Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series) (10 page)
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Authors: Jennifer Crusie,Leah Wilson
Tags: #Humor & Entertainment, #Television, #History & Criticism
BOOK: Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series)
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Lorelai, of course, vehemently feels that she narrowly escaped from a lifetime sentence in a gilded cage. But Emily adores the gild and dismisses the very notion of there being a cage! This is a fundamental difference between Emily and her daughter’s conceptions of high-society life, on which they may never see eye-to-eye, and it explains a lot about their relationship. Where Lorelai sees confining, smothering, soul-crushing prison bars, Emily sees a perfectly comfortable life with far
more
freedoms (of opportunity) than Lorelai’s, and honestly can’t fathom where her daughter gets such melodramatic imagery.
more
freedoms (of opportunity) than Lorelai’s, and honestly can’t fathom where her daughter gets such melodramatic imagery.
In Emily’s view, Lorelai
unnecessarily
deprived Rory during her childhood (prior to asking Richard and Emily to pay for Chilton in the pilot episode of the series) purely out of spite! That deprivation involved not only keeping Rory away from the obvious creature comforts of wealth but, for no reason other than Lorelai’s own willfulness, also actively limiting Rory’s chances of success by preventing her from taking advantage of every competitive edge at her disposal—i. e. those made available more readily (or even at all) only to families of a certain social standing. In Emily’s eyes, pouting teenaged Lorelai was far less concerned with little Rory’s long-term well-being than with her own pride, stubbornly working a low-paying, lower-class job, and hoarding young Rory away from her perfectly willing-and-able-to-help grandparents just to be contrary.
unnecessarily
deprived Rory during her childhood (prior to asking Richard and Emily to pay for Chilton in the pilot episode of the series) purely out of spite! That deprivation involved not only keeping Rory away from the obvious creature comforts of wealth but, for no reason other than Lorelai’s own willfulness, also actively limiting Rory’s chances of success by preventing her from taking advantage of every competitive edge at her disposal—i. e. those made available more readily (or even at all) only to families of a certain social standing. In Emily’s eyes, pouting teenaged Lorelai was far less concerned with little Rory’s long-term well-being than with her own pride, stubbornly working a low-paying, lower-class job, and hoarding young Rory away from her perfectly willing-and-able-to-help grandparents just to be contrary.
EMILY: (to Lorelai): Oh, you’re so perfect and I was so horrible. I put you in good schools. I gave you the best of everything. I made sure you had the finest opportunities. And I am so tired of hearing about how you were suffocated and I was so controlling. Well, if I was so controlling, why couldn’t I control you running around and getting pregnant and throwing your life away? (“Rory’s Dance,” 1-9)
It may appear that everything between Lorelai and Emily has to be on Emily’s terms, but partly it seems that was because Lorelai inherited her mother’s stubborn streak, so naturally would prefer everything to be on
her
own terms instead. She wants her mother to change/ budge/see the error of her ways, but Lorelai herself rarely does. And the few times Lorelai has, it has only been with the most drama-queen-ing, woe-is-me-ing, eye-rolling theatrics:
allowing
her parents to lend her nearly a hundred thousand dollars for Rory’s private high school education;
conceding
to Rory’s decision to attend her grandfather’s alma mater, Yale, instead of Harvard, on which Lorelai had always had her heart set for Rory. From Lorelai’s histrionics, you’d think that by introducing her granddaughter to the perks of the upper class, Emily was trying to indoctrinate Rory into a mindless cult! (One of us. . . . One of us. . . .) From Lorelai’s point of view, that comparison’s not far off.
her
own terms instead. She wants her mother to change/ budge/see the error of her ways, but Lorelai herself rarely does. And the few times Lorelai has, it has only been with the most drama-queen-ing, woe-is-me-ing, eye-rolling theatrics:
allowing
her parents to lend her nearly a hundred thousand dollars for Rory’s private high school education;
conceding
to Rory’s decision to attend her grandfather’s alma mater, Yale, instead of Harvard, on which Lorelai had always had her heart set for Rory. From Lorelai’s histrionics, you’d think that by introducing her granddaughter to the perks of the upper class, Emily was trying to indoctrinate Rory into a mindless cult! (One of us. . . . One of us. . . .) From Lorelai’s point of view, that comparison’s not far off.
