Food aesthetics refers to the visual and sensory qualities of food, including its presentation, color, texture, and overall appeal. It plays a crucial role in how food is perceived and enjoyed, reflecting cultural values and identities through the ways dishes are crafted. Current debates in food aesthetics are moving away from focusing on whether food is art and concerns about the subjectivity and objectivity of taste, and towards questions about food’s social significance, aesthetic qualities, and ritualistic aspects.
Food aesthetics have a significant impact on appetite and desire, as visual appeal greatly influences our perception of taste and our desire to eat a particular dish. The sensory experience in dining is enhanced when food is presented in an aesthetically pleasing manner. A dish’s aesthetic value is determined by how it affects an individual’s sensory, emotional, psychological, and cognitive state.
Taste has been an essential part of aesthetics since the eighteenth century, but the shift from gustatory taste to taste in art and culture has led to a shift from gustatory taste to taste in art and culture. Production aesthetics involves foods’ origin and degree of pre-processing, while bodily aesthetics related to the bodily consequences of eating.
Food aesthetics play a crucial role in fostering social interactions by creating memorable dining experiences that invite sharing and conversation. Japanese food culture pays attention to the aesthetics and symbolism of food, honoring culturally rooted respect for nature and tradition. In conclusion, food aesthetics plays a vital role in fostering social interactions and creating memorable dining experiences that invite sharing and conversation.
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📹 Quirky Aesthetics & Fake Working-Class Problems: The Cringeworthy Finances of Gilmore Girls
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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.
This article’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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 finances/lifestyle/unrecognized 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 article 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.
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.
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!!
Who watches Friends, SATC or GG for an accurate representation of working class struggles?? If you watched any of those shows and then expected a similar lifestyle then that’s on you. At best they could be aspirational. I’ve taken inspiration with fashion, hairstyles and home decorating, but always understood my own financial limitations. Those shows are an entertaining escape, nothing more and nothing less.
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.
This TV show was so not a good reflection of working class problems at all. The Gilmore Girls were ‘acting’ poor but they were clearly not locked out of upper social class access and privileges. They were still dating well to do partners, they could access large amounts of funds from their relatives for the ‘inconvenience’ of attending an extra dinner with the ‘so oppressive parents’. Even the little town they lived in was so posh. In England, that’s the type of town that upper middle class people live in.
I know for many people this show is not relatable. However to be honest as a single mother who disappointed her wealthy family, this show’s themes actually really hit home for me. I have a glamorous, aggressively perfect mother, and a daughter that is far more intelligent than me. I accept gifts from them that help my daughter, but I’ve also gone through phases where I reject their input for “independence.” But I always got sucked back into their influence (especially when my daughter needs something). The show is unrealistic though because it is fictional.. however it does have some wonderful themes around complicated mother daughter bonds.
Ummm I think you’re misrepresenting the show. The show’s entire premise is not about class dynamics at all, it’s about mother-daughter relationships. It does have a money/ class/ privilege component (but it’s basically just a catalyst for conflict), but the show is about Lorelai and Emily’s relationship and Rory and Loralai’s relationship, how those two compare and contrast and how they both evolve over time, that’s why it’s called Gilmore Girls, the three are the Gilmore Girls.
What surprises me is the failure to see that GG is a straight-up ✨fairy tale✨ set in the 00s. Rory obviously is a princess. King and queen rule in their palace. Stars Hollow even looks like a definition of a “small charming town”, people! GG is one of my favorite series of all time, but I never saw it as an accurate life representation. Or a manual on how to spend my money, or find a partner, or raise my kids. GG characters drop advice left and right, but I always take it with a grain of salt, because my circumstances are so different from theirs and also, you know… I don’t live in a fairy tale!
I had to stop the article. Chelsea, I usually love your content. But this is going too far. Some of the statements you made are so untrue, I wonder if you even watched the show. I’ve seen it several times and I can tell you that Lorelai is not the one who wants an ivy league education for Rory. She wants what all mother’s want: she wants her daughter to be happy. Throughout the show, Rory is the one who is interested in the upper class lifestyle, not Lorelai. Rory wants to go to Chilton. Rory wants to go to Harvard. These are Rory’s dreams. Lorelai’s dream is to own an inn (which she does later in the show), but she also wants her daughter to be happy and she tells her daughter that she can do anything if she puts her mind to it. Obviously we know that this doesn’t work out for her. Rory goes to private school and Yale, but that doesn’t help her land a career in the dying field of journalism. Rory is the one who is spoiled because Lorelai spoiled her. It’s a classic tale of a Gen X mom raising a millennial daughter. Lorelai’s motivation is simple. She will do anything for her daughter even if it means reconciling with her estranged parents.
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
We got some real logic leaps here, specifically around housing and tuition…let’s consider the cost of housing in a small town when she would have bought it in the 90’s. Also, a few Chinese meals a week would never cover prep school tuition. A lot of valid critiques here but if we’re going to rip something apart, let’s be realistic and not ignore context for a more dramatic critique.
