Rory Gilmore and the Meritocracy
While most have greeted the return of Gilmore Girls with binge watching and celebratory coffee drinking, critics have also pointed to the fact that the show has a bit of a privilege problem. Vulture, Bustle, and The Establishment have all looked at how many of the show’s characters seem oblivious to the political moment and issues of race and class.
As someone who writes about wealth and class I’ve always been especially fascinated by Gilmore Girls for exactly this reason. Lots of TV shows focus on the white and wealthy, but few reveal the reality of their class privilege — and the ways rich people often deny that reality — more clearly than Gilmore Girls. It might seem a little frivolous to bother analyzing a sweet mother-daughter comedy right now, given everything that’s going on in the world. But as a new administration begins that is more focused than ever on the demands of the 1%, I think it’s worth looking at how even the most seemingly-benign cultural works can prime us to support policies that are disastrous for all but the very wealthy few. Rory Gilmore might be doing more for hegemony than you’d expect.
“It’s a riches to rags story. It’s got everything: family struggle, class warfare, the independent woman thing.” — Rory
Lorelei Gilmore’s life changed dramatically when, as a pregnant teenager, she cut herself off from her rich parents, moved away to the small town of Stars Hollow, and raised her daughter Rory alone. Gilmore Girls begins sixteen years later, as Lorelei returns home to ask her parents for help with Rory’s tuition at an elite private school, kicking off the “class warfare” at the show’s heart. Neither Lorelei nor Rory think of themselves as part of the upper class, and the show’s dramatic tension comes from the fact that, as viewers, we’re not supposed to think of them that way either. But did Lorelei really go from “riches to rags”? Or is there more to class privilege than just cash?
Lorelei and Rory’s money problems often drive the show’s plots, yet their solutions almost always come through an offer of financial help or favor from family, a wealthy friend, or an elite network. For example, as Rory struggles with her journalism career in the reboot, she’s offered everything from money to high powered connections to multiple empty mansions to write in. This safety net of resources and favors is an important part of how class privilege plays out in both Lorelei and Rory’s lives.
Class privilege is also reflected in deeper ways than just access for the Gilmore girls. In Lorelei’s version of her life story, she was a 16-year-old single mom who took a job as a housekeeper at the Independence Inn and, through hard work, smarts and determination, rose to become a manager and later to open her own inn. She has earned any success in her life solely through her own merit. What’s missing here is the central role that race and class privilege inevitably played in a situation like this. Lorelei’s private school education, her whiteness, her upper class manners, and the sense of power and entitlement she was raised with would have set her apart from the other housekeepers. It would have helped influence the Independence Inn’s owner Mia to give Lorelei housing (she lived for free in a shed on the inn’s grounds when Rory was a baby) and to take her on as a protege.
In the same way, Rory’s story always leaves her own privilege out of the picture. If the viewer is rooting for her to go to an expensive prep school and, later, to an Ivy League college, it’s only because she is so sweet, smart, special, and determined that she deserves it! Rory’s achievements, like her mother’s, are meant to be seen only as the result of her own merit. But what about her grandparents’ connections on that prep school board and their friendship with the headmaster? What about the fact that she is a Yale legacy and that later her grandparents make a huge gift to Yale in her name? Or that they’ve set up an education trust fund for her? How might Rory’s friend Lane’s life have been different if she’d had these advantages?
When we revisit Rory at age 32 in the reboot, her life screams secret rich kid more than ever, despite her career problems: she’s got no college loans to worry about or family to support, she has no steady work but can still afford to keep flying back and forth to London for freelancing (and sexy times), and despite complaining to Jess that she’s “broke” and “busted” and has no job, no credit and “no underwear,” she dismisses job offers she feels are beneath her and eventually decides to work for free editing the local newspaper. In this case, while Rory isn’t exactly succeeding, she still believes she is getting by solely on her own merits. What is actually making it possible for her to get by, however, is her class privilege.
Why does any of this matter? What difference would it make if these imaginary people faced up to the role class privilege played in their lives? It matters because their narratives of success (or even of failure) help uphold the myth of the meritocracy. This is the American story that teaches us that anyone who works hard enough, is smart enough, and is willing to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps can succeed. And when they do succeed, they are entitled to that money and power because it is solely the product of their individual hard work.
The big problem with this story is its flipside: if you are struggling, it’s not because of institutions and their discriminatory policies. It’s not because of the unjust distribution of wealth. It’s not because of violence and oppression — racism and other oppressions may make it harder for you to achieve success, but in the end, the best will still prevail. According to the myth of the meritocracy, if you don’t have what you need, it’s only because you didn’t work hard enough, weren’t smart enough, and weren’t determined enough to get it. This then translates into a popular and powerful rationale for gutting government policies that provide a financial safety net or protect people from discrimination.
The children of the wealthy, like Rory and Lorelei, are the greatest beneficiaries of the meritocracy myth. They start with all the advantages, yet their success is seen only as a result of their own special talents. The children of the wealthy are also one of the greatest dangers to the meritocracy myth because the truth of their lives proves without a doubt that the meritocracy is an outright lie. The missing part of Rory and Lorelei’s stories, the class privilege they are in such denial about, reveals how enormously the odds are stacked in favor of the few and against everyone else. When that truth is told, it helps loosen the grip that the meritocracy holds on all our imaginations. It makes it clear why we must replace our belief in this myth with a commitment to the redistribution of wealth, to reparations, and to centering our society’s investment in the education, health, and well-being of those who have been most marginalized. I bet that’s something Rory could probably get behind if she would spend a little less time with Logan and give Resource Generation a call instead.
Karen Pittelman is the author of Resource Generation’s Classified: How to Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Use It For Social Change and co-author of Creating Change Through Family Philanthropy. She was also Resource Generation’s first Program Coordinator. In 1999, she dissolved her $3 million trust to co-found the Chahara Foundation, a fund run by and for low-income women activists in Boston. In 2012, she co-founded the Trans Justice Funding Project, a community-led funding initiative supporting grassroots, trans justice work across the country. She lives in Brooklyn where she works as a writer and a writing coach, and sings with her country band Karen & the Sorrows.
