Screwball Television: Critical Perspectives on Gilmore Girls

Introduction: “You’re about to Be Gilmored”

xv Introduction “You’re about to Be Gilmored” D AV I D S C O T T D I F F R I E N T “C’mon, c’mon, I want to get started!” —L OR E L A I G I L MOR E to her daughter, Rory, as they sit down at the breakfast table with the latter’s application to Harvard in “Application Anxiety” (3.03) “Welcome to the S.H., bitch!” —Z AC K VA N G E R BIG to the “Korean Brad Pitt” in “Just Like Gwen and Gavin” (6.12) The two above exclamations, taken from episodes of the critically acclaimed television series Gilmore Girls (WB/CW, 2000–2007), are not the kinds of hyperliterate lines of dialogue typically associated with the program. They do not express, as do many other spoken passages in the series, the protagonists’ savvy ability to drop references to such disparate figures as Sun Tzu, P. G. Wodehouse, and Rick James into their caffeine-fueled conversations. But they effectively illustrate the need to establish a foundation for critical inquiry into the compulsive ways in which fans consume this most contradictory of TV shows, which has the capacity to both comfort and challenge viewers. In “Application Anxiety,” Rory (Alexis Bledel), the college-bound daughter of Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), receives an importantlooking envelope from Harvard while watching The Brady Bunch xvi | Introduction Variety Hour (1977), a song-and-dance-filled spin-off of the kitschy American sitcom that has inspired two feature-length parodies (The Brady Bunch Movie [1995] and A Very Brady Sequel [1996]) as well as a host of reunion specials, documentaries, and theatrical revivals. Described by the editors of TV Guide as one of “the fifty worst shows of all time,” The Brady Bunch Variety Hour is in Rory’s “top fifty best,” something that might at first suggest a lack of sophistication on her part but is revealed to be an extension of her (and her mother’s) penchant for undermining taste-based hierarchies and capsizing the status quo while proffering idiosyncratic preferences for the stinkiest of cheese. Yet Rory admits to feeling slightly ashamed that this most momentous of events—her receipt of the Harvard application form—should coincide with so guilty a pleasure, so ill-spent a pastime , as this. The “anxiety” that Rory experiences upon receiving that envelope , exacerbated by her brief encounter with the Springsteen family (headed by Darren, a Harvard graduate of 1974 who gives her advice about the application process), may in fact spread beyond the confines of Stars Hollow and Hartford, Connecticut (the show’s two main settings ). Indeed, it may seep into the world of the spectator, who can be forgiven for feeling a similar sort of unease when confronted with so many allusions—cultural references (ranging from “high” to “low”) that continuously test the audience’s knowledge, much like Darren does to his teenage children (whom he quizzes on Shakespeare’s plays and on the three subclasses of the Mesozoic era, while the Gilmore girls look on in amazement). “These kids have no sense of history,” complains Lane Kim (Keiko Agena), Rory’s best friend who is flummoxed to discover that few teenagers today know that bassist Kim Deal used to be in the influential postpunk group the Pixies. This line, delivered by Lane during an earlier scene in “Application Anxiety,” takes on deeper meaning when positioned next to the aforementioned moments, suggesting that in order to truly “get” Gilmore Girls one must have more than a passing familiarity with pop culture history; with the movies, TV shows, songs, and other artifacts created during this and previous centuries, Introduction | xvii be they Elizabethan sonnets or the trashy films of Elizabeth Berkeley. Indeed, viewers unfamiliar with The O.C. (2003–7) will likely not realize that Zack’s above-cited verbal smackdown of Lane’s young uncle (whom he mistakes as a rival suitor in the episode “Just Like Gwen and Gavin”) is a parodic rewording of a line spoken by the character Luke Ward in that other WB series: “Welcome to the O.C., bitch!” During its first two or three seasons, Amy Sherman-Palladino’s show seemed to be engaging in a rather one-sided conversation with other cultural productions—television series as diverse as The Donna Reed Show (ABC, 1958–66) and The O.C. as well as motion pictures like...