Gilmore Girls and Guys

With help from Gilmore Guys podcast hosts Kevin T. Porter and Demi Adejuyigbe, Cristen and Caroline take a stroll through Stars Hollow, discussing the highs and lows -- and feminist leanings -- that continue to make 'Gilmore Girls' a cultural touchstone.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You From House Supports
Not Cold. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And Caroline, there's um something I've been
needing to tell you. Oh, you know, just I just
want to let you know that if you're out on

(00:23):
the road feeling lonely and so cold, all you have
to do is call on me and I'll be there
on the next train. Am I screwing up the lyrics already?
You know? I think you've got it where you Lee.
I'll follow anyway that you tell me too, if you

(00:45):
need need needed to be, if you I will follow.
Oh hey, friends, it's a Gilmore Girls episode. If you
couldn't guess if you haven't turned the podcast, abeah, Yeah,
I'm sure people are loving it. No one has turned

(01:05):
it off. This is one of the most hotly anticipated
Stuff Mom Never Told You episodes of And we also
timed this episode to publish the week of Thanksgiving because
I know all the Gillies out there are giving thanks

(01:25):
for the reboot. Yeah, the reboot production starts in and
it's probably gonna premiere around the same time that the
full House reboot premieres. As well, who cares. I know,
I was never into full House as a child. Yeah,
we're not going to do the stuff mom never told
you analysis of full health. We could talk about their

(01:46):
hair for a long time, but I don't really know
how relevant that would be to our brand. How I
do like to say that, though, So that's right. Netflix
is picking up Gilmore Girls yet again, with Amy Sherman
Palladino writing it, and it's going to come out not

(02:07):
like a whole new season, but they're going to do
four ninety minutes segments, so they're sort of giving it
the what hot American summer treatment times for Yeah, which
everybody's really excited about because something that I had no
idea about because I'm gonna well, let me admit something first,

(02:27):
I haven't watched the majority of Gilmore Girls. Oh no,
I know, I just heard a lot of heavy size
or I'm projecting, I don't know. But season seven, the
last season of Gilmore Girls, was apparently, according to the

(02:48):
Internet and fans, a huge disappointment. A lot of that
had to do with the fact that head writer what
she's the what the writer, the producer, director, like the magician. Yeah,
I mean she created the whole thing. Yeah, The show
creator Amy Sherman Palladino took her leave after season six
because the show producers wouldn't give her more writers. There's

(03:11):
some other technical glitches going on behind the scenes, so
she and her husband, fellow writer Dan Palladina said, see
you later. Hit the road. Season seven happens. Lauren Graham,
who plays Laurela, had much more of a say. Other
actors had much more of a say in the writing
of the show, in the direction of some characters, and

(03:32):
people were not not so pleased at the direction the
show took. And so there are a lot of cheers
and size of relief that the actual original show creators
are coming back to reboot the show. And regardless of
how the seventh season disappointed a number of hardcore fans,

(03:52):
there's still so much enduring love and nostalgia for the
Gilmore girls. And it holds a lot of personal nostalgia
for me because Rory and I were the same age
and we both had brown hair, and we were starting
new scary rich people, private schools and ninth grade and
we're bookworms. Now. She was a lot more successful with dating,

(04:15):
I will say, and don't know Kristen. But we'll talk
about that. I'll save that. I'll save that for later.
I mean, I had no Dean. I wanted a Dean.
We all want a Dean, but we are so wrong.
Well yeah, and then I'm so happy down the road
that I didn't have a Dean. But um, it felt
like a very relatable show to watch when I was fifteen,

(04:36):
and it was also one of the only uh w
B slash c W shows that my mom and I
would watch together, so it was parentally sanctioned show. It
wasn't something like Dawson's Creek that I had to sneak. Yeah,
I watched. I watched the Creek. I was I was
big into the Creek. I loved Jen h slash what's

(04:59):
her name is? Shell? William uh Felicity. I watched all
of us debut B shows as a as a young
high school student. Yeah, the w B was good. And
with the Frog it's got a top hat and the
little dance that's love. Well, Caroline, we have a lot
to talk about. We got a lot of stars, hollow

(05:19):
history to cover, characters to discuss in plot twists that
no one ever saw coming. Yeah, Tag's secret children, No oh,
my god, I know so like as I revealed about myself,
I have not u watched most of the Gilmore Girls.
I've seen enough to sort of know what happens, you

(05:40):
know that gist. But anyway, I was reading. I'm standing
next to Kristen at our standing desks, and I'm reading
like plot summaries and character rundowns from Gilmore Girls, and
Kristen just keeps hearing me go like what what? Wait?
She married? Who? Who had an illegitimate shop child? Who

