We live in a world where terrible things happen daily. Not a day goes by where we are allowed to forget all of the horrible things happening news and social media makes that impossible. What’s even harder to understand is that a majority of these tragedies aren’t random accidents or Mother Nature striking, but rather are the result of people perpetrating acts of senseless violence against each other. Personally, I cannot make sense of the chaos we live in, and if I truly had to think about how horrendous human beings are to each other I would probably be permanently depressed. Entertainment allows us to escape this gruesome reality. The culture industry with its repetition may be subconsciously shaping our tastes, but it is also a way to somehow make sense of the world we live in and give us some sanity. All entertainment provides an escape from our own lives, it gives us something that we’re lacking in our reality, and only by really embracing pop culture can we be freed from the element of it that is repetitive and controlling. This is exemplified through one of my personal favorite television series, Gilmore Girls. This series follows the life of the infamously witty Lorelei Gilmore and her daughter, Rory, as they go through life consuming food and culture in the weird but amazing small town of Stars Hollow. This show exemplifies the counterintuitive idea of why we need to embrace the culture industry in order to avoid being made into its pawns.

Episode 1: “Pilot” (Getting to know the Gilmore girls)

This first episode sets the tone for this feel good television series. This episode is where you’re first introduced to the weird eating habits, quick one-liners, and obsession with coffee that is an integral part of the Gilmore lifestyle. At the end of watching the first episode I was left wishing I liked the taste of coffee and knew enough about pop culture that I could casually reference movies when I talked. Other characters look at their relationship to culture throughout the series with a mixture of bizarreness and envy, but the show seems to claim that this relationship with culture is what set Lorelei free from the oppressive household she grew up in. They embrace everything that intellectuals such as Leavis and Arnold claim is wrong with the culture industry. Lorelei and Rory don’t glorify the classics or hold them up as the only way to become holier than thou in the same way that Leavis does. Leavis claims that there is, “a separation new and abrupt between, sophisticated culture and popular.” (Leavis 188) Gilmore Girls throws that claim out the window, by erasing the line between “high” and “low” culture that Leavis imagines while also showing that our current culture industry isn’t valueless. Rory is depicted as the epitome of a “good girl” through being extremely interested in reading the very books that Leavis and Arnold claim are the path to salvation from the culture industry. Rory’s divergence from their prescription of classics exists in the very sense that she had control over what she read and read not out of desire to be saved from the trash the culture industry produces, but because she is entertained by reading these books, they aren’t a way to save herself. To her these books are the same as sitting down to watch Lord of the Rings for the hundredth time.

Episode 5: “Cinnamon’s Wake”

            Cinnamon, who is the neighbor’s beloved cat, passes away suddenly and the entire town flies into action to set up a wake. And for anyone who has never seen the show, I will say it again this episode revolves around Stars Hallow putting together a wake for a cat. For me, this episode really highlights how close-knit of a town Stars Hollow really is. Raymond Williams praises the type of working class culture present in Stars Hollow and argues that a lack of money forces people to be dependent on one another and allows for greater bonds of community than in a culture where everything can be purchased and you have to rely on no one. He writes, “I think this way of life, with its emphases of neighbourhood, mutual obligation, and common betterment as expressed in the great working-class political and industrial institutions, is in fact the best basis for any future English society.” (Williams 8) Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed, shows tangible evidence from her social of experiment of trying to survive on minimum wage is that thing most vital to your success is the support system you cultivate through your family, coworkers, and neighbors. Where the show begins to disagree with Williams’ theories is his claim that popular, consumer culture and working class culture need to be mutually exclusive.

Episode 14: “That Damn Donna Reed”

This episode in particular draws attention to the inversion of gender stereotypes that are present in the plot of this show. In the beginning of the episode, Lorelei, Rory and Rory’s boyfriend Dean are all enjoying a night of watching The Donna Reed Show while consuming exorbitant amounts of food. Both Lorelei and Rory mercilessly mock what they view as the absurdity with which Donna Reed, a housewife in the 1950s, tends to her husband’s needs. Dean has a harder time understanding what they view is so wrong with wives preparing dinner for when their husbands arrive home from work, as that is how his family has always functioned. Lorelei in contrast has been on her own since she got pregnant with Rory at sixteen and rejects most gendered stereotypes. She is the sole provider of a single parent household, doesn’t cook, eats crazy amounts of food, is independent, and doesn’t seek a man’s approval. The plotline of this episode follows Rory and Dean coming to terms with why they view The Donna Reed Show so differently. Where he saw a woman happily choosing to devote her life to her family, Rory saw a woman with no other options being forced into a life of servitude to a man. Rory ends up doing research on Donna Reed and learns that Donna Reed did a lot more in real life than being a housewife, and realizes that it is a double standard to not support a woman’s choice to be a homemaker. To make amends with Dean she dresses up in traditional 1950’s garb and cooks an elaborate dinner for him. Dean responds to this whole ordeal by saying, “As amazing as this whole thing was, I mean, the music, the outfit, the dinner, I hope you know that I don’t expect you to be Donna Reed. And I don’t want you to be Donna Reed. That’s not what I meant. This just totally got blown out of proportion. I’m actually pretty happy with you.” The resolution of this simplistic problem, not only provides the viewer with a dose of everything will be okay if we work to understand each other’s perspectives, but the idea that larger problems, like gender oppression, can begin to be solved through consuming pop culture.

Episode 31: “Bracebridge Dinner”

The Bracebridge Dinner is an event Lorelei organizes at her inn. A wealthy customer rents out the entire inn for a dinner that is set during the 19^th century. Lorelei and her cook/best friend, Sookie, work to make the dinner as realistic as possible in everything from speaking Old English to playing music from the time period to preparing food from that era. This dinner is the embodiment of luxury. The show never lets you forget that the only reason this dinner is possible is because the group paid a really high price. The group ends up getting snowed in and won’t be able to make it for the dinner. Because everything is all paid for and ready, Lorelei invites all of Stars Hollow to the inn for an impromptu slumber party set in the 19^th century. The town allows themselves to become completely emerged in a different era and escape from their daily lives. This dinner brought to life another world in a more direct way than movies and television by blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. Although this specific example doesn’t directly revolve around recreating an element of pop culture or becoming engrossed in pop culture, I think of it as the creativity inspired by pop culture on a rich person’s dime. Entertainment is the common man’s Bracebridge Dinner, it is a chance to escape from the daily craziness, and if you’re privileged enough to expand upon the pop culture you consume it can even inspire you creatively.

Gilmore Girls provides viewers with an escape from reality, by showing them that pop culture isn’t turning us into terrible human beings, but actually providing us with an alternative reality where we can sort through all of the craziness happening around us. The show’s simplistic plot allows us to address real issues that may concern us such as privilege, gender roles, and the structure of society, while at the same time giving us resolutions that make you believe that you can enact change. Lorelei and Rory’s own consumer behaviors make a point of reinforcing that the culture industry is not just sameness and conditioning, but a way to inspire creativity in yourself.

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Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage USA. London: Granta,

2002. Print.

Leavis, F. R. “Literature and Society.” (n.d.): 182-93. Print.

Williams, Raymond. “Culture Is Ordinary.” (n.d.): 3-18. Print.