When Netflix announced the Gilmore Girls reunion, a four-episode miniseries titled A Year in the Life, I was thrilled. The original series, about a thirtysomething single mother and her teenage daughter, was one of the defining shows of my coming of age. I had based an alarming number of my life decisions on Rory Gilmore, the daughter, over the years. I was ready to see our girl thriving, kicking goals as a journalist and living her best life.
But instead A Year in the Life served a depressing vision of thirtysomething Rory, who was now broke and living a life that can only be described as a hot mess, largely of her own making. I couldn’t decide – was Rory just a bad person, or was her fragility, lack of responsibility and poor decision-making a result of the world she grew up in? Or, was she just a millennial?
After a recent rewatch, I’ve concluded it’s the latter. Like many in our generation, Rory was raised to have exceptional self-esteem, to the point that her corresponding resilience is incredibly low. Throughout the early seasons of Gilmore Girls, we’re told repeatedly how bright and special Rory is, based on the fact she reads a lot, gets good grades and wants to go to Harvard. At no point do we actually witness Rory doing anything that suggests she’s exceptional. The kid has no hobbies, no interest in a cause outside of herself and barely any interest in the wellbeing of her own friends, let alone others.
From when we first meet her, aged 16, Rory is traipsing around in her privileged bubble, her rich grandparents funding her private education and Ivy League university fees. Every time she suffers a minor setback, she reacts with impetuous immaturity; for example, when the newspaper internship she nepotistically acquired via her boyfriend’s father doesn’t turn into a job, she steals a yacht and drops out of Yale.
Still, Rory ultimately isn’t a bad person. She seemingly wants to make a difference in the world through journalism and is committed to working hard. I had faith that a few years in the “real world” would knock some of the entitlement out of her.
In A Year in the Life, I expected to see Rory living in a New York loft and writing for Jezebel with some poetry on the side, dating a musician and getting passionate about self-care. You know, strong 2016 vibes. Instead, we got a more realistic vision of Rory’s future: an out-of-work, semi-failed writer whose biggest achievement is a single New Yorker piece and a meeting she’s wrangled with Conde Nast. She has to move back home at age 30, is having an affair with her ex-boyfriend and, in the most millennial move ever, is writing a book about, well, herself.
Disappointingly, Rory still has zero self-awareness and a penchant for self-pity. At one point, she rocks up at a magazine for a job and is mad because they intend to interview her rather than immediately offer her a senior writing gig. In another, she takes on an assignment for GQ and, instead of researching the article, has casual sex with a stranger then cries about it to her mother who has accompanied her for the trip, as if she’s a preschooler.
While she lives up to the negative stereotypes of my generation, unfortunately Rory doesn’t simultaneously exhibit some of the positive stereotypes – such as a strong social conscience, a desire to dismantle systemic inequality through collective action, or even just the ability to check her own privilege. I would have liked to think that Rory would be more self-aware as an adult. Like the fact that, despite being raised by a single mother, she grew up with immense privilege by virtue of her wealthy grandparents; that being “special” to those who love you means nothing if you can’t work hard in the real world; that cheating was messed up when she lost her virginity to her married ex-boyfriend Dean, and it’s still messed up a decade later, sleeping with her engaged ex-boyfriend Logan; and that if she really wants to be a successful writer, she might need to listen to feedback, work a little harder and get her shit sorted so she isn’t juggling five mobile phones for five different editors and failing to file.
But, unfortunately, none of that reflection is forthcoming and we leave Rory on the precipice of what may be another decade of aimless drifting and poor decision-making.
Whatever that next chapter holds, this millennial won’t be watching. Instead, I’ve enjoyed hours of nostalgic indulgence while streaming the OG Gilmore Girls. I’d prefer to retain the promise of Rory’s future, full of hope and ambition and untainted by the reality that crashes down in the remake. Take my advice – do the same.