Your analysis was superficial in many ways: 1) Lorelai never wanted to cut strings with her parents. She wanted to cut strings with the future her parents had for her. There is a whole psychological/unconscious behavior explanation for Lorelai’s actions when it comes to running away from her parents while unconsciously keeping them close by means of money issues. 2) Your comment on Rose/Carl from Titanic was not funny, if that was your intention. Choose your jokes more wisely. 3) One thing is for a TEENAGER to not want something for HERSELF. Another thing is for a MOTHER to not want something for her DAUGHTER. Regardless, it was Rory’s dream, not Lorelai’s. 4) If you want to analyze a character’s behavior by judging their actions in terms of financial matters, it’s hard not to include a psychological analysis with it. Simply saying that “it doesn’t make sense” sounds like every human being is coherent 100% in their lives, which is what really makes no sense. If you want to make a pure financial analysis, try to use pure financial arguments. Otherwise, you are just judging characters without taking into consideration their traumas, background, psychological behaviors and emotions. Your article showed that you lacked financial arguments, which made you use pseudo-psychological ones in order to just beat around the bush.
I’m not sure why people think that they need to learn life lessons from comedy shows – that is what drama and documentary is for. I watched the show growing up and it did not make me think it was realistic or that I needed to go to private school or not consider the cost of college when making my own life choices. I enjoyed the quirky characters and the references. A lot of the money related plot point were obviously put in to move along plot or to create conflict – without which there would be nothing for the characters to react to. Some shows just exist to take a break from real life, otherwise it would be like perusal a tv show about a pandemic while living through that same pandemic (which is exactly what happened last year and it was not enjoyable.)
So many issues with this “analysis”, mainly you are equating financial success with a specific social culture. Wanting the best for yourself and your kid financially doesn’t mean you want to engage in the WASPy social culture… There’s nothing wrong with wanting your cake and eating it, especially when it comes to your children. Lorelai never professes to be some kind of revolutionary, she is entitled to want to have as much money as she wants, she just wants it to be separate from her parent’s world where possible. 1. Quiet, intelligent kids like Rory do better in private schools, so why not make a personal sacrifice to get her there? Like you said, “secure the bag”. 2. I don’t think the show ever tried to portray them as working class, they are obviously middle class and only want to reject the upper class social culture of the grandparents. 3. Though they don’t mention it Lorelai probably had a trust fund, I don’t know if they could have forced her to take it or not though. 4. The value of the house would be extremely different 20 years ago! Come on Chelsea. 5. RE the take away food and backpacking: they said they get a big order and live off the leftovers for a week, also backpacking in Europe is really cheap. These are absolutely minimal expenses compared to tuition fees, and don’t they get to have some fun? They don’t exactly spend money on much else like a fancy car or home renovations.
I would not say Lorelai was perfectly happy to let her parents pay for Rory’s schooling. She begrudgingly asked for and accepted it, not just because of the dinner requirement that went with it but because she hated ever owing them anything. They always held it over her if they did her a favor. It could never be a simple, no-strings-attached gift. She asked them to loan the money, and as soon as she came into enough money to pay them back, she did (which they did not like, because it meant they no longer could appeal to the strings attached). I think we can pretend that Lorelai’s house didn’t cost what we think it should have cost (it is a small house in a small town that she bought in the 80s or early 90s, so maybe it just wasn’t as unaffordable as we think). But yes, the constant eating out is pretty weird for the financial situation they purport to be in. I do suppose we can hand wave that away as well to a certain extent though. They are frequently getting free food from Luke, and it’s not a stretch that they might get free or cheap food from other vendors in town too. Lorelai was really successful at ingratiating herself to the townspeople in her young adulthood.
Ok some of this I agree with. However, counterpoint! I remember perusal this series as a teenager and really it was one of the things that brought me and my mom together. My mom was/is no Lorelei, but my Grandma even looks like Emily Gilmore. Like, I was perusal the show, saw and heard Emily and gasped, ran and grabbed my mom who also gasped, we looked at each other and just started laughing. (And for two people who needed weekly therapy to try to repair/maintain our relationship, that was significant.) I remember cotillion and charm school, elite private school. But my parents were upper middle class. Both dropped out of college, not quite understanding the realities of the upper middle class or below, assuming they would be able to rely on family money for whatever they needed. Well that didn’t quite work out for them. Sure my brother and I went to elite schools, we always had extra curriculars, you best believe grandma was going to train her grandchildren to be more successful than her children, and for me that meant not only sewing classes and equestrian, dance, finishing school and the whole deal, but it also meant expectations of looking a certain way and behaving a certain way, dating certain people. Certain people who knew my family name, but also knew their decline, their struggles and that I was wearing vintage Tiffany’s, not brand new, and that made a difference to them. So I really, really got Gilmore Girls. My Richard died of alcoholism when my mom was 9 though.
As someone who grew up on GG, I identified with Rory and Lane b/c of their dedication to school and love of music. As a kid growing up working class with your parents and everyone around you believing that work hard = success and I’m sure this show contributed to that on a subconscious level for many kids (who are now adults). Real talk: Rory got lucky (nothing more or less). She got lucky in terms of her looks and who her grandparents are and their money that were the reasons she got to do certain things and have certain experiences and it wasn’t b/c of her “working hard”. There’s a theory going around that the book Rory writes is actually the show hence why its so idyllic and rose tinted (the awful ways she and Lorelai are portrayed in the revival are true to who they actually are as characters) . I’m sure Rory’s grandfather left her a trust (it was mentioned in the show) so that’s how she can afford her 2bdm in Queens to just write her book. One last thing, Rory nearly sacrificed her relationship with her mom who rightly so did not want her private life up for public consumption just so Rory didn’t have to do jobs she did not want.
