Gilmore Girls: How Rory Was Wrong About Everything

Gilmore Girls’ Rory is a beloved Smart Girl icon, and was the kind of girl so many of the girls watching at home wanted to be when the show began airing. But, given that Gilmore Girls follows Rory as she evolves through young adulthood, it’s not surprising that she had to learn the hard way that some of her outlook on life was totally wrong along the way. That doesn’t make her a bad person – messing up is a big part of growing up – but it does give us an interesting opportunity to take a look back and analyze what specifically about her personality and choices caused those issues, and how they affected her story (for better and worse.) So, let’s take a deeper look at some of the things even super smart Rory got wrong about life, love, and becoming your own person – and how they ended up being important lessons for Rory and viewers.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:46 Saying you're a nice person makes you a nice person
03:10 You don't need to try
07:21 Cheating is okay when you do it...
08:47 Friendships should revolve around you
09:57 Everything will always work out in your favor
11:19 Why Rory's struggles were so important (for her & us!)

The Take was created by Debra Minoff & Susannah McCullough
This video was narrated by Charly Bivona, written/produced by Jessica Babineaux, & edited by John Todd
This video is sponsored by Skillshare

[trinaq]

It's understandable why Rory floundered so much in her adulthood. She was fawned over by everyone in her small town, with her mother treating her as a friend, not a daughter. It wasn't until she got to Yale that she realised that everyone was just as special as she was, and couldn't handle it.

[ItsJustSugarCookie]

The universe did reward Paris though. In the grand scheme of things Harvard was just a bump in the road for her. She came out on top.

[Evamarie]

One of my theories is that Rory never truly, deep down inside, wanted to be a journalist. She was drawn to writing and academics. She worked on papers because it had writing opportunities and seemed like the thing she should do. But she never seemed to truly chase them. There was a Stars Hollow Gazette? why wasn't she volunteering at that at a young age? Making self made documentaries or newspapers etc. Her only journalistic experience until Mitchum was the school papers. And we get told she's a good writer at her assigned articles, but Mitchum is right, she doesn't have the instinct to search out articles. She felt she had to be a journalist, or her mom pushed her (not clear on where the dream started). Even when she describes wanting to be Christiane Amanpour, she describes it as wanting to travel, be a part of something big. She even says "maybe I'll be a journalist and write books or articles about what I see. I just want to be sure that I see ... something." - MAYBE

[bethbaxter]

Who goes into an interview and doesn’t plan? An interview doesn’t automatically mean you have a job, you need to prove yourself

[akirebara]

I really hated that storyline of her shaming Lane joining the cheerleading squad at school

[theyellowshoe]

Dean was actually fully married at the time that they slept together! We actually get a great scene where Lorelei tells Rory that he's Lindsey's Dean and she's the other woman (a rare moment where she holds Rory accountable for her behavior)

[PokhrajRoy.]

Rory was the Carrie of ‘Gilmore Girls’.

[miriam]

This show is basically one long indictment of the way money (and especially generational wealth) poisons you as a human. Getting the benefits of that money destroyed Rory’s work ethic, confidence, and generosity. She’s not a bad person, and I wish people would stop acting like she’s terrible or selfish because that completely ignores her starting point. She was a good, sweet kid at the beginning.

Rory’s story is a tragedy. The fact that she’s returning to her roots at the end, following in Lorelai’s shoes, is the best thing that could happen to her.

[winterbutterfly]

Oh, Dean wasn’t engaged alright? He was married, as married as married gets

[ninelespinosa]

I never understood why she wanted to pursue journalism, she had no drive for it, she wasn’t interested in justice in any way, or things that could concern her and her surroundings, I always thought she was gonna study English literature bcuz of how much she loved reading, and that could’ve been a good path for her, and I totally see why Logan’s dad told her she didn’t have it, and he was right. She had no self-awareness unlike most journalists.

