be assholes at various times and I think they should have substituted town meetings for group therapy sessions. 'Cause really now....

*Most of the time. She had her slip ups there, but she went out on that awful double date with Rune, and didn't strangle Sookie when she missed that stupid sink delivery. She helped Luke search for an apartment, helped him when his uncle died, etc. 

[cuddlingcrowley]

Quote

Which season (or even episode) do you find Lorelai most attractive?

Season 5 and season 6, hands down. After the awfulness that was s4, with terrible look after terrible look combined with their everpresent fried hair, it seems everything finally came together for Lorelai's look at season 5: the hair (dark, shorter, with soft waves), the make-up (simple and flawless) and that gorgeous professional wardrobe with the prettiest coats you will ever see. 

My least favorite year was S4, followed by S7, when I could barely recognize Lorelai.

On another note, I didn't really like the article linked above. I thought it was a simplistic take on Lorelai, at best, and often unnecessarily harsh. 

Edited July 6, 2016 by cuddlingcrowley

[JayInChicago]

i can't figure out how to get rid of the spoiler thing below. I'm mobile.

anyway, wow that article is off the mark when it comes to her treatment of Sookie. Yes, in 7 years she did say an awful thing or two, but who doesn't? 

SPOILER

 

[fitzcarraldo]

I stopped reading at mean to Kirk. She was not mean when he wanted to date her. She helped him with his Lulu date! Let him stay in her house! What show were they watching?

[Taryn74]

2 hours ago, JayInChicago said:

anyway, wow that article is off the mark when it comes to her treatment of Sookie. Yes, in 7 years she did say an awful thing or two, but who doesn't? 

 

I agree. I think they specifically mentioned the "you haven't been in a relationship in years" which I never felt was meant to be mean-spirited. It's not like she said "not like anybody's ever been interested in dating you" or anything like that.  Geesh.

[JaggedLilPill]

Lorelai was nicer to Sookie in certain situations than I would have been. For example, if you insist you need to be there to approve a sink coming from another country, then your ass better be there. I know Davy was still an infant, but it was still under Sookie's insistence that she needed to sign off on it before anything else happened. 

[FictionLover]

So many ways we all see Lorelai.  It makes me wonder how ASP wanted viewers to see her.

[junienmomo]

3 hours ago, Taryn74 said:

I agree. I think they specifically mentioned the "you haven't been in a relationship in years" which I never felt was meant to be mean-spirited. It's not like she said "not like anybody's ever been interested in dating you" or anything like that.  Geesh.

Even Lorelai recognized that it was a horrible thing to say and apologized. Remember "Zero to jackass in 3.2 seconds."

[hippielamb]

6 hours ago, JaggedLilPill said:

 I think a majority of Lorelai's not-so-pleasant qualities - the ones we tend to get stuck on - come from the fact that emotionally, she was stunted at sixteen/seventeen. I think she did a pretty good job raising Rory, and she's a dependable employer/employee, hard-working, but in terms of her romantic relationships and her relationship with Emily and Richard, she responds more like someone who is a teenager. She's not entirely comfortable being emotionally vulnerable, hence why I think she jokes a lot, and when it gets too close for her, like in her relationship with Emily, she rebuffs the advances in a very misguided and therefore, hurtful way.

I agree. Lorelai is a lot easier to understand if you view her actions as a teenage girl. So many times in her relationships with men and the complex relationship with her parents, she acts like a 16 year old. That's her emotional maturity level. I love her, flaws and all.

I wonder sometimes that articles overly criticizing a popular character are done to get clicks, shares, etc for more ad revenue. Or maybe the writer really doesn't like Lorelai and wants to paint her as horrible, while Emily, Kirk, and Sookie are apparently models of behaviour. Of course, I like the anti-heroes the writer compared Lorelai to. Maybe that makes me simple, I generally like the protagonists of shows I love.

Anyway. Oh a much more lighthearted note,  I liked season 3 fashion the best. Season 4 I liked for the change in style, a little more dressy but still casual (the Pink Coat!). Season 1 I liked her kooky style but the make-up was unflattering. I didn't care for the wrap dresses in season 5 and onward. There was an interview with a costume designer on one of the dvds and she said that Lorelai's later wardrobe reflected her sophistication. It makes sense though I prefer her more casual style.

[Taryn74]

12 minutes ago, hippielamb said:

I wonder sometimes that articles overly criticizing a popular character are done to get clicks, shares, etc for more ad revenue.

Bingo! Unless somebody actually recommends one, I don't even bother with those kinds of articles anymore because they're usually really stupid, and most of the time are obviously written by people who are - at best - only casual fans of the show.

Heh, I remember one I read a few months ago, was titled something about "glaring mistakes that even the most diligent GG fans overlooked".  Most of them were things we've discussed ad nauseam, which I expected.  One of them was something about the band t-shirt Lane's lame date Todd was wearing to the movies. Apparently that particular band never released t-shirts.  That's their idea of a glaring mistake?  Okay then.  LOL.  

[junienmomo]

46 minutes ago, Taryn74 said:

Bingo! Unless somebody actually recommends one, I don't even bother with those kinds of articles anymore because they're usually really stupid, and most of the time are obviously written by people who are - at best - only casual fans of the show.

Click vultures are the worst, with bustle leading the list. Second are the ones who think every revival cast announcement is a spoiler. Very annoying.

What I found to be very good about this particular Vanity Fair article is it was balanced, even though it bugged the Saint Lorelai group. 

The article was based on a sound storytelling principle, the antihero, and demonstrated how Lorelai isn't an extreme antihero like in Breaking Bad, but she's also not the perfect Mary Sue either. 

It talked repeatedly about how she is loved in spite of her flaws. It gave pretty good examples of her flaws, and had a couple of insights that made me think. 

It didn't address the flaws of other characters because it was an article about Lorelai. I'm OK with that because it just a magazine article, not a master's thesis.

[JayInChicago]

Not to jump back, but I really don't find any character or their wardrobe particularly attractive...one of the perils of over rewatching perhaps? Like when the show calls Lorelai (and buy extension, Lauren) gorgeous or similar or Luke's body is supposed to be amazeballs, or Logan's hair could sell shampoo to bald men or whatever...I just don't see it. 

Milo as Jess got wear some pretty cool shirts though. I especially like the Boy Scout looking one.  Or my weird slight crush on Tobin, really only because I find Bruce McC cute as a button.

anyway. 

[Anela]

On 7/6/2016 at 3:16 PM, JaggedLilPill said:

 She's not entirely comfortable being emotionally vulnerable, hence why I think she jokes a lot, and when it gets too close for her, like in her relationship with Emily, she rebuffs the advances in a very misguided and therefore, hurtful way.

 

I think she gets this from her parents. I remember Emily lowering her guard in season 7, when Richard was in the hospital, and Lorelai was helping her with the computer. She complimented Lorelai, who seemed both surprised and touched. The next morning, Emily was back to being rather cold to her, when Lorelai walked in, and seemed happy to be there with her. She looked really hurt. 

Edited July 10, 2016 by Anela