I 100% agree with you! There is a big difference between “making it on your own” and having wealthy parents as a safety net. Not to mention, how much money could Luke actually have that he gives her $30,000? He owns a diner in a small town, plus he owns a whole building with no renters, so he’s footing the utility and upkeep bills himself.
This is a great analysis! Though it’s worth pointing out that the writing on this show can go pretty deep and I think more than a few things touched on in this article were written that way intentionally. Lorelai’s attempts to distance herself from her generational wealth but still benefiting from it and continuing to hold many of the same values as her parents is a key part of her character, I think. You can see the contrast written into Lane’s character who in many ways actually lived the life Lorelei imagines she’s lived.
I watched this show as a teenager, started perusal again as an adult, and I still don’t view it as a glimpse into “working class/rich class”. To me, it was, and is, about a family with a complicated history. Lorelai clearly didn’t want the path her parents laid out for her, but Rory clearly does. She wants the private school education, the Ivy League education. So Lorelai does what she can to help with that, even if it makes her uncomfortable, because she wants to give her daughter the best. And she just happens to have rich parents who can help with that. This article is painful to watch because of the assumptions this person makes. Lorelai can be unhappy with something and still do it. I do that everyday. Also, it’s much cheaper to eat like shit than not. Especially Chinese, where they give you a ton of food. That’s several meals. And the whole house thing…c’mon…they had the horse before the show started, so in the 90s. Of course houses were cheaper then. (Another commenter made this point, but I’m just underlining it as more reason this article is annoying.)
I have to assume your comment about Rose marrying Cal and just cheating on him was tongue in cheek. Cal was a controlling, self-centered domestic abuser. Rose’s disinterest in marrying him had little to do with wanting to marry for love. It was also about her being allowed to express herself, which Cal absolutely would have stifled, even before he knew she had feelings for Jack.
What you said about those rich Montessori school kids also applies to a lot of the regular, schmegular lower/mid-middle class kids from my public school. I mean, what do you do with a BA in English? Not saying a humanities degree doesn’t have value—any college/uni experience or degree does, IMO—but the job landscape has changed dramatically and a BA just doesn’t cut it anymore. So many of my former classmates who got four-year degrees found themselves forced to pursue a Master’s/PhD or go trade school within a few years of their college graduation. Those who were using that first degree were no exception. As an old friend of mine said, “I’m just tired of being poor.” She slogged through her BA while slowly burning out the whole time, then worked a miserable job for years at a massive non-profit while slowly burning out the whole time, and then finally decided to quit and start over. She enrolled at a local community college and though she had to put up with relentless sexism in her program, she graduated a couple years later. Now she’s making BANK as an electrician. It’s too bad community college was never presented as a worthy option to middle class kids back in the ’00s. Huge chunks of Gen’s Y and Z were pushed into debt in pursuit of career paths that have now ceased to exist or are only available to the hyperprivileged few.
Wow, maybe bc I was in my 20s when GG was out I never thought that much about any of these issues when I watched the show. It was an escape from my shity broke life like most entertainment I consume. I just loved the characters. I just thought is was tv show not a doc and not trying to actually say anything important about any issues even about class. And of course the actress didn’t eat like the characters. None of that shit was realistic, it’s a fantasy world and that’s okay.
Since I first watched GG with my partner as 26 and 31 year-olds, we were CONVINCED this show was a commentary on privilege and being oblivious throughout life xD like yes, they work hard as individuals but in the end, it is the help of their community/family that helps them accomplish anything. Rory in particular has always been the antagonist of the show in our mind, which is evident in her downfall in the Year in a Life, being spoiled and completely breaking down when challenged in any way, expecting life problems to magically fix themselves… As people with a working-class background can never fully escape the weight of it no matter how much upward climbing they do, the Gilmores cannot (and don’t want to) escape their inherited money and privilege.
When their eating habits we’re mentioned it made me realize another issue about this show I never realized when I was younger and watched it: If people are large amounts of junk food everyday they’d have major health problems. So the fact that Lorelei didn’t know to cook real food for her child is a huge parental mistake. Cooking is not a difficult thing to learn. I learned it at the age of 10. So the fact that a 30 something person with a child never learned how to prepare food is ridiculous. I get it’s a fictional tv show but In real life Rory would have had major health issues from the way her and her mother ate which probably would’ve prompted social services to investigate.
Point absolutely seconded about class tourists “roughing it” in the arts economy. But as someone without those prep-school roots who is a career artist, can we please critique the structure that devalues art and makes it nearly impossible to survive without a trust fund in the profession instead of the concept of being a working artist itself? That’s not helping those of us who genuinely have this career get our labor valued. Love, a career “vaudevillian” without a trust fund who is very very tired.
The $2 million for the home seems way out of line. Not that I know anything about the price of real estate in Connecticut in 2000, which was when the show debuted, but there is no way the house was worth that much 21 years ago. It’s an older house with only two bedrooms and one bath, and not on a very large lot. How Lorelai could afford the house on her salary alone was a subject of debate on the Gilmore Guys podcast, because it does seem unrealistic viewing the show today while we’re in the midst of a housing crisis in many parts of the country. $200-$300k would seem to be a more reasonable price tag for a home during that time.
The one thing I can agree with this article is that scene when Rory says “but I’m a Gilmore!” is the cringy-est thing in GG, and A Year in the Life was not really good. The rest… c’mon. It’s a show, and the heart of the show is how complicated mother-daughter relationships are… It was never about an accurate portrayal of middle-class America. Everyone in the show is a crazy character, and I love it for that.
