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[bryant]

I finished the second season of Gilmore Girls this weekend, and feel relatively well-qualified to comment: to discuss. Lots to talk about. (Does that mean there'll be more of these lengthy posts? Maybe! Obsessive now.)

But mostly... I'm thinking the Nip/Tuck boys need to stand down, and our favorite morticians should get accustomed to being second-best. Lorelei Gilmore (elder) has got to be the most messed up, fascinating, conflicted character on my television screen. (Vic Mackey lost his edge somewhere in the third season.) What a total piece of work she is.

And I can't figure out if it's intentional on the part of the writers or not. On the face of it, she's a simple sympathetic character. There's a DVD extra on the second season set, all about translating the show into other languages. Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show's creator, throws a cute little fit about people messing up her precious jokes. Too cute by half, really -- I kind of wondered why, if it was such a big deal, she didn't look into the situation herself? The answer, of course, is that she knew full well that the rapid-fire pop culture references weren't going to translate exactly, but thought it would be fun to throw a cute little fit on the DVD extra anyhow. So we all know how committed she is to her funnies. Um. I digress.

Anyhow, in the course of the extra, she says that she thinks the show has international appeal because it's about the universal topic of the pure love of a mother for her daughter. Possibly that's another thing she's just saying for effect, but I kinda thought she believed it. I think she thinks she's writing a show about the best mother-daughter relationship ever, and just about anything Lorelei does is justifed by the purity of her love for Rory (aka Lorelei younger).

Lauren Graham gets it, though. I'd bet on it. You can see it in her eyes every time Lorelei has to decide whether or not to rant. She puts the deliberation right out there on her face, each time, right before Lorelei goes into Luke's diner or the headmaster's office at Chilton. Lorelei knows that she's beautiful and impressive and she knows -- this is the thing that lifts her above the rest of television's conflicted characters -- that she is smart. She knows she can out-talk people. She uses her brilliance as a weapon.

Which is not to say she doesn't use her brain for things other than banter. You know how -- maybe in college, maybe in high school -- you used to just blaze through term papers at the last minute, because you were smart enough to get a B+ or an A- even if you wrote the paper at 2 AM the morning it was due? Yeah, you, there in the back. Lorelei doesn't do that. She's going to business school, she runs an inn more or less by herself: all very impressive.

When it comes to human interactions, though, it's all emotion and flattery and flirtation. She doesn't much try to talk to people; she doesn't much try to explain things. Even when she's dealing with Rory, her putative best friend, it's either whimsical back and forth or "I am your mother and that's all there is to it."

It's a natural and unsurprising outgrowth of her relationship with her parents. Her mother has never been upfront with her once that I've noticed; it's all games and emotional appeals and putdowns. (Hm. Maybe the writers know what's going on after all.) Lorelei has clearly learned that lesson and uses her skills ruthlessly when interacting with others.

So OK; how does this make her more interesting than other flawed characters?

Welp, I've watched two seasons and I haven't actually seen many signs of, you know, growth. Rory's growing up and changing. Lorelei's parents, Emily and Richard, they're learning things about themselves. Or anyhow Richard is. Lorelei hasn't yet been forced to confront her issues, because she's so damned smart and attractive that she can dance circles around anyone who might press the issue. "Mom, Luke's in love with you." "Oh, you're just my daughter, who I am not currently thinking of as my best friend because I don't want to hear that." (Not a direct quote.)

It's a weird setup for a dramatic show, this basic lack of change. Two years in and she's still single, still working at the same job, having the same issues with her parents. It works because she's the axis around which everyone else revolves -- she's the Bronze, if you will, or perhaps more accurately she's the basic cosmological fact that the Slayer is threatened by vampires. I'm gonna wind up watching third season and everything! Will! Change forever! -- I'm sure of it -- but right now, man, she's got really solid walls protecting her from any alterations.

I don't know that I'd want to hang out with her. It'd be an interesting ride, but I can't imagine trusting deep emotional interactions with someone like that.

Comments

[kalyx.livejournal.com]

I've been watching Gilmore Girls since the first season, which I believe coincided with the first season of 24. Since getting hooked on those two shows, Tues. night has been my TV night as the first season of both shows rocked. Since then, I've watched 24 get lazier and just downright bad (but then how long can a show last on such a gimmick anyway), but GG has remained smart. Things got really interesting last season (season three maybe???) when Rory went off to college and the writers decided to sling a lot of mud at previously pristine characters.

And I'm finding a lot of television is pretty darn good right now, especially for female characters. I was just ranting last night about the lack of hot women in movies right now. When was the last time I saw a smart, sexy female character in a movie? Or even just one wasn't completely two dimensional? Kinsey comes to mind... and most of Tarantino's projects. Closer. Really not much. But on television, we have GG, Boston Legal, Medium, even House has a couple of well written, interesting women. And I suspect that is why I'm spending so much time keeping up with TV shows right now. It seems to be where the interesting female roles are right now.

I should journal on this! [makes mental note]

[bryant]

You should journal on that! I don't watch a lot of TV these days but I'd agree from what I have been watching. Heck... even the Shield has a couple of well-written, interesting women. Get this: it has two positive female characters with conflicting goals. Very daring for Hollywood, no?

[tavella.livejournal.com]

I've got kind of a conflicted attitude with Gilmore Girls. Loved the first season to death, found my love slowly fading the second as 1) Lorelai's madcapness started to feel less kickily amusing and more incredibly self-centered and 2) Jess, el cliche, started to become more prominent. The whole Jess/Dean thing finally drove me away towards the end of that season. Not out of overwhelming love for Dean, who clearly was the First Boyfriend, the one who doesn't last longer than until Thanksgiving the first year at college because you've discovered that there are boys just as cute who are your intellectual equals, but the conflict was so damn boring and irritating.

Hearing that Jess was safely gone, I tuned in 4th season, but found myself strangely unhooked. Cleverly written and nicely acted still, and I don't mind watching it when I catch it on, but I don't feel compelled to seek it out.

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

You're right about the movies-bad for female roles / TV-good (or at least better), thing I think. It may have been true for a while. I remember an article in the NYT attributing it to the economics of commercial advertising vs. box office revenues and the demographics of who makes the viewing decisions in each case.

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

OK, so GG in PTA terms: what is Lorelai's Issue?

[bryant]

I don't think she's a PC, but if she was, it'd be "Trust."

[flit.livejournal.com]

I get exactly this feeling about Lorelei. She pisses me off because she coasts so much, but I really love her, too. Rory changes a lot more, because Rory's at a changing age. Any change with Lorelei is slow and hard, because she's found her way with the world and hasn't seen a reason to change it yet... even when she's unhappy.