Any Gilmore Girls fan will tell you that Lorelai and Rory are living the life in Stars Hollow. Personally, I can vouch for this. Every time I am sad, having a bad day, or just need a break from reality, I turn to an episode of Gilmore Girls as my relief. The quick, witty humor, the perfectly quirky town, and the close relationships between characters make this show a refuge from our own daily hardships. As viewers buy into the surface level utopia provided in this show, however, they are actually allowing themselves to buy into deeper utopias — the show offers a variety of different sub-level utopias in order to create an overarching one. I predict that many of these “deeper” utopias are ones that most viewers, including myself, would not like to admit that they actually buy into. This leads us to the question of how does seemingly harmless popular culture, like Gilmore Girls, allow consumers to buy into its more harmful creations of utopia?
Figuring out the basic level utopia that different pieces of popular culture offer is the initial step to answering this question. Using Gilmore Girls as an example makes this easier. The utopia is set up starting with the first episode. First, there is the opening scene, which shows Loralei crossing the street of a small town to a coffee shop, while all around her people stroll through the town, children ride their bikes, and people sit in the town square (complete with its white gazebo). This is the small town utopia that many imagine when they think of close-knit community suburbs. People happily play and walk through the town on a cold brisk day, and as Lorelai Gilmore crosses the street toward her warm cup of coffee at the local diner, she gets to be a part of this gleeful town experience. But why is this our idea of a utopia? Taking Darren Webb’s description of utopia (which is itself based on ideas from other writers), it becomes clear; he describes a utopian text as something that creates a non-existent society that is better than the one its readers live in. In this way, the town utopia is something that we have been taught to value since we were little from all the images of the perfect white picket fence surrounded house that are constantly being portrayed throughout the media, and which stand in contrast to many of the negativities occurring in our real world. This reality does not really exist anywhere, besides in the media, but the idea of a close-knit community in which kids have the freedom to be kids and there is a local diner where all go to eat is seen as the epitome of the “good life” in America and a bastion of comfort and happiness.
This next basic utopia that I describe may seem silly, but it is almost equally as simple and important to answering our question. Most people (especially those who come from well-off families) have had it drilled into them since they were little that it is important for them to eat healthily. However, the utopia would be to not have to eat healthy (in other words, be able to eat as many waffles, slices of pizza, burgers, etc. that you want), yet still look beautiful and have no health complications. Take almost any episode of Gilmore Girls and you will see Rory and Lorelai eating pizza, pop-tarts, Chinese food, or some combination of the three, but hardly ever will you see them exercise or eat a salad. Many would call this a utopia: being able to lead a sustainable life while on that diet and still be super skinny, beautiful, and not have diabetes. Fredric Jameson describes a utopia as a sort of “fantasy bribe” and the utopia explained above fits this exactly. It is a bribe from the culture and fast food industries to eat their delicious, albeit unhealthy, food, yet experience none of the consequences from doing so.
Gilmore Girls also gives its viewers a utopia through the easy solutions it provides to the problems that the characters in the show encounter. A utopia does not necessarily mean that the people that exist in it do not encounter struggles (at least this is the case in many pieces of popular culture, including Gilmore Girls, because without struggle there would be no interesting plot line). However, it can mean that the problems encountered are more easily solved than they would be in a real life situation. An example of an easy solution to a more complicated problem is present within the first thirty minutes of the inaugural episode. When Rory is accepted to Chilton, a prestigious private school, everyone is excited, that is, until Lorelai realizes just how much money it will cost to send Rory there. Yet the solution comes easily, as Lorelai’s parents happen to be millionaires. People are not usually afforded this privilege; most people do not have millionaire parents who will just give them 50,000 dollars a year in exchange for weekly Friday night dinner with them. Even if the child happened to be the next Albert Einstein, a school like Chilton would simply be out of the cards for most families existing in our world. Rory is smart, but certainly not the next Albert Einstein, yet just like that, she is able to afford a Chilton (inset the name of any other elite private school here and it will be equivalent) education. It is in this way that Gilmore Girls gives viewers its feel good vibe. By “good vibe,” I mean a feeling that makes people who are having a bad day want to watch it: that is, problems are easily solved, there is a caring, happy community supporting your every move, and many of your actions lack the consequences that they have in the “real world.”
