JOIN USThere is perhaps nary a girl in the world who has not envied the relationship of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. The mother-daughter duo set a precedent so high that no amount of cloyingly sweet Mother’s Day movies or any other series fraught with maternal themes can come close as much as to tickle the feather in the Gilmore caps.
In what other world would a mother invite her daughter’s crush home for a movie, let her drink copious amounts of coffee, forgive her for leaving college and keep her lips pursed even though she does not approve of her boyfriend?
Who wouldn’t want to be part of this town with 24-hour dancing contests and people so great they’ll forgive all your misdeeds? The answer sure is rhetoric. We all crave to be part of that which has happy chords playing in the background while trivial troubles are being talked about, making them seem less so.
Seemingly utopic, but our memories will beg to play killjoy to remind us that the glorious 7 seasons were interspersed with several blemishes — Whatever happened to Dean after Lindsey found out about him and Rory? How does Marty never appear again for a long time after their freshman year? What happened to Lane’s boyfriend Dave? Well, and we could nitpick the tinier leaks that didn’t really add up to the big picture.
So why, then, are we so collectively waiting with bated breath for its revival which is surfacing after 9 long years. The Stars Hollow charm, Lorelai’s wit, the wandering troubadour? The most obvious answer would be to see what happened to all our favourite people. Conjectures and speculations apart, Gilmore Girls was more than a mere series. It was an era, about people — where every one of us cared about them, enough to sit through to see every one of their relationships blossom, mature and then finally fall apart or come together. And, at more than one point in time, we have all squealed either out of empathy or from overwhelming joy.
So, what is the flutter all about? A show about women who seldom pass the Bechdel Test, but nonetheless indulge in banter engaging enough for us to tear our hair out in frustration and grin at the same time. It can also be said, quite unequivocally, that it is a show about the woman in contention — Lorelai Gilmore herself. Unforgettable are those moments when she graduates from business school, or proposes to Luke, or sees her daughter leave home. It is the story of her as a mother, wife, fiancée, boss, employee, friend and a daughter. And everyone around her seems like a strong supplement supporting her basic elements.
Gilmore Girls explored the dimensions of various human relationships from compounded angles. For instance, a 16-year-old who accidentally becomes a mother and chooses to raise her child all by herself — brave or selfish? A mother who will leverage her position with money to bond with her granddaughter — sad or evil? A father who runs away from responsibility — typecasting or truism? The creators left to our interpretation each person’s characteristics and anomalies.
But even amidst all that seriousness and bitterness, the witty banter and wonderfully woven lines did their magic — eschewing Emily Gilmore’s sarcasm with humour, and the eclectic, almost-cartoon-like characters in Patty, Babette and Kirk, and Mrs Kim’s stern attitude. It was probably the steady mix of such antithetical behaviours that brought the magic into the show.
Having sung such paeans about it, of course, we won’t forget how the show faltered during the last season, courtesy of the departure of Amy Sherman Palladino and her droll lines. Maybe what we expect is a sort of redemption with the show’s revival, as the original writers are back. After all, spectacular and tragic things must have transpired between now and when we left the Gilmore Girls sipping their coffee at Luke’s.