There's nothing wrong with being close to your mother
My mom is my best friend and I can scream it from any balcony. Although I spent a lot of time watching this series, there was something incredible about the mother-daughter relationship that influenced all the mothers and daughters who watched them.
Their relationship was so enviable and desirable that it made a generation of high school girls stop pretending they hated their mothers (teenager thing) and recognize them not only for the superheroes they are, but also as capable real people. to be your friends.
Relationships are complicated
As crazy as that sounds, I really felt that Rory, Lorelai, and the entire Stars Hollow universe were real. And even though I wasn't part of it, I felt that everything was real and that all the things that were happening represented real life. Watching the characters' experiences and suffering was the first time I was exposed to the fact that not all things are so final. Romantic relationships, Rory and Lorelai's relationship, and of course Lorelai's always tumultuous relationship with Emily and Richard are all representations of what relationships are like in real life.
From the ongoing argument over Rory's favorite boyfriend (none were perfect) to Lorelai's "yo-yo romance" with Christopher (which is impossible to completely hate, despite his numerous flaws) and also Rory and Lorelai's breakup and reunion. during her college days, Gilmore Girls showed me that real-life relationships are very complex, far beyond what we consider right or wrong.
Nobody is perfect, but that doesn't mean people are bad.
Amy Sherman-Palladino made me fall in love with these beautiful, interesting, and funny characters and then made them do things that weren't good but were real, often implying evil. So I had to re-evaluate whether you can simply dictate to someone what is good and what is bad. For a child, this is a very important lesson to learn, because for a long time you've been taught that either someone is good or bad, and as anyone past that stage knows, that's simply not true. I still remember my internal debate after Rory lost her virginity to Dean while he was still married to Lindsey. I LOVED Rory, I identified with her and watching her flirt with a married man was something that really pushed me and colored my once black and white brain into shades of gray.
If you really love someone, you can win any battle
Watching Lorelai and Rory fight over the yacht theft killed me. My mom and I sat and cried, both in the sad moments when they were clearly lost, to the beautiful moment when they gathered and headed for the garage. For a long time, I thought fights meant the end of something.
Not every fight, but one of the magnitude they had. I thought that if you did something bad, there was no turning back. The conversations I had with my mother during this time were probably the most important conversations I had with her about our relationship and what it means to love someone unconditionally.
True love wears a backwards cap and flannel clothes
Luke Danes was the first guy I fell in love with in the sense that I even wanted to plan a wedding. All the celebrities I had a crush on were just about glitz and glamor and muscle. Although Luke wasn't ugly at all, he was surly, moody and clumsy. His strong point is that he was really a good person. He cared about little things, like Rory's breakfast or Lorelai's order for a chuppah. Soft-spoken and husky, he had a gentle soul and a romantic heart (can we please remember when he saved the horoscope?). Luke taught me that love is in the small gestures and often can't be found in overconfidence or games, but maybe in a cup of coffee.
Not everyone has the same definition of what's funny or cool; and reading is sexy
If there was one character to break the stereotype of the popular high school girl, it would be Rory Gilmore. Although Alexis Bledel is stunning, Rory never bothered to flaunt it — she was conservative and liked to read and managed to make it look cooler than all the rest. He's taught an entire generation of voracious readers that there's nothing wrong with that and that it's okay to be yourself (and that a lot of gorgeous men will fall in love with you because of it). And to top it off, Rory rarely fell victim to the "nice people." Even at university, he barely drank and did those “typical college kids” things to get in the media, and yet he seemed to be having an amazing time. The best example of this is when she and Paris decide to go to Spring Break just to spend their time in their room watching Power of Myth. While not everyone was interested in the same things as she was, Rory's interest in books and college showed something very hard to find on TV: a normal, nice girl.
eating is easy
In an era dominated by the diet craze, where being angry and thin was synonymous with being sexy, the series threw a big fuck at the media that was trying to starve them to death by actually eating on the show. And not just eating, but eating crap. They never talked about feeling fat or how they shouldn't have eaten that or what they would do after work to make up for the calories, but they talked about what they would eat afterwards. While everyone might say that Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel are the typical skinny Hollywood actresses who probably don't eat that way, I'm not talking about what they taught me, but what Gilmore Girls taught me. And it's okay to eat. Watching this show during my teens gave me a very healthy attitude about food—not that I should eat twizzlers or Chinese food every day, but that food shouldn't be enemies and that eating means happiness.
A nice guy is not always the right guy
Marty, “Naked Guy”, was great. He was humble, a loyal friend, hardworking, and completely cute. On paper, the definition of the “right” guy to date. Rory, however, preferred Logan, controversial as he alone—sometimes a total asshole and sometimes an incredibly sweet guy—in fact, he's actually more of Rory's type than Marty. These strange relationships made me think that the situation is more difficult than we imagine. There's a kind of intangible connection that doesn't always make sense logically, but when we live it in real life, it makes a lot of sense. Another example is the Dean and Jess dilemma.
If you lead, I will follow
The anthem of true love. Not in a romantic way, but in a best friend way, a mother-daughter way. I couldn't help but think about my mom and my friends every time I heard Carole King's voice and how I'd like to follow them anywhere and how I felt the same truth from them.
Sometimes you just need your mother
This is a lesson shown time and again on the show, but the best episode that shows this is the one where Rory leaves Yale. As soon as my mom and I watched Rory call Lorelai back and watch them spend their first night together in Rory's dorm, sizing up all the delivery boys, the two of us, for the first time, began to contemplate the idea of ​​being apart when I went to college. The series showed that sometimes you just need your mom, just as she might need you too. I try, but I can't help but think of Rory calling her mom while the useless hooker was in the bathroom asking about how to move him across the table. What Gilmore Girls has done best is to accurately showcase the nuance and tumultuous love that exists between mothers and daughters, which I am so grateful for.
The series addressed very important topics in an incredible way: friends, family, school life, food, existential conflicts about what is right and what is wrong. Maybe that's one of the best things about the series: making us think and live things that we haven't experienced yet, but still manage to learn a lesson from it. With the return of Gilmore Girls on Netflix, I hope that many young people and especially the weird girls at school can learn a lot from this series that has taught me so much.
Written by Magliaro Prieto of Team I Without Borders