(06:01):
are all these children floating around? What's happening? And so yeah,
today I have learned so much about the drama of
Stars Hollow. Well, let's back up for a little Stars
Hollow one oh one, because I have a feeling that
that not everyone is has all of their Gilmore Girls
knowledge readily at hand. So love her. Pats Amy Sherman

(06:24):
Balladino uh created Gilmore Girls, which debuted in two thousand
and lasted four seventh seasons, with that infamous seventh season
that ended in May two thousand seven. And I did
not know this. She got her start writing on Rosanne,
and the whole Gilmore Girls pitch, as she recalled to

(06:46):
a V club, was just off the top of her head.
She had no idea about stars Hollow and all these
quirky characters. She was at the tail end of a
pitch meeting, people were getting kind of tired, and she
just kind of came up with this idea, threw it
out about a mother daughter relationship where they are more
best friend than parent child. Yeah, she said that everybody

(07:07):
was really excited about the idea. I don't know if
they were just excited to go to lunch so they
were like, yes, let's great, do that one. But I'm
really impressed that in that two thousand dish or late
nineties era, people were willing to go for that the
whole mother daughter thing. I feel like, you know, anything
that's feminine tends to be poop pooed in the media.
So I'm very pleasantly surprised now in retrospect that these

(07:30):
TV execs were like, Yeah, feature a mother and daughter
and have it be all about their relationship. I think
it's great. Yeah. I mean, well, meanwhile, over in Dawston's
Creek you did have Pascy having sex with a teacher
on the desk. So this was just playing it safe
by w B terms of the time. Um, but the
whole stars hollow angle of it came together when she

(07:51):
went on a fateful trip ladies and gentlemen to see
Mark Twain's house, and she stayed in a quaint little
inn in a quaint little town called Washington Depot, Connecticut,
and she realized that this was kind of the setting
of where this mother daughter pair should live. And she
even went to a Luke's Diner type of establishment where

(08:15):
everyone seemed to know each other, and at one point
one of the customers got up and went to behind
the counter to serve themselves coffee because it was just
that kind of small town. It was no big deal.
The waitress was busy, so it just got up and
serve himselves and she was like, this is amazing. Something
needs to happen in a town like this. Well, she
she also talks about how when you take this storyline

(08:38):
of Laurela the mother getting pregnant sixteen with Rory, who's
the daughter, uh you know where where she was saying,
what I want to run to that is safe, that's welcoming,
non judgmental, warm. It takes a village all that kind
of stuff. Because Laurela and her parents were very wealthy
in the show are from Hartford, Connecticut, and so driving

(09:02):
through this little town in real life, Sherman Palladino, uh
no ites like, oh this is great. She's not running
off to the big city. She's not running off to
New York or Chicago or something. She's She's going to
a place that's a little bit safer and more supportive
where she can build her life with her daughter, and
Rory and Laurela did build a life together with Amy

(09:25):
Sherman Palladino's guidance for six seasons, and then David Rosenthal
took over in the period that shall not be named um.
But ever since then, though, she's been carrying around her
ideal final four words for the show. And even when
she was talking to a v club about the show

(09:45):
back in two thousand five, so before she made her exit,
it was clear that she kind of knew the writing
was on the wall, that she wasn't going to be
there for the whole thing, and she even said that
if she was an't able to stay on for the
final season that she would never want to watch it.
I don't think, and still to this day, I don't

(10:05):
think that she's seen it, although of course people have
filled her in on what's happened, and she um said
how amazed she was that, in contrast, Aaron Sorkin, after
he left the West Wing, was still able to watch
the show because she was like, no, no, no, once
I leave, like, how how could I possibly watch my
baby being raised by someone else named David? Yeah? Well yeah,

(10:29):
And she does have a couple of of what I
imagined to be like comments with raised eyebrows about like,
oh I've heard things. Oh yeah, I mean And we'll
get to what the actual final words of the existing
last episode of Gilmore Girls is was will always be Um.
But back to stars Hollow. It's obviously a fictional town

(10:52):
in Connecticut. Ps though it's just a Warner Brothers back
what yeah, scar on, it's not really a blaze. Even
the one thing I always enjoyed and my mother especially
enjoyed about the show was how they created this whole
fake history for stars Hollow as well. So if you
go along the Stars Hollow like a Bedia page, you

(11:12):
can learn all about it's uh historic lore and it's
founding in seventeen seventy nine, and why it's called stars
Hollow and all controversy around like one street that was
named like boil and stores Lane. I don't know, you
can get deep into some knowledge, you really can't get
deep into some knowledge. So when I was doing some
background searching on Emily Gilmour, who is Lauraa Gilmore's mother.