This is why it was such a huge deal to Emily when Lorelai allowed Rory to participate in a coming out party with other debutantes at a “
Daughters
of the Daughters of the American Revolution” event (“Presenting Lorelai Gilmore,” 2-6). Emily got to proudly show off her granddaughter to the approval of her society friends—whose opinion is, of course, a driving force in Emily’s life—even while openly sighing that she never got to do the same for her own daughter. Again, what Lorelai classifies as a gratefully dodged bullet in her life, Emily tsk-tsks as a missed opportunity—for both of them, but more so for
Lorelai
. In Emily’s view, she wanted more for her daughter in life than her daughter seemed to want for herself! From Lorelai’s perspective, she was just yearning for things that her parents’ world did not offer.
Daughters
of the Daughters of the American Revolution” event (“Presenting Lorelai Gilmore,” 2-6). Emily got to proudly show off her granddaughter to the approval of her society friends—whose opinion is, of course, a driving force in Emily’s life—even while openly sighing that she never got to do the same for her own daughter. Again, what Lorelai classifies as a gratefully dodged bullet in her life, Emily tsk-tsks as a missed opportunity—for both of them, but more so for
Lorelai
. In Emily’s view, she wanted more for her daughter in life than her daughter seemed to want for herself! From Lorelai’s perspective, she was just yearning for things that her parents’ world did not offer.
That world, the one Emily grew up in—the world she also
married up
in, if we can trust the judgment of Richard’s mother—is marked by the values, attitude, and speech patterns, if not the actual accent and lineage, of the
Boston Brahmins
—a historical term introduced to many modern Americans for the first time during John Kerry’s 2004 Presidential bid. It refers to a certain group of surnames, an elite clique comprised of a short list of WASP families descended from those who founded the city of Boston. Gilmore is not one of those names. The term Brahmin, however, has grown to generically encompass the whole New England prep school/Ivy League legacy crowd in general, “old money” families of certain breeding, and the specific characteristic hoity-toity accent made familiar to TV viewers by the likes of Charles Emerson Winchester III, Frasier Crane, Thurston Howell III, and Headmaster Charleston at Rory’s fictional prep school, Chilton.
married up
in, if we can trust the judgment of Richard’s mother—is marked by the values, attitude, and speech patterns, if not the actual accent and lineage, of the
Boston Brahmins
—a historical term introduced to many modern Americans for the first time during John Kerry’s 2004 Presidential bid. It refers to a certain group of surnames, an elite clique comprised of a short list of WASP families descended from those who founded the city of Boston. Gilmore is not one of those names. The term Brahmin, however, has grown to generically encompass the whole New England prep school/Ivy League legacy crowd in general, “old money” families of certain breeding, and the specific characteristic hoity-toity accent made familiar to TV viewers by the likes of Charles Emerson Winchester III, Frasier Crane, Thurston Howell III, and Headmaster Charleston at Rory’s fictional prep school, Chilton.
Richard’s mother, Lorelai Gilmore the First, may not have been a true Brahmin, but she and the Gilmore set we’ve encountered obviously aspire to that echelon of New England society, mimicking many Brahmin traits. Richard was a Yale man, as was his father, and his father. We’ve been told a Gilmore came over on the Mayflower. Someone in Emily’s family must have been documented as having fought in the American Revolution for her to belong to the Daughters of the American Revolution. And just as in many Brahmin families, Richard’s mother even married a cousin with her same maiden name.
