Quirky Aesthetics & Fake Working-Class Problems: The Cringeworthy Finances of Gilmore Girls

In this episode, Chelsea breaks down the confusing ways money comes into play in the world of 'Gilmore Girls' in order to answer this question: is this show in any way an accurate portrayal of middle-class America?

Join this channel to get access to perks:

The Financial Diet site:

[MiaRBeauty]

The Gilmore Girls shows a glimpse into people with generational wealth cosplaying as working class people lol

[paulibonilla]

Despite Lorelai trying to give Rory a more down to earth life, Rory will "eventually" inherit 3 fortunes: er Grandmother's, her mother's, and her father's. So I would say she is extremely privileged.

[FiniteAnarchy]

That home would not have been $2 mil in the 90s. Maybe $200k tops. Small town in the middle of CT around 40 minutes from Hartford. You could find that today, maybe not as nice but definitely possible. I just escaped 7 years in CT so I know the market. You could definitely find a nice place like that in the 90s under $200k. You forget just how inflated the housing market is today. You actually used to be able to buy a nice house for under $100k.

Edit: The first episode premiered in 2000 and they already had their house which confirms even more what I already believed: Lorelei would have bought her house in the early to mid 90s. Median home sale price in 1995 was $130, 000. CPI calculator says $130k is $236.6k in today's dollars. Just to give anyone who actually reads youtube comments (lol) an idea of how inflated the market is today.

[angryowl]

This video’s entire premise is that the series isn’t representative of the “average” working class. I think that’s the whole point of the show. As we go on even Logan points out that Rory isn’t exactly working class and has profited off of the privilege that comes with being upper class, the biggest perk of which is having a support system whose name, connections and money creates a safety net and opens doors that even people who may have the money but not the class status do not have access to. And GG does a brilliant job of dissecting that element of class.

[saltycrunch]

There is zero chance that their 2-bedroom house in a small town would have cost $2.8 million in the mid-to-late-1990s when they would have bought it. That's just a really weird criticism. Someone making over $60 grand could have easily afforded that house's mortgage. I doubt the house would have cost over $400K at that time.

[victorianikolich]

I hope you have a follow-up on Lane, because her financial struggles seemed more rooted in reality

[HerAeolianHarp]

Rory doesn't have "humble middle/working-class roots". She is a Gilmore with wealthy grandparents! I love GG, BUT not many pregnant 16 year olds out there land so easily on their feet. I also never liked how the two binge feasted junk food--expensive amounts of food that would serve 6-10 people! That's luxury living dressed up as common splurge.

[vkaatz]

I tend to give a bit of a pass to sitcoms re: working class characters with huge apartments. I think sometimes people forget that shows like Gilmore Girls and Friends and Sex and the City aren't documentaries, they're TV shows. Meaning that many of these 'apartments' are actually sound stages, not real brick and mortar buildings. The apartments look big because there needs to be space for all the production crew and their equipment. Speaking from experience, just having a single camera rig and operator, plus the lights, sound equipment, and sheer number of extra bodies it takes to make a television show, requires more space than you'd think. So for me, it's not that the producers are TRYING to be deceitful or dishonest or trick viewers, it's that there are certain physical realities in making television that require more space than would be typical in a real-life person's situation. Just my two cents.

[anothersatellite]

I'm always annoyed by the comment "how can Lorelei afford this house?!". I blame production design for the outside because it looks massive but we are led to believe it's a 2 bed 1 bath house (until the remodel when they get a second upstairs bathroom). Unless there's a bunch of secret rooms never shown or mentioned, the outside just does not match the "reality" of the inside. Seems reasonable to me she could work to save up for a 2 bed 1 bath house while living at the inn where she worked.

[theboringkaren]

Funny enough, I just watched the ep where Lorelai gets stuck with her dad for the day and tells him that they order an absurd amount of food because they "eat 1/3 of it and then live off the leftovers for a week and a half." So, I'd buy that explanation since sitcom timelines aren't daily. But they still exhibited privilege by hardly ever cooking. One aspect that I realized the older that I get is how Rory really does succumb to the Gilmore lifestyle with each season, which Lorelai tried to prevent. I feel like the show should have made that narrative more clear, but instead stuck by Lorelai and Rory being 'middle class'. Those two very much embraced the rich lifestyle as time wore on.

[laurenconrad]

I would not have married Cal from Titanic. He was abusive and violent, like when he shoved the table of tea sandwiches over and shot at people with a gun. No amount of money is worth sacrificing safety, even if you’re already on a literal sinking ship. Plus, the diamond was in Rose’s coat pocket the whole time.