Yaaaas. I feel like you could’ve done a series just about each GG character and their relationship to money. Lorelei being rude to every service person she encounters? Rory dropping out of school, completely relying on her grandparents and their connections to fund her lifestyle, and judging Logan for being a spoiled rich boy while also enjoying the perks herself?
Honeslty, as someone who grew up with a single mother, who had her as a teenager, who was very poor, no other family to help, my feelings about GIlmore Girls is very complicated. I love the show. I watch it. But when I think about it I feel more bitter about how the relationships were portrayed. That life isn’t cute. It isn’t quirky and quaint. Gilmore Girls def feels like what Rich people think being poor is like. In reality, having a child that young means my mom and I grew up together. Her traumas became mine. She was angry at the world. Life was hard. I wish we had ONE movie night like they do in the show. Our relationship is good NOW because we’re both adults and older and we know ourselves. But a teen raising a child will never equal a bubbly happy daily relationship like they had. I do feel like Gilmore Girls portrays lives like ours in a way that reinforces toxic ideas of how romantic the rich think it is to live like we do. And sadly that does have real-world consequences. I love the show, I watch it, but when it gets brought up, I can’t help but feel a little bitter towards it.
Idk if you brought this up but all those bohemian people from the really expensive Montessori high school probably got their high paying jobs through family connections. It’s easy to go try to be an improv vaudeville person if you know you can still come back ANYTIME and get an internship at prestigious law firm that will open doors for you if and when you feel like it. For the rest of us who wants that life, you better work and network your ass off and are in the right college and have a string of relevant internships lined up since freshman year. Miss that window and your ship to that life will have sailed.
I liked the realistic look at the quirky aspects of the Gilmore Girls that wouldn’t make sense in the real world. Of course, Chelsea’s delivery is always entertaining as well. That said, I’m not convinced that anyone who has seen the series could think the show meant for us to see Lorelai as a working-class single mother—certainly no one with a single mother who was part of the working/poor class could think that Lorelai was part of the working class. For the majority of the show, Lorelai was clearly a single mother in the middle class, who joined the upper middle class after buying the Inn and living with Luke—and yes, she was always wealthy adjacent. The premise of the show is that Lorelai is a single mother from a wealthy family struggling to maintain her independence from an undesirable family situation until she realizes her decision to be estranged from her family has cut her daughter off from privilege. The financial “struggles,” if we can call them that, just forced Lorelai to contend with what she gave up and to deal with her family situation. Sure, Lorelai ran away from home and landed a job as a maid at an inn (aptly named the “Independence” Inn), but the show clarified that Lorelai’s employment and housing were given as a bit of charity from the inn owner in a fairy god-mother type of role. So, yes—Money problems disappear on tv and they won’t just disappear in real life—even if we happened to find goodly mentors or benefactors like Lorelai did with the owner of the Independence Inn.
I remember perusal GG as a 15y.o from France, and thinking that take-out food must have been so much cheaper in the US. There was no way anyone would order so much of it here, while it seemed they were struggling financially in other areas. Even nowdays, with a very comfortable salary, I wouldn’t be able to do that!
1:16 no one watches (or should watch) Gilmore Girls “to get prepared for the real world”. It’s entertainment, people want to watch movies because they’re so far off from reality. They are not here to teach us about the real world and finances and they shouldn’t act as a substitute for real education. I myself spent many autumn evenings binge-watching Gilmore Girls and have pleasant memories from the time. At the end of it I remained with a nice feeling of how an “ideal” community would feel like, feeling I would never be able to experience in the real world. For that matter the movie did its job and had a positive message despite (or because) of all inaccuracies. Who said the producers wanted to teach us about money, or any other topics for that matter, anyway?
Like many other commenters pointed out, this article is inaccurate when it comes to certain things: – The house being estimated at 2million now and using that as a way to calculate the down payment. However, your down payment and mortgage principal are based on when a person buys the house, which would have been in the 90’s. The house itself then would likely have been more around 200k – maybe even 150k. With Lorelai living in the inn, (an actual thing that should have been pointed out, but wasn’t, regarding her luck), she would have been able to save quite a bit of money. Even with the house value going up, her principal wouldn’t, so she could also have refinanced to get a lower interest rate when rates started going down. She also likely could have had a cosigner on her mortgage. So no, her inability to get a loan for termite treatment without a cosigner during the 2000s does not signify that she couldn’t have gotten a mortgage in the 90s. – Using a location-based house estimate, but using a national average for her salary. – Take-out. Yes, they bought a lot, but not necessarily every day (though going to luke’s diner for breakfast seems like that was every day). It’s actually addressed they bought a bunch of takeout and then ate the leftovers for days. It’s not a great habit, and they could save a good bit of money by not doing that, but I’ve known both middle class and lower class people who eat out way more often than is reasonable. I actually have a friend who worked retail jobs like at walmart (not exactly known for great salaries) who hadn’t cooked for years until she moved in with a new boyfriend who wanted them to save money.
Lorelei Gilmore was essentially my mom. She shook off the trappings of wealth and treated it with distain but tried to send me to private school and pushed me towards the old school paths of success. Except unlike Rory, my grandparents died when I was 12 and my mom was cut off from her privilege. She really didn’t know how to live in that state and she didn’t know how to teach me to live any other way. Gilmore Girls is legitimately painful for me to watch because of all of the happy washing that show did of a situation so similar at times to mine.