This particular New England caste system, and the invisible dividing lines of social strata, are vitally important to Emily. And many of Emily’s most easily criticized tendencies are the result. Emily cannot, for instance, be bothered to learn the correct names of her hired help, and she proudly changes maids more often than she changes her mind. Emily even believes that all maids tell their children the combinations to their employers’ safes so the children can grow up and rob them! So which very-bottom-of-the-social-ladder profession could possibly be the most horrifying for her own daughter to have ended up doing? As if it wasn’t mortifying enough to Emily’s sensibilities to have her sixteen-year-old daughter get pregnant, drop out of high school, refuse to get married, and run away from home with her baby, Lorelai ended up working as a menial servant: a maid! In Emily’s insular little Brahmin-esque world, Lorelai’s social freefall was an additional nail in her mother’s humiliation coffin. How could her own daughter actively
choose
such a thing? Especially when—to Emily’s mind—Lorelai had a world of other options available to her at the time.
choose
such a thing? Especially when—to Emily’s mind—Lorelai had a world of other options available to her at the time.
Consider, too, Emily’s reactions to Lorelai and Rory’s choices of boyfriends in season five. She and Richard were beyond delighted when Rory first began dating fellow Yalie Logan Huntzberger, heir to an international newspaper fortune, and tripped all over themselves kowtowing to this young man a third their age but from a much higher social tier than their own. But when Luke and Lorelai started dating that same season, Emily’s grand, sweeping complaint about Luke was that he was fundamentally not good enough for Lorelai. It didn’t matter how well Luke treated Lorelai and her daughter, or that he owns his own small business (as well as the entire building it’s in), or that he is financially stable enough to have had tens of thousands of dollars on hand to lend to Lorelai so she could open her own business. It was all immaterial to Emily, who is first and foremost blinded by the glare of Luke’s bottom-feeder position in the social hierarchy. All she could see was that he was a “rustic” diner proprietor with no education, from a family that no one in Emily’s world has ever heard of. He drank “nitwit juice” (beer) and drove a filthy, leaking pickup truck like a common laborer. Lorelai might as well have been dating the man who cleaned Emily’s sewers.
When it began to look as if the elder Gilmores were going to have no choice but to accept Luke into their family, Richard coerced the naïve, blue-collar guy to his country club where he attempted to completely overhaul a blindsided Luke (by franchising his business, among other “improvements”) into the kind of man the Gilmores and their friends might
possibly
be able to consider somewhat acceptable—or at least less of an embarrassment, if certainly never ideal (“You Jump, I Jump, Jack,” 5-7). This was Richard’s compromise. Emily was far less willing to let go of the class issue. Enter Rory’s dad, stage left. For all of Christopher’s many, many personal shortcomings (particularly as a deadbeat dad to Rory during her childhood), to Emily, Christopher Hayden at least came from an acceptable dating pool for Lorelai. Social standing trumps all else!
possibly
be able to consider somewhat acceptable—or at least less of an embarrassment, if certainly never ideal (“You Jump, I Jump, Jack,” 5-7). This was Richard’s compromise. Emily was far less willing to let go of the class issue. Enter Rory’s dad, stage left. For all of Christopher’s many, many personal shortcomings (particularly as a deadbeat dad to Rory during her childhood), to Emily, Christopher Hayden at least came from an acceptable dating pool for Lorelai. Social standing trumps all else!
I’m not saying I agree at all with her method of assessing people’s worth, only that we see where Emily’s attitude comes from. It’s not just random or unmotivated. It makes sense for her character. So the gestures she
did
eventually make toward acknowledging Luke were
huge
on Emily’s part. She even flat out tells Luke he’s “won”—not the warmest or fuzziest step, but a step nonetheless (“So . . . Good Talk,” 5-16). And later, after she learned about Luke’s daughter April, Emily voluntarily—if with forced false friendliness—engaged in a game of cards with a random child in Luke’s diner, mistaking “it” for April (“The Real Paul Anka,” 6-18). Backing down and allowing her family to potentially become cross-pollinated across social strata is a
tremendous
concession for Emily Gilmore. And though we may disapprove of her methods, we should give her credit for that.
