Stop Being Rory Gilmore!
There are such little heroes for girls and women to look up to.
The world is changing no doubt. More women are stepping into varied roles in the 21st century. More relatable female characters are being written.
Things are looking up for women and the world in general with equal representation and opportunities.
But I want to talk about the ‘That Girl’ stereotype today. This fancy and shiny word portrays a woman who has her life together.
She is smart, fit, hard working and her skin is perfect. Her career or academic career is blowing up. She even has a perfect boyfriend without caring about romantic relationships.
So picturesque! So inspiring! As shiny this idea might seem it has a major seedy underbelly.
Instead of giving women and girls a realistic idol to look up to it gives them a rather shiny and perfect portrayal with the natural impossible to achieve standards.
Let’s dive into my favourite That Girl.
Rory Gilmore.
She is the darling of Stars Hollow, a picture-perfect small town. She is smart and ambitious. She is loved and adored everywhere she goes.
She is top of her class and always looks put together. She has admirers everywhere she goes. She is best friends with her mom and has rich-ass Grandparents.
She can even put down a bucket-load of food with ease and no consequences.
She is the perfect study-case for our cause.
Everyone Loves Rory
The immediate problem we see here is her natural likability. Now I know people who naturally attract others. Who can make friends and be admired easily. But that is not true for everyone.
In fact, it is not true for most people. Especially for women, there lies an emphasis on being dressed appropriately and to have likable manners. And to impress everyone is a very hard job.
Rory is not only shown to be the kindest person ever but she never gets angry at people, or even when she does she doesn’t stay that way.
But this later manifests into her just letting people, especially her boyfriends, treat her like whatever.
Her kindness reaches its epitome when she forgives her boyfriend, Logan, for cheating on her after his long explanation on its semantics.
Being kind is a good virtue. Being forgiving or nice is a good quality. But its extent matters, too.
Now I know there is a thing where “That Girl doesn’t care about her popularity” but trust me; at a young age, we care a lot.
Rory is the Smartest.
Okay, now this one’s really interesting. Rory is an academically inclined student. She is the top of the class and will tolerate nothing less than perfect for herself.
Now I do believe academic integrity is important. But the sort of perfection which is perpetuated on us by just showing us a collage of people’s hardworking moments with inspiring background music just seems too much.
We do see Rory studying and sometimes struggling but only in snippets. Compared to the mountain she is faced with she is not shown with study frustration.
Look, studying a lot and consistently is not easy. Behind all the motivated faces and great achievements and faces that cried, doubted, and suffered. No one goes through it without feeling the human emotions of it.
This is portrayed by Rory’s friend Paris. She too is a great student and an inspiration. But we see her suffer through the study, through life.
“Nothing in my life is fair.” — Paris Geller.
Dealing with all the problems of an average teenager like studying, parental issues, love issues, and much more. She is messy and angry and she has a meltdown after not getting into Harvard.
But that’s life. You suffer, you fall, but you learn to get back up.
But we can later see this perfection harm Rory. She is unable to cope with life’s disappointments while her peers breeze past them as they are used to it.
The Pressure of Not Failing
This is especially seen in the cases of female protagonists. They don’t fail and face the frustrations that people in real life do.
There is an emphasis on being perfect, getting it right the first time and proving oneself which is a real deal breaker for me.
Rory is always spoken of as the perfect person. The perfect friend, student, daughter, etc.
In today’s world, where there are so few women in the field of STEM, we need to encourage the failing and the making mistakes part.
Failing and learning are the very core of the STEM disciplines. In the world we teach women it is not okay to fail, how are we supposed to make more female scientists, engineers, and doctors?
Rory does make mistakes but takes them way too seriously. She is the peak perfectionist character. There is nothing wrong with striving for betterment or excellence, but perfection doesn’t cross over to the human side.
Rory Looks Perfect.
There is seldom an instant where Rory looks shabby. Even within her comfortable home, she looks so put-together, while most people look like they have risen from the zombie apocalypse or something.
Looks matter. No, let me rephrase it. Presentation matters. It is important that outside we come across the way we want to. But does that mean that we are flawless going to look like a princess all the time? Or that we should? Not really.
This just ends up adding to the beauty standards already in place.
The ‘This Girl’ Approach
In this approach, we don’t try to be an ideal version which is predefined. We don’t put ourselves in the mold meant for the perfect humans.
Instead, we work on our strengths, to build the kind of life we want. Not necessarily a Pinterest worthy aesthetic one, but a life we choose with goals that we want.
It is tough to come out of the shiny world of TV and social media into a bland existence but it is necessary. We can’t let ourselves get sucked into the black hole of idealizing someone else just to be ‘That Girl’.
Conclusion
Do I hate Rory or Gilmore Girls?
No.
They have given us some great characters. Female characters who prioritize their career and success. The characters who taught us to dream and to believe that we can achieve those dreams
We also got motivated to work at school just like Rory and Paris.
Gilmore Girls is definitely a great show, a comfort show, one that changed the narrative for girls and women.
I do look at Rory and Paris for inspiration sometimes and dream of being at Chilton.
But my point is that at the end of the day, it is a show. It doesn’t necessarily represent our daily struggles or realities.
Gilmore Girls obviously give us inspiration and hope but not maybe dreams or even strict goals to achieve.
So, summing up, get your dose of motivation, enjoyment and happiness from these Aesthetics and TV shows but instead of trying to be a “That Girl” for someone else try to be a “This Girl.”
Also, check out @wamyy5 on YouTube for more on the “This Girl” approach at:
I really hope you enjoyed this piece.
Thanks and until next time.
K.S