(11:36):
She's the matriarch, the grandmother. Uh, you know, I'm reading
all about her entire character arc, her entire plot arc.
And at the end of this website, at the end
of this page, there's a bunch of trivia and it's
things like, you know what she's interested in, who her
friends are. But then it gets like it goes like
super deep uh and says that, uh, we know that

(11:56):
she's a Protestant and if her family had been and
this is this website saying, is if her family had
been in Connecticut since they arrived in America, she's very
likely Lutheran or Anglican. Which, yeah, that's some deep fandom,
like going to the history of the actual literal state. Well,

(12:17):
I've got a little fun trivia as well. Um So,
in real life, Lauren Graham a Laura la Gilmore, and
Alexis Bladdell Rory are fourteen years apart, so their age
range pretty much squares up if you round up a
couple of years. Whereas Keiko Againa, who plays Rory's best friend, Lane,

(12:41):
was twenty seven years old when the show started, socause
she was much closer in real life to lauralized age
than Rory's age. So fun with ages. I'm always curious
to know, especially in shows where women are playing teenagers,
whether they're actually teenagers or if they're like thirty Yeah,
and then but some other Lane related trivia was that? Okay?

(13:02):
So in the show, she ends up with her guitar player,
right or in the band marries the dude in the band.
In real life she did too. In real life she
ended up marrying her roommate, who was a guitar player. What,
I don't know, Just I'm blowing somebody's mind. I don't know.
Probably not, I don't know. You guys are like super
fans if you're listening. So, if we were described to

(13:23):
describe what The Gilmore Girls is about, obviously it's about
a single mom and her daughter and then both sort
of growing up. But it's about so much more, Caroline.
It's about class, it's about snobs, obviously single motherhood, but
also just motherhood in general. Especially when you get into

(13:43):
the generations of Gilmore women, and it's about daughterhood by
virtue of that small town life, going to college, et cetera.
I mean, like there's a reason why a lot of
people our age feel like they grew up with the show.
And it's also about community, which is that that aspirational
bent of like watching these people be so just so

(14:07):
supportive of one another. I feel like anytime a small
town is typically portrayed on screen, there's always something nefarious
going on, like uh, Texas chainsaw massacre style, all the
way down to just people being jerks and snobs and
unwelcoming to outsiders and things like that. Stars Hollow is
like the Pinterest version of small town living. And in

(14:29):
the very very very last episode of the series, you know,
Rory has graduated from college and they throw her you know,
not to give too much away, if just go for it, well, yeah,
they throw her a graduation party, and it's so like
I found myself almost getting choked up at one point,
but I didn't because my boyfriend was sitting next to
me and he was like, what this is weird. Uh,

(14:51):
they throw her graduation party and it's like so heartwarming.
Because everybody just loves her so much. And I was like,
oh my god, obviously these people love these two Gilmore
win been enough to go through all this trouble to
throw them this huge party in the rain. Roy was
their stars citizen. They adored her, And it's such a
twist obviously on how we typically think of single mothers

(15:12):
being shunned. Yeah, you know, stars Hollow had nothing but
love for the most part. For Laura La everyone knew
that she was a little bit wild and away, but
she was never she was never snubbed by virtue of
being an unwed mother. Yeah, and it was never Yeah,
it was never really a thing. It was just about people.

(15:34):
It wasn't necessarily about their circumstances. Well, speaking of people,
should we go down the main players, because really, even
though I'm sure that a lot of people listening are
familiar with the cast of the Gilmore Girls, just consider
this a moment to just play the montage in your
head of all of your all of your favorite characters.

(15:55):
So if we start with the Gilmore family of horses Laura, Lae,
and Ror, but then you have Richard and Emily, who
are loauralized parents who start out like really stuffy, and
they're in their mansion and they have servants who bring
the food. Um. But of course they warm up and
they become actual people. And yeah, and we can't forget

(16:15):
Melissa McCarthy's character Suki st James, who it's interesting to
note Amy Sherman Palladino originally intended to be a gay character,
but that was just not going to fly in the
two thousand, so she ends up meeting and falling in
love and marrying the character Jackson. And you've also got,
as Kristen mentioned, Rory's best friend Lane Kim, who a

(16:37):
little bit more Lane Kim trivia for you. Uh. This
character was inspired by Sherman Palladino's real life best friend,
Helen Pye, who was also a producer on the show
and also had a band. Uh. So like, basically, Lane
Kim is Amy Sherman Palladino's best friend. And then we
have the nemesis turned bff, Paris Keller. And I remember

(17:01):
almost any time Paris would come on screen, especially in
the early seasons when she was just very nasty to Rory.
Anytime she would say something, my mother would go, oh Paris, oh, Paris,
no patience for Paris. I always sympathized with Paris because

(17:22):
she even when I was younger watching the show, and
you know it wasn't in therapy at uh. There was
always something about her that made me feel so sorry
for her that she was so unnecessarily stressed out about
things in such a perfectionist speaking of our perfectionism episode,
which we weren't, but there it is. Uh. I always

(17:43):
just felt like, God, poor Paris. She just feels like
she has to prove herself and be the queen bee Paris.
But she's not like the pretty mean girl. She doesn't
quite fit in with them. She's not popular, but she's rich,
so her family is friends with all of the popular
kids families. It was a Paris in my high school.