I love the gilmore girls, but I always knew it was fantasy land. It was 100% Mayberry. They eat whatever they want, they have zero consequences, they never actually sweat because it is never summer. Though I love you, pls give me suspension of disbelief. I know that the suspect in CSI with the most lines did it, but I just dont wanna think about my problems.
The worst part for me is that Lorelai claims she had “no help from anyone” building her life in SH. But the inn owner hired her, housed her, I assume provided free childcare, and likely cosigned or loaned money for the mortgage! They finally explain Mia later in the series, by which time Rory herself had accepted free housing and a cushy job (this time from her grandparents). The cycle continues! 🙄
i think it needs to be said that Lorelai never got help from her parents in the first 16 years of Rory’s life before the show started (this is obvious since it’s implied a lot that Richard and Emily weren’t really in their lives until they gave money for Chilton). so at least before the show started, Lorelai and Rory were living a fairly independent, working class lifestyle until they got more involved with Richard and Emily, when they got more money and opportunities. i think that Lorelai’s independence is also a really big factor here that needs to be discussed, because a HUGE point throughout the show is that she doesn’t want to take money from her parents or anyone. and she actually DOES build up her career and Rory’s life (outside of Chilton and Yale) by herself and without her parents help for the most part.
This article is built on such a strange premise – where did you get the idea that this show is about working class people? If you want to say that GG is about class, you could say it’s about a woman who tries and fails to leave the upper class because she wants the best for her daughter and like most people, will use any opportunity to make that happen. Luckily for her, she has rich parents and can make it happen. Rory grows up with a working mother in a normal sized house (certainly for a TV show), going to a normal school. She grows up on a middle class income and around middle class culture so of course she will struggle to fit in at Chilton, balls, in upper class people’s mansions etc. But it’s not as if the show is not aware that once Lorelai and Rory start accepting money from the grandparents and (once again) becoming entrenched in their upper class culture, they start to become a part of this class of people, especially Rory. They even have another rich character in the show spell it out for Rory in case anyone missed it. Of course Lorelai will always perceive herself as comparatively poor because her parents are outrageously rich, just like you apparently saw or still see yourself as poor compared to the kids in your town who went to private school despite the fact that you have huge Western privilege and belong to the richest 10% in the world.
Love Gilmore girls. Comparing wages from 30 years ago to current housing prices doesn’t add up. Lorelei did a lot for the community. She was very involved and got a lot of help in return. She didn’t drive a new car. Her life was doable. My question is about all the fresh fruit and food in the inns kitchen. I loved looking at it but those must have been some expensive rooms! The point is Lorelei was trying to raise rory the best she could but also understood the importance of education for having the best future possible. In the end, at the newspaper, rory really didn’t need it. That’s ok too.
Never seen the show but for the issue regarding the house. If that house is worth $2m today, it was obviously not worth that much when the show aired or the years prior when the house was bought. Let’s say that the house was worth between $300-400k, she could have definitely afford that. You don’t need to put 20 percent down on a house. Like she isn’t buying a co-op and if she qualified for ab FHA loan, she probably only put down 3 percent and received down payment and closing cost assistance as a new homeowner. Her mortgage would have probably been around $1500 depending on the interest rate. If she was making $62k, things would have definitely been tight but not out of the question.
I have been seeing this since season 1 and how they also took a stupid Europe trip after Rory’s graduation like they can afford it?? Sorry what?! Don’t you have bills to pay? How tf did she even end up with such a good one-storey house in the first place?? At 32?! I’m pretty sure if they saved up those food deliveries and ordering in instead of ACTUALLY cooking for once with such a nice kitchen… it would have made much more sense for Lorelai to afford Chilton honestly.
Rory had no bills to pay in A Year In The Life, though. She was living back home and all her previous expenses were paid for by her rich lover. Well, maybe a phone bill, but she was very much coasting by on other people’s generosity (or whatever else you wanna call Logan keeping a well-paid mistress), as she had her entire life.
Richard and Paris are the only people on the show that are believable to be as successful as the show portrays them. They don’t spend all their time eating fast food and dropping pop culture references. They work hard and make sacrifices. Loreai and Rory seems to have time and money for everything. Luke constantly closes his diner.
It’s worth 2.2 million dollars today, in 2021. The show started in 2000s, I’m sure it was worth much less then. I can believe their lifestyle just based on the relationship they had with folks in town. That house was probably like $200k when she got it. And I bet she worked really hard to try to get that house. I think Lorili really focused for Rori to get into Harvard because it was her dream. She wanted to prove to her parents her getting pregnant was worth it. I mean she’s kinda emotionally stunted with them. She’s always going to misbehave because when she’s near them she feels like she’s 12 years old. Love your show! Love your website! Thanks for giving me something fun to think about. Cheers!!
As someone who is in the (very painful and long) process of digging out of debt (made my last CC payment this month!) and correcting a lifetime of bad spending habits, the deus ex machina one time fixes in shows like GG are incredibly frustrating. To the degree that I can no longer enjoy shows that glamorize poor financial choices.
I’m not knocking this article but I think the moral of the story is that we need more robust media literacy taught in schools. There needs to be an acknowledgment that messages in television and film should not be taken as gospel and that our minds are always absorbing these messages and could start believing these lies even at a young age. I never understood the idea of tv as “mindless”…there’s definitely a lot that can be absorbed through visual media and most of it needs to be examined while we watch.
