Warning: Spoilers Ahead
It finally happened. The series we hoped for, prayed for, begged for, finally came to us. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life was released last week and we finally got to hear the four words that Amy Sherman-Palladino always wanted to say. And after hearing them after all this time, I have four words of my own in response: What the actual fuck?
If you haven't already watched the series, then you should stop reading and turn back around. But if you have finished, then you know that the ending was a bombshell. "Mom?" "Yeah?" "I'm pregnant." The end. Well, Amy Sherman-Palladino, you certainly said a mouthful. And from a creative standpoint, I find it fitting that you took this series full circle. But as a modern woman living in the year 2016, I'm appalled.
When I started watching this show as a young girl, I looked up to Rory Gilmore. She reminded me a lot of myself: a lover of words and books, quirky and dorky in the best ways. I admired her, and made me feel accepted. As she got older, I started to like her less. She slept with a married man. She dropped out of school. She stole a yacht. But I chocked up these choices to adolescent indiscretion, and I ended the seventh season still routing for her to find her place as a globe-trotting journalist.
At thirty-two, Rory is pathetic. She's having an affair with her engaged ex boyfriend, falling asleep during interviews for GQ and then shacking up with a Wookie, being petulant with her mother, and giving up on her dreams. She's too old to be a millennial, but she's painted in a way that all millennials hate. We are not all entitled, apathetic brats with no focus and no drive to succeed. Most of us work extremely hard for very little payout, and the economy is not in our favor. The portrayal of Rory Gilmore is misinformed and misguided, and it keeps getting worse.
To end this series with the basic sentiment that we all grow up to be our mothers was lazy. Paris is a very successful woman fighting with her husband while a nanny raises her children. Lane is working in an antique shop and putting her band on the back burner for her twins. And Rory got knocked up by a rich, inherently immature man who will be an absentee father to her future offspring. Not one of these strong, intelligent women were able to escape the fate of their mothers before them, and it is truly disappointing.
There are other things in this world for a woman to do besides having children. It is an antiquated idea that the only reason women exist is to procreate. If it had been Rory's dream to have a child, those four words would have been great. But that was never her intended path, and it leaves an open wound on the soul of an otherwise fantastic story. And considering this story was supposed to end with Rory in her early twenties, fresh out of college, it is dark to think of the impact those four words could've had on her life.
I adore my mother with every fiber of my being. I admire who she is and the ferocity with which she has gone through life. I hope every day to be like her, and I try to channel her voice into every choice that I make. But I still want my own path, with my own unique outcomes. That is what we all deserve to find as people in this world. In my opinion, Rory Gilmore's ending was cheap. Good riddance.