Now that we have established some of the contributants to the surface-level utopia presented in Gilmore Girls, a more important point is looking at the deeper utopias that Gilmore Girls subconsciously convinces its viewers to buy into. First, there is the consumerist utopia. This show is a full-on advertisement for consumerism that would make Adorno and Marx roll over in their graves. For example, the first episode is full of consumerist overtones, whether it be the big bags of makeup that Lorelai pulls out from under the table when Rory asks for chapstick, or the references to CDs, rock and roll, and movies made not only in the first episode, but throughout the entire show. The Gilmores, as well as many other characters in this show, are fully absorbed into the consumerist world. For example, Season 4, Episode 15 is titled “Scene in a Mall!” While there is some fun being poked at consumerism, I nonetheless found myself wishing that I could go to a fancy mall and shop my stress away as I bought everything I wanted, just as Emily (Lorelai’s mother and Rory’s grandmother), Lorelai and Rory decided to do this episode. Rory and Lorelai go to the mall to go window shopping because they cannot afford to actually buy anything, but soon discover that window shopping is not all it is built up to be because they cannot exist as a consumer in one of the most consumerist places on earth. They then run into Emily, who is shopping her stress away by buying the most expensive things that she sees. The idea of consumerism as a utopia is perpetuated in a subtle way; while Lorelai and Rory do not seem to be having fun in the mall, the assumption is that if they had enough money to actually buy things, their day of shopping therapy would work perfectly. Thus, consumerism is the utopia that viewers are subconsciously wishing they existed in while they watch this show.
The second utopia that viewers subconsciously subscribe to as they watch and enjoy this show is the utopia of a class-based society. This show supports the idea of education as a means to an end and money as one of the defining factors of success (it can also be argued that the show puts emphasis on love and relationships). In other words, this show reinforces the idea that those at the top of society, particularly those with an elite education, are going to be better off in the world and that this success is the ultimate utopia. This starts with Lorelai and her desire for Rory to go to college and get a good education (something that she did not have to opportunity to obtain). While Lorelai repeatedly says that she would not change the way her life turned out, throughout the show she also emphasizes how important it is for Rory to have an elite education. The biggest fight that occurred during the series was in Season 6 when Rory decided to drop out of Yale and instead go live at her grandparents’ house. Thus, the series supports the idea of happiness and success coming from, among other things, an elite higher education., The classes in Gilmore Girls society are also made clear. High-class society is represented by Rory’s grandparents, while Lorelai, Rory, and other people in Stars Hollow (like Dean, Rory’s first boyfriend who works stocking the local grocery store) represent the middle classes. Gilmore Girls takes for granted that these classes will exist and makes no effort to emphasize an idea of social mobility. For example, Lorelai will always act inappropriately at her parents’ cocktail parties. She will always be a member of a lower class with instincts of a lower-class citizen, as evidenced by the first episode where she resorts to her middle class ways as she cleans dishes to relieve her stress (while in Richard and Emily’s house, that is a job for the maid). At the same time, Emily and Richard will remain a part of high society, a status that is mainly obtained through money and birth. Thus, Gilmore Girls viewers believe the concept of stratified society being a utopia.
Finally, two of the most harmful utopias that Gilmore Girls perpetuates is its exclusive feminist utopia and its utopia of the life of the white middle class. There are countless articles online that talk about Gilmore Girls as “‘sneakily feminist’” or list Gilmore Girls top feminist moments, but in reality, this series perpetuates a very homogeneous, privileged feminist utopia. While Rory and Lorelai are strong women who should be admired, the show should not be considered the “end-all-be-all” of feminism. The problem is that many do consider it this. Those who buy into this idea are confining their ideal feminist movement to one that is led by white, middle-class women. This utopia blends in with another utopia that the show portrays: a white suburb. There is pretty much no diversity in this show (one of the sole exceptions being Lane, Rory’s Korean best friend), which explains why the feminist utopia portrayed is that which only includes the white middle class. Those who seek refuge in this show are seeking refuge in a white feminist world where those of other races are underrepresented and not seen to be a part of what people consider to be their ideal society and life.
Thus, popular culture like Gilmore Girls does allow consumers to buy into its more harmful creations of utopia. A generalized answer cannot be supplied by simply analyzing Gilmore Girls, for Gilmore Girls itself a conclusion can be reached. Gilmore Girls causes us to buy into deeper level utopias including those of white feminism, classism, and consumerism, by making it seem like the show is simply an escape from reality for the duration of each forty-five-minute episode. It is more than an escape from reality because the show unwillingly causes people to come to a conclusion about what their perfect life would be, perpetuating the problematic idea of what is utopic. Often that vision is one that they would never admit to themselves or others as being true.
Read by Sarah Tully.
Sources:
- Bradley, Laura. “Explain Why Gilmore Girls Is ‘Sneakily Feminist.’” Vanity Fair. (accessed
November 9, 2017)
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/09/gilmore-girls-feminist-lauren-graham.
- Garis, Mary. “34 Feminist Moments In ‘Gilmore Girls’ Season 1 That Not-So-Secretly
Empowered Us.” Bustle. (accessed November 9, 2017)
https://www.bustle.com/articles/178002-34-feminist-moments-in-gilmore-girls-season-1
that-not-so-secretly-empowered-us.
- Jameson, Fredric. “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture.” Social Text, no. 1 (1979): 144.
doi:10.2307/466409.
- Webb, Darren. “Bakhtin at the Seaside: Utopia, Modernity and the Carnivalesque. Theory,
Culture, and Society, no. 22 (2005): 132. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276405053724.