I do think that there’s a uniquely weird place in society for people who came from upper class parents but do not have upperclass earnings. Its definitely not working class but also not quite upper if your needs being met are at the behest of rich relatives who decide what your “true” needs are. Would love to know if there’s research on this
On the subject of the house, the show started in teh early 2000s but Lorelai and Rory had clearly been living tehre for several years, so I think it would be more fair to estimate what the house would have been worth in the early 1990s. Property prices skyrocketed up in the mid to late 1990s but she may have had the good luck (or possibly smarts) to get it before that happened. Also, its not unreasonable to think Christopher might have given her some help with buying a homne in which to raise Rory.
The only self aware character on this show was Logan, who was well aware of his wealth and privilege and wasn’t afraid to call rory out on her bullshit. They really did Logan dirty, honestly, but I loved that a rich white frat guy was able to have an honest conversation + rec his privilege in like the early aughts.
Regarding Rory’s finances in the revival, my assumption that a lot was covered during that year by Logan, some of her travel probably earned her status to save on that, living with her mom, and while writing her book, I assumed she was living at her grandparents house. Unfortunately I think Rory lives off family and boyfriends.
How can somebody be so miserable? This show clearly portrays the life of somebody with rich parents who in many aspects rejects that life and it shows the problems that come with this conundrum of trying to give the best to ones child while also trying not to completely give in to the parents who enable this. All very open, logic and clear. You just appear jealous and bitter in this review.
Obviously the show has issues, but I think a lot of them are in Rory, not Lorelei. I think it makes a lot of sense that her character would want to use her parents’ money to improve her child’s life, regardless of the implications. And it isn’t Lorelei’s dream for Rory to go to an Ivy League, it’s Rory’s dream. The big unrealistic thing on Lorelei’s end is that she seems basically OK with Rory wasting her education and not actually succeeding in any way.
I can actually relate to Rory about living a lower middle lifestyle with her mother but having wealthy grandparents. Though I didn’t know just how wealthy they were until after they passed. The biggest privilege Rory and i have is having financial security at the hardest times. I have inheritances from my grandmother. My mother has inheritances from her parents. We know we have funds enough to weather the hardest times if we ever meet it.
While this article has several very good and valid points… Particularly about how the Gilmore girls’ lifestyle does not represent working or middle class backgrounds… I take issue with the depiction of Lorelei, particularly about paying her parents back right away when she got the funding. This article says that Lorelei paid her parents back despite their being several “more pressing” financial issues. This is certainly arguable given the kind of mistreatment she has to put up with to get access to the money. Despite her strong desire to be financially independent, she lives in a world and a context where that still isn’t possible for her to reach that to do what she sees as setting her daughter up for success. Just like most of us. And I really take issue that with this quote: “But if she was so desperate to break off these ties from her parents I wasn’t she saving all along”? Who says she wasn’t?? It would be realistic and understandable that she couldn’t pay this all off even from saving for many years. This article strikes me as wanting to see Lorelei as the bad person instead of someone who is caught up in a system of finances like everyone else in the world. Yes, sometimes she utilizes her generational financial privilege, but also she also has to succumb herself to verbal abuse to get access to the things that she sees in the culture going to set her daughter up for success. I think this article villainizes Lorelei much more than is fair and fails to see the larger culture she is in.
I actually don’t think the apartments in Friends were that crazy. One was rent-controlled if I’m not mistaken? the others were shared by at least 2 roommates and Chandler made a lot of money at his unnamed job. Plus it was the early 90’s. Yes, it’s not totally realistic and stretches the truth, but it’s not that crazy. I’ve also rewatched Gilmore Girls at least 6 times in my life, and I don’t think this is an accurate take on Lorelai. It’s totally unfair to her character. Rory definitely took advantage of her grandparents’ wealth and ended up much worse off than Lorelai, who essentially built her life from scratch. I do agree that she had help along the way, but everyone needs help of some sort to get ahead. Whether it’s friends, family, mentors, or luck. It was clear that Lorelai wanted to be close to her parents but it just wasn’t easy for her. They used money to manipulate her, which is why she dreaded those dinners. She only asked for help for Rory’s sake. I also think that her wanting to push Rory into the lifestyle she escaped from was probably a subconscious way of dealing with her own sense of failure in the eyes of her parents. PLUS that 75K totally ruined her chances of getting scholarships for Rory. It’s a complicated dynamic. Yes, there is a lot of classism, but that was never hidden in the show. I don’t know why people love to hate on it so much these days. As far as Europe goes, man… they had planned that for years and sometimes you just have to live life. However, their eating habits and the house were kind of food overstated.
Yeah, Cal was a possessive and violent man who literally tried to murder his fiancé with a gun when he found out she had feelings for someone else. Being legally tied to that forever ain’t worth the money. (Which is pointless anyway because Rose confirms at the end that the stock market crash hit his interests and he went bankrupt before killing himself)
I’d say Luke is a good example of someone who comes from a working middle class background in the show. The only thing he inherited was his father’s handyman skills and the hardware shop that eventually he turned it into a diner. It really shows that is a success as everyone in town enjoys coming in, no matter what mood Luke is in, and it’s mainly on Luke’s work ethic and smart investments that proves Luke is a relatable working class character that the average person can understand. Lorlei might have wanted to restart on her own terms, mainly in defiance of her heritage, but she eventually fell onto habits of relying on her parents. Saying this as someone who likes Lorlei, it took her a while for her to stop looking down on the upper class lifestyle into learning the maturity of understanding how the world works, coming to terms she was blessed to have a family that had the fortunes to potentially buy off Stars Hallows off the map.