[katpiercemusic]

I think it’s unfair to say that she never worked hard. She just never learned to cope with failure all that well. There are lots of examples of her being confronted with a challenge, and yes, she usually has a meltdown initially, but she usually rallies (the semester off notwithstanding). When she first arrives in Chilton she realizes she’s way over her head, and she wants to give up because she has a pathological fear of failure, but we actually watch her struggle to catch up. Mr Medina is a big advocate for her in that process. And when Paris makes her realize that extra curricular activities are important in college applications (even though the Dean of her school warned about it much earlier), she panics, but ultimately at least tries to get engaged. And when she realizes she can’t maintain the same sort of class-load as her grand did at her age, she looses it, but it’s not like she isn’t putting the work in. She just doesn’t understand why that work isn’t enough. I think the show prioritizes drama over consistency and that makes it hard to get a beat on anyone’s character strengths and weaknesses, but I think she is a character who is able to work hard, can’t cope with failure, and doesn’t have a good blueprint for relationships.

[AC-zenh]

What infuriated me about Rory was that she turned up her nose at a teaching gig at Chilton! It was handed to her on a silver platter and when youre broke, a freaking job is a job!

I dont feel she learned anything from her difficulties and shes now bringing a child into it.

She continued to be a cheater with absolutely no shame. Stole her mom's story. All while whining. Yah... sorry, Rory sucks.

Oh and her mom is celebrating her marriage to the man she's loved for years and Rory drops the baby news on her... Like girl, give a damn day! One day not about your messy life!

[ElvisRose_]

Controversial Take: It was brave of Rory to drop out of Yale if she'd genuinely used the time to explore her own interests and it was not cool of Lorelai to stop speaking to Rory over it. A lot of people blame that all on Mitchum and Logan but a lot of college students questions their choices once they get into the real world like Rory but Lorelai said she'd wanted to be a journalist since she was four & basically that she had to stick to it. Rory was never allowed to deviate from the plan until as it turned out, there wasn't much actually planned for Rory's future.

[MsAmbrosefolly]

In regards to Rory vs Paris community service, the problem is that Rory did her community service in an unconscious way and didn't look at it as lengthen her CV. It was often said and shown on the show that Rory participated in Star Hollow's events and fundraisers. The first time Paris visited Rory's house, Lorilai was organizing a Star Hollow rummage sale and Rory was helping. She helped out so much Taylor assumed that she would be his ice cream princess, even though she was going off to Yale in a few days. .

[epfovwv]

I think it also came back to bite Lorelai in the ass that she had coddled Rory so much and that she prided herself on having "the good kid" like when she overheard Paris admitting she lost her virginity and told herself that Rory was good because she hadn't yet. But Rory would lose it to a married man.
Rory is what happens when you never criticize a kid or tell them no. One person tells her she's not good enough and she drops out of an Ivy League school. I do hate that she turned out that way but then again; it is realistic.

[mythicmoments]

I like how you didn't villify her for her mistakes and instead chose to show it as chances to grow and learn.

[roter]

You could spend like a week straight watching all of the Rory Gilmore videos posted on YouTube. haha.

[Vohalika]

Rory did actually try a lot. In the first couple of seasons. She never needed to try too hard for too long, but during the first seasons, she still has some tenacity and applies herself to the school antics. Unlike later seasons when she folds like a wet paper towel at the tiniest bit of resistance.

[tygressblade]

This translates over to men too. There is a serious section of the upper middle class and rich who see their parents/family’s success s their own. Mad Men shows this in the 3rd season with the a trust fund friend of Pete Campbell. Too many of these kids have had a serious leg up in life. They never have had to eat what they hunt. They have a safety net and they mistake luck for skill. I admit, I am kind of happy that Gilmore Girls went there.

[rockygroves]

The hypocrisy of rory of all people calling logan a cheater is wild considering he really thought they were 100% broken up where she never cared if she was in a relationship or not. Or if the people she sleeps with are literally MARRIED. Shes been a cheater since she was a kid and logan didnt even know he was cheating... I'd argue he wasn't