did
eventually make toward acknowledging Luke were
huge
on Emily’s part. She even flat out tells Luke he’s “won”—not the warmest or fuzziest step, but a step nonetheless (“So . . . Good Talk,” 5-16). And later, after she learned about Luke’s daughter April, Emily voluntarily—if with forced false friendliness—engaged in a game of cards with a random child in Luke’s diner, mistaking “it” for April (“The Real Paul Anka,” 6-18). Backing down and allowing her family to potentially become cross-pollinated across social strata is a
tremendous
concession for Emily Gilmore. And though we may disapprove of her methods, we should give her credit for that.
Despite (or maybe because of?) her education, breeding, and assumed worldliness, Emily actually has an extremely narrow, sheltered view of the world around her. Even in her many travels to Europe, she’s only ever seen the filtered, five-star version. (Although if you were to ask her, she would undoubtedly insist she has seen everything that is worth seeing.) This kind of self-centeredness masquerading as selfassuredness is one of Emily’s strongest—if double-edged—personality traits. If Emily says it is so, then it is so. No discussion. She only hears what she wants to hear . . . and she never wants to hear a dissenting opinion! You’ve almost got to kind of admire that level of narcissism. When Richard had a heart attack (“Forgiveness and Stuff,” 1-10) and was lying in a hospital bed, brave-faced Emily adamantly informed her husband that she refused to allow him to die before she did. She insisted on going first! (Her frail husband, who knows his wife well, touchingly agreed to abide by Emily’s new law of nature.) Also, whenever Emily feels slighted by Lorelai or Rory (e.g., “Rory’s Birthday Parties” [1-6] where Emily is hurt by Rory’s failure to appreciate or enjoy the extravagant party thrown by her grandparents), Emily’s first instinct is to coldly shut the offender out: it’s done, it’s over, it never happened, moving on. She deals with things that upset her by never dealing with anything that upsets her. She simply wills them away! If something displeases Emily, she pretends it doesn’t exist. She can’t, however, dismiss the things that displease her about her
daughter
without dismissing Lorelai entirely, and that is a real source of tension, continually, for Emily.
daughter
without dismissing Lorelai entirely, and that is a real source of tension, continually, for Emily.
Because of this, upon casual viewing, Grandma Gilmore can appear to be devoid of
any
emotions that don’t fall into the passive-aggressive category. But scratch the surface ever so slightly and it’s clear that Emily’s feelings run plenty deep. She just seems to consider it pathetic and weak to reveal one’s emotions to others. Her feelings are no one’s business but her own; they are private. When Lorelai left home as a teenager with baby Rory, Emily (as Lorelai found out
decades
later from Richard) didn’t get out of bed for a month! So for all her chilly façade, there is a feeling human being beneath it, even though she only ever allows the world infrequent glimpses. During her and Richard’s separation in season five, all of Emily’s conversations on the subject with Lorelai (and even Richard!) were clipped and practical. Only when she had a moment alone was she free to drop the façade, break down, and weep in private (“Emily Says Hello,” 5-9).
any
emotions that don’t fall into the passive-aggressive category. But scratch the surface ever so slightly and it’s clear that Emily’s feelings run plenty deep. She just seems to consider it pathetic and weak to reveal one’s emotions to others. Her feelings are no one’s business but her own; they are private. When Lorelai left home as a teenager with baby Rory, Emily (as Lorelai found out
decades
later from Richard) didn’t get out of bed for a month! So for all her chilly façade, there is a feeling human being beneath it, even though she only ever allows the world infrequent glimpses. During her and Richard’s separation in season five, all of Emily’s conversations on the subject with Lorelai (and even Richard!) were clipped and practical. Only when she had a moment alone was she free to drop the façade, break down, and weep in private (“Emily Says Hello,” 5-9).