[saltycrunch]

It's 2021. Isn't it time we put the "Friends" criticism (how can struggling 20somethings afford West Village apartment) to bed? The show explained it repeatedly - they were illegally subletting Monica's grandmother's rent-controlled apartment. It was most likely dirt cheap. Not to mention it was the early-to-mid-90s when NYC rent prices were years away from being outrageous. Not to mention it was a walk-up. Not to mention there were no amenities or doorman. Gah.

[rixatrix]

Obviously GG is a light, cutesy show but… Emily and Richard were emotionally abusive and neglectful of Lorelei as a child. She left because she needed to save herself from their controlling, belittling and shaming. They never saw her as a person, only a role that reflected well or poorly on them.

Did she come from wealth? Yes. Do wealthy people weaponize their money to control their kids? Double yes.

It may not be an accurate portrayal of a working class lifestyle—Lorelei didn’t go to college at 18 but still knows all the manners and mores of upper class people, which is a valuable set of skills—but she chose to avoid her family’s money because she didn’t want to accept their abuse.

Lorelei never wanted to take money from her parents but we see many situations when she feels like she has no other options. Again, they are not living in poverty because they have access to resources, but they’re arguably “broke” and those resources come with a heavy price. The only reason she resumes a relationship with her abusive parents is to help her daughter thrive, not because she wants to.

Again, Lorelei is maybe middle class on her own. Not working class. She eventually gets a college education and owns her own inn. But I think there are a lot of people who cut ties with harmful families and sacrifice familial money and resources in order to gain freedom and healing, and to me, that’s what Lorelei’s journey was all about.

[twilightrocks]

I feel like Gilmore Girls was more about Mother-Daughter relationships and pop culture comedy than hard-core class dynamics. The financial element forces Lorelai's hand to build a relationship with her parents//more importantly her Mother. I also think the dinners grow on Lorelai. She struggles with the conflict between wanting to have a relationship with them but not wanted to deal with their judgment. But I did not watch Gilmore Girls for the financial lessons or to learn more about different classes. Lorelai and Rory definitely had the privilege that was not recognized by the show, but I don't think the writers were tricking us that they were straightforward/normal working class. Overall, it's good to notice exaggerated unrealistic privilege, but I think this is a dramatic/over-analyzed critique of the dramedy. I love film and TV breakdowns/analysis, but tbh the points made in this video felt kind of nit-picky, overdone, and dull. I do appreciate TFD content generally and don't mean my comments as a discouragement (more just my thoughts on the vid). I also love Lindsey Ellis and thought she did a better job in her series on TFD breaking down class misrepresentation in TV.

[katelynbrown]

The show did not pride itself on being an accurate depiction of working/middle class. It prided itself on showing mother/daugher relationships and how to be your own person while growing up because both rory and lorelie are growing up in the show.

[lemondrizzlecake]

I have mixed feelings on this. While for sure GG fell into some of the usual TV inaccuracies, I feel like a critique of the class system as a whole was never its aim, and the focus fo the show is more on the emotional dynamics of financial (and other) issues within a family. To me it always rang true that Lorelai would be happy to leave her own privilege behind for herself, but then go back to her parents not to compromise Rory's future. Sure, we could have important conversations about the unfairness of college tuitions and so on, and I bet Lorelai would agree some, but she only has the one child to put through college, and for her the choice is: do I limit my child's opportunity to stick to my principles, or do I suck this one lemon and let her have the extra help that is available? Right or wrong, to me this is a realistic conflict, and why I think this show still holds up fairly well, considering.
the Year in the Life is a different story. Mostly they should have just acknowledged that by that point Rory had access to her trust fund and just left any mentions of finances out. It would have been a slightly different story but at least less contradictory.

[fhxs]

My youngest sister who is 12 is binging Gilmore Girls currently & I’m so glad she’s realized it’s unrealistic af. I ate the show up as a kid. Life really didn’t hit me until the 08 recession.

[udaygadge]

GG was a glossy feel good comedy about a quirky mom and her daughter. The show was never intended to be a serious commentry on the working class. even the problems they face on a day to day basis were mostly silly and easily resolved. It's just a comfort show. you like them but you don't relate to them.

Lorelai owning an inn and living in a small town with very rich parents makes it a bit more believable than friends though!!

[AllthePrettyPurses]

No, sorry, this isn't good financial literacy. You're using the location-specific valuation of the home, but the national average for salary? That doesn't line up. If you want to make a reasonable comparison, you have to consider what salaries would have been in that wealthy part of Connecticut, which would be much higher than the national average. On top of that, the Independence Inn is portrayed as a very upscale inn. They had their own stables. They hosted extremely swanky events. So that's also going to bump up the salary.

[me_MadMel]

I never took Gilmore Girls as a portrayal of Middle/working class lifestyle but as the showing of Lorelay's specific situation. And, as I see, she always wanted the privileges with no strings attached (just like a flawed human being) in every situation, not only when it has to do with money or class. Anyway, the junk food consumption in the show is garbage no matter how you see it