The thing I always felt was weird about the mom is she made stupid decisions for the sake of “pride” and then railed against her parents for them telling her that she’s making a stupid decision. Like, despite all their faults, they do actually love their kid and grandkid and don’t understand her insistence of “being independent” by cutting off her nose to spite her face. Yes, controlling parents are difficult, yes, being controlled sucks, but if you’re literally not in the position (financially, emotionally, whatever) to care for yourself, the sometimes capitulating some of that pride temporarily is the smarter move. I get why she allowed her parents to pay for Rory’s private school, it was beneficial for both Rory’s much better education as well as pleasing her parents, but the idea that her “pride” took such a big hit from this she had to just throw 75k at the “debt” in one lump is just ridiculous. Your parents paying for her schooling, especially when they have means to do so and you do not, sacrifices nothing in the end. I first watched the show when I was a bit older than Rory, then again when I was Lorelai’s age and honestly? They’re both idiots for the majority of the show. I get what they’re trying to do, I just never understand why and how they go about it. And they’re both incredibly selfish while doing it. I always just end up feeling bad for Luke in the end. Loving someone that bonkers has to be hard.
Ok, this article is strange. a) the housing price given is likely false, someone else started this discussion in the comments below. b) The food price argument is also false. Given that Lorelai actually runs the inn, she would probably have over 60k/year (got that from a Gilmore Girls Group). Now even if she was eating out every single day with Rory, that would make for high food costs, but not – impossibly high. Say 25 Dollars/day, + a few snacks, lands them at 1000k for food, and they can hardly have eaten for 25 Dollars each day. They would still have enough for the house lease, given a realistic house price. However, they would not have enough to pay for Chilton, which is exactly the situation they are in when the show starts.
I see lots of offense to the joke about marrying Billy Zane’s character in Titanic and while no one supports staying with an abuser I find it more offensive how Hollywood fictionalizes the casual “choice” women have about marriage in some period pieces. Marriage was about survival (sometimes literal, but also social) and gaining and maintaining assets not feelings which is a very manufactured marriage reality. If the Titanic hadn’t sunk, a real life Rose would have married for security as her mother planned and Jack and future Jack’s would remain her ah …entanglements.
I re watched the show a month ago and in my opinion Lorelai is a beautiful character and her story was more complicated than that. She felt misunderstood in her own familily and runaway with her baby at a young age. Even if she came from a rich background she make it through from herself and I always remember those scene where she felt ashame of her situation in front of her Mother when she needed a crédit for her house, or the school for her daughter cuz she didn’t want nothing from them and was trap cuz they were no other options. Not to mention she got a complexe relationship with her parents who always, yes where here but keep continuing to humiliate her in front of others or her own daugther. Rory in my opinion was spoiled, arrogant and doesn’t got the strenght of her Mother or even her grandmother.
I like honest analyses like this. At the time I used to have a lot of questions about various shows I saw, but if you ever questioned anything at the time it was seen as bad and you were just expected to enjoy these shows and be a fan. I always liked Gilmore Girls and how it’s all cosy with the lights, cafe and small town life but I never liked Rory who I thought was spoiled, whiny and ungrateful and unfathomably liked by others. I don’t agree at all about marrying that guy in Titanic and cheating on him, but otherwise, an interesting article.
I have been confused by the discrepancies in the older Gilmore’s wealth. At one point Richard is pushed out of his job at an insurance company and he and Emily are anxious about his retirement funds and the ability to maintain their lifestyle. After starting his own company, his old employer buys him out and rehires him. He must have received a whopping payout, as in later episodes, he seems to have gone from Upper Middle Class to truly wealthy because he has money to donate a building in Rory’s name. When Richard has a second heart attack, we are told through Emily that after his first one, Richard made sure all their estate planning was up to date. When Richard dies, it seems the only one who benefited from Richard’s will, other than Emily, was Luke, who didn’t want the money. It would seem to me that Richard and Emily would have set up trust funds for Rory and possibly Lorelai. Yet both women seem to have no money beyond what they earn and Emily is blithely writing checks all over the place.
I feel like this is too much. I mean, it was just a series. I personally love gilmore girls and watchet it several times, but for the love, relationships and drama etc. I honestly don’t care about financial aspects. It is a great show and some people love it and to be honest it is just a series, and series are not always realistic. There are so many things in GG that would never happen in reality (not only financially related), but they are there, and why? Because otherwise people wouldn’t watch it. I love the articles of the TFD but this article taught me nothing.
In my family, we have a running joke about the “Bank of Mom and Dad.” Anytime that me or any of my siblings are facing truly big financial problems, we can always go to our parents and borrow money from the Bank of Mom and Dad. I recognize the incredible amount of privilege that me and my siblings have in that. However, I still consider myself and my siblings very much middle class. We all work and trying to save money, buy homes, raise our families, etc.
Disney website shows were also horrible at this, especially considering they were aimed at an impressionable audience. Thinking back on shows like Good Luck Charlie — where a blue collar dad and stay-at-home mom have 5 kids but live in a giant house and all wear new trendy ish outfits each episode — makes me sad for all the fellow kids who felt misrepresented.