Expressing soft emotions openly to anyone—and to Lorelai in particular—is akin to admitting defeat for Emily, and their mother-daughter relationship is nothing if not a competition in willfulness. When Emily finally met Mia, the woman who gave teenaged single mom Lorelai a home and a job at the Independence Inn, Emily, after giving Mia a bitter tongue-lashing for not having made Lorelai turn around and go home immediately, asked stiffly about any photographs Mia had from Rory’s childhood—demonstrating a sense of regret at what she had missed that she would never have revealed to Lorelai (“The Ins and Outs of Inns,” 2-8). Emily and Lorelai both have a history of hiding their private lives and true emotions from one another, usually opting instead for sarcasm, feigned innocence, martyrdom, digs, or the old Emily standby, the silent treatment. In season two, when Lorelai, fearing her mother’s disapproval, shut Emily out of her wedding plans to Max, Emily was shocked, humiliated, and hurt to find out about her own daughter’s pending marriage via a phone call from an oblivious Sookie extending an invitation to the bridal shower. Her response was to refuse to attend the ceremony by pretending to have other plans that day. In season six, Emily attempted to gain Lorelai’s attention by relentlessly barraging her with anonymous deliveries of random items, then indignantly claimed to be simply clearing out storage space in the mansion. It’s a game of pointedly indirect communication, and they both play equally well in their own ways. Like mother, like daughter.
Lorelai has, on occasion, managed to put her own recalcitrant attitude on hold, swallow her pride, and make genuine attempts to extend an olive branch to her even
more
stubborn and even
more
prideful mother, who—surprise, surprise—has actually responded by lowering her own emotional armor, if only the tiniest bit. After Rory’s coming out party, Lorelai tentatively dropped by unannounced just to “hang out” in the garden with an at first suspicious, then guardedly receptive, Emily (“Presenting Lorelai Gilmore,” 2-6). And after their mutual hurt-feelings-fest over Lorelai’s secretive wedding plans with Max, Lorelai visits her mother at home, gingerly requesting her advice on which veil to wear, in a thinly veiled
1
attempt to finally include her mother in her wedding planning. In a touching, simple moment, Emily quietly suggested a tiara—like she wore at her own wedding (“Hammers And Veils,” 2-2). And in season six, when Emily tried to mask her pain at her fight with a frustratingly defiant, Lorelai-like Rory by impulse-buying/time-sharing an airplane (because it’s “frivolous” like everyone enjoys calling her anyway), Lorelai gently assured her distraught mother that Rory’s recent stream of bad decisions were not Emily’s fault, Emily hadn’t lost her granddaughter the way she had lost her daughter as a teen, and that despite their contentious history, she hadn’t lost Lorelai at all.
more
stubborn and even
more
prideful mother, who—surprise, surprise—has actually responded by lowering her own emotional armor, if only the tiniest bit. After Rory’s coming out party, Lorelai tentatively dropped by unannounced just to “hang out” in the garden with an at first suspicious, then guardedly receptive, Emily (“Presenting Lorelai Gilmore,” 2-6). And after their mutual hurt-feelings-fest over Lorelai’s secretive wedding plans with Max, Lorelai visits her mother at home, gingerly requesting her advice on which veil to wear, in a thinly veiled
1
attempt to finally include her mother in her wedding planning. In a touching, simple moment, Emily quietly suggested a tiara—like she wore at her own wedding (“Hammers And Veils,” 2-2). And in season six, when Emily tried to mask her pain at her fight with a frustratingly defiant, Lorelai-like Rory by impulse-buying/time-sharing an airplane (because it’s “frivolous” like everyone enjoys calling her anyway), Lorelai gently assured her distraught mother that Rory’s recent stream of bad decisions were not Emily’s fault, Emily hadn’t lost her granddaughter the way she had lost her daughter as a teen, and that despite their contentious history, she hadn’t lost Lorelai at all.
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