By Tori Brown
I was on a call with my father recently, grovelling for the code to bypass Netflix’s stingy new household rules. In an attempt to make the phone call feel more social and less transactional, I mentioned that I needed the code to watch Gilmore Girls. He replied with something that has stuck with me.
“I hate that show, privileged white girls with white girl problems.”
He said this in his usual fatherly joking tone, so I laughed and to some extent I do agree. I mean why the hell did Rory drop out of Yale?
But a smaller part of me was jarred.
As a family we would all relentlessly pick on my Mum for her obsession with romantic comedies. Once she stayed up until the crack of dawn to finish a Twilight rewatch foolishly started by my sister. She’d always be watching some Hallmark show – flashbacks to When Calls the Heart – whenever my dad was away for work. My mother with her Mills & Boon discreetly tucked under her arm – Italian billionaire demands heirs.
Love Jones, Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde, Bridgerton. There is a real disdain held for this type of media. We even give it its own subgenre; the chick flick or chick lit for the well-read. Mention the word rom-com and eyes are rolled, bring up a romance novel and we quietly retch – Jane Austen who? Like there is with any and all art, I won’t deny that there are valid criticisms to be made of this genre. It often focuses solely on the perspective of white heterosexual cisgender women, the plot is often derivate and predictable, and sometimes it can be incredibly sexist. However, most of our revulsion towards this genre is not based on its failings.
We often hear people say, “I don’t know, there’s just something I don’t like about it.” And I hate to tell you, but that something is women.
In our patriarchal society, we reject the feminine and we dislike when women take up space in the media. Women are sappy and emotional, and as such, media targeted towards us is vapid too. Media targeted to women is also expected to be wholly feminist; it must critique capitalism, it must be intersectional, it must address everything and anything under the sun that challenges us all as women – an incredibly broad category all packed into one chick flick. We certainly don’t hold media targeted towards men to the same impossible standards. We joke and mention the Bechdel test, but every time a new Jason Statham flick releases there is no real criticism of intersectionality or how this particular action movie unpacks gender roles.
Gilmore Girls holds a special place in my heart. In my teens, whenever I was sad , I would sneak into my sister’s room, and she’d begrudgingly scooch over in bed for me to climb in and watch with her. I never could truly follow wherever she was up to in the show, but it was comforting. The not so subtle la-la-la-ing of the soundtrack, the fast dialogue, the caffeine addictions. All the relationships I have with the women in my life are reflected back at me in some way.
So no, I’m not about to tell you that Gilmore Girls is feminist. It doesn’t have to be. These older rom-coms are predictable and nostalgic pieces of media that provide a sense of security, warmth, and familiarity to a lot of women.
So go watch a chick flick, read a smutty novel, you just might have a good time.