I liked the episode Episode where Emily goes to Lorelai’s house for the first time, because it mentions (not to be referenced after) that Lorelai did struggle financially, got away with big part thanks to the hotel owner generosity and the Town goodwill. I wish the story had touched more in how important the community was, because it’s vagely allude at times that Lorelai never had issues having free babysitting, neighboors helping with small house repairs, many services at discount and plenty of Town activities in lie of afterschool clubs…
I think the sense of comfort and safety that you get from perusal the gilmore girls was part of the appeal, it kind of felt cathartic with an element of fantasy to watch this close knit family and town that had all the things we didnt while growing up. It wouldnt have been relatable if it was just set in the upper class setting, and it wouldnt have felt as magical if not for the middle class balance.
There are a lot of things I could say about this, but I think ultimately the problem with this (and other content surrounding this) is that it endeavors to judge fictional people and situations against the rules of reality, which always results in the fiction falling short. The point of Gilmore Girls is not to provide a realistic portrayal of either the working class or the fabulously wealthy, it’s to convey the complexities of navigating relationships, particularly familial relationships that are fraught with toxicity and abusive behavior. Art is not reality.
Just an observation: 2.1 million in today’s money and prices. It is also a constant that housing market is insane nowadays, and prices have increased dramatically. Lorelai could have snatched an amazing deal, and maybe some leverage from Mia, or even a no-interest personal loan for the down payment. Aaaannd… Rory doesn’t struggle with money because she has Trixie’s trust fund. And her grandfather probably left her something. She is depressed because she can’t seem to be able to do it on her own, she feels disappointed in herself. But money is never the issue. She is wealthy because of her family, and feels like a failure for not being able to make it on her own…
I love/hate vids like this because they don’t take into context + off screen backstory development. For the sake of Lorelai and Rory, they had lived in Stars Hollow for like 5-6 years before the start of the show, meaning the house was purchased in the very early 90s. Additionally, Lorelai had been the manager of the Inn for a few years prior to us meeting her in S1. Before that she rose through the ranks, starting as a Maid who lived in a shed behind the inn- rent free…. So 7-10 years of working, living rent free, and making most of your kids baby/toddler clothes in the very early 90s. Its not unnassumable that she saved and put a decent down payment on a house with a relatively affordable mortgage. (I’ve seen people in NYC buy homes with only 40-55k incomes in that same time span). Food wise, they don’t eat out every day. They often buy large quantities of food and eat the leftovers for 2-3 days. slightly more expensive than groceries yes, but not out of question. But they also live in a very small town. Its totally conceivable that the CoL is low. Especially in the 90s-early 2000s.
Oh my god you guys. It’s literally a show. I’m not sure Lorelei or Rori ever played the “I had a very hard upbringing because we didn’t have money” card. Ever. If anyone is perusal Gilmore girls and thinks “wow, Lorelei and Rori have it so hard” then they themselves don’t know what actual hard work and lack of money/support looks like. Also! Who’s claiming this show is an accurate representation of working class?
I couldn’t finish Gilmore Girls, after suffering through 2-3 seasons of it. Rory is so insufferable in her constant lamenting, and she’s really not as hardworking as everyone in Stars Hollow likes to think she is—I mean, compare her to Paris, please! Also, Lorelai is so double standard in so many ways, I can’t even. Lastly, can we agree that Lane is definitely the town’s token of diversity? Letting her family live there clearly gave the town enough reason to pat themselves on the back for inclusion.
As a fan of the show, I totally agree with you. I have criticized Lorelei’s attitude in other articles on the show too. She didn’t choose to completely cut ties with her rich backgrounds but to take advantage of them when it was convenient to her. I think the writers wanted to make Lorelei into the traumatized mother who would do anything to give Rory what she didn’t have. (the ability to choose for herself and have a place to live that was free of control, manipulation, and hidden agendas ie: ‘You can live under my roof unless you disagree with me and with how I want you to live’-that’s what Emily did to Lorelei). I guess in an attempt to give her daughter what she didn’t have, she went the other way to prove she is financially powerful and independent. Which led to her borrowing money from her parents to pay for expensive schools. I do know Lorelei wanted only good things for Rory but she was traumatized and due to her brain fog, she couldn’t make the best decisions for herself or her daughter. On the other hand, Rory is a lost cause. She accepted the privilege of her grandparents with open arms. Thus, she expected to find work as a journalist in a few weeks because she was a “Gilmore” and Gilmores are special. Also, I don’t think she expected to earn a living from her book. If she did expect that, she’s truly lost. 🙂
When I first started perusal TFD, they were giving practical, straightforward advice on money and finances while occasionally sharing relatable stories about their struggles in the past. Their articles were very pleasant, inspiring, and actionable. Fast forward to now, and they’ve turned into bitter women who rant about weddings, minimalism, fictional characters etc. in a very, holier-than-thou, condescending, and cringey way (the trying-to-be-funny, ironic head-bobbing thing while going off-script to deliver snappy comments is really just not working for you). It’s becoming harder and harder to take this website seriously (sometimes the only watchable thing in your articles is your dog that makes an appearance from time to time).
No mention of how Christopher became ultra-rich and paid for everything for Rory at the end of the show? Has it all disappeared since a Year in the Life begins? She is ”homeless” and struggling despite having virtually no student debt, a well-to-do middle-class mother, super-rich dad, and a wealthy grandmother. If you’ve got all those cards on the table and still can’t make it as a journalist, maybe it’s just not the career for you….Rory.