(18:05):
Her name rhymes with s Meredith. And then, of course
there are the men I had. I had to google this,
google all of the men. Yeah, even Luke. Surely your Luke.
No I remembered Luke, but go on. So there's Max Medina,
who was Rory's teacher at Chilton, who is Laura I's
first boyfriend and the first guy we see proposed to her.

(18:27):
Laura Lee collects proposals just left and right. In this show.
And then of course there's Luke, who is the proprietor
of the diner that ultimately ends up with Laura Lee
because we knew from the very first episode, didn't we
that they were going to end up together. And then
there is Rory's biological dad, Christopher Hayden, who Laura I

(18:48):
Mary's for a hot second, and that is one reason
people hate season seven. Well, yeah, it was such a
complicated layer cake of dad. I feel because she's in
love with Luke, he won't get his act together in
a lope with her. He she ends up falling into
the arms of Christopher, who's her daughter's father. Uh. She

(19:12):
wakes up the next day, she's discussed it with herself.
Luke shows up. He's like, I've figured my life out.
I love you, I'm ready to marry you. And she's like,
oh crap, I slept with Christopher last night. And he
drives away silently, and so then she and Christopher decided
to get married I think in Paris, right, And then
they come back and she and Luke aren't speaking, but

(19:34):
then he needs her help to deal with his mystery
daughter that he's kept from her, and there's all this
drama with his baby's mama, and then she realizes, oh,
I still have all these feelings for Luke and says
she and Christopher have to get divorced. What yeah, I mean,
but Christopher always was kind of left out as an

(19:55):
option for her. They always had you know, there's always tension. Well,
l Lauren Graham talks about how for season seven, she's like,
I didn't just want it to be so we we
and she didn't want it to be so obvious that
Luke would be the end choice, but of course he
had to be. Of course. There was one boyfriend of
hers though, that I completely forgot about because he was

(20:17):
so wretched. It was a snobby guy named Jason who
was a like business competitor with her dad, and I
think she knew him growing up and he was just awful,
and I think I just intentionally forgot about him. Yeah.
I had to google all of those guys, minus Luke
and Christopher, and then I also had to google a

(20:40):
bunch of Rory's boyfriends to You've got Dean Forrester. He's
in the pilot episode. She meets him at school like
right as she's like, I'm going to go to the
fancy private school and where a whereas pleaded skirt. It's
gonna be so amazing. And she meets Dean and that
starts this whole drama with her mother of like, I
don't want to transfer schools. I'm in love with this

(21:00):
bad boy with a butt cut um, And he does
turn out to be bad boy number one. Oh, wasn't
such a bad boy though he's ultimately a bad boy.
I thought he was just kind of like, oh, well,
you see the stars hollow version of a bad boy
maybe a little bit. The only the bad boy moment
came when they fell asleep in his car together and

(21:21):
she didn't come home, and Laura La was like, she's
repeating my mistake. So no, yeah, well that's that is
definitely I mean, that is a literal conversation that happens
in season one, episode one of Laura La being like,
who is this boy? Who is this man friend of yours?
This walking butt cut? I know, such a bad haircut.

(21:41):
We've also got Tristan Um and he that was that
Chad Michael Murray. Yes, talk about a w B star.
We have the squinty face, uh, and then there's the dangerous, dark,
handsome Jess who These are episodes that I definitely caught
because I remember watching it with my mother too and
being like, he is so handsome, but he was a

(22:04):
bad boy too. Write Jess was definitely a bad boy.
He wrote a motorcycle Caroline and had brown hair versus
versus Tristan who was blond. Well, and Tristan, I don't
know that they even ever dated. He just always tried
to come between her and Dean. And there was a
second when you were like, are you going to date
that guy? Oh? No? Well, and then Marty, which is

(22:25):
the college guy. This is in college, right, yeah, and
Marty just had like a sustained crush on Rory and
She's like thanks, no, thanks, Yeah. She was just like, oh,
we're just friends. Um, even though like that was finally
a relationship where she kind of got quote unquote relationship
where she finally got to be herself right, Like she
wasn't worried about being screwed over like she was with Jess.

(22:46):
She had to hang up Marty to watch movies neat popcorn,
but she just wasn't into him. Um. And then of
course Logan, who everybody loves to hate, hates to love,
he of the very wealthy family. He didn't start out
being the good guy, but by the endle are like, oh, well,
I can kind of threw them together. And then he proposes,
and she says, no, Logan was always a cheese ball.

(23:06):
He bothered me. But I think it was because when
I was in like late high school, early college, whenever
that would have been, I was just jealous that a
guy who looked like Logan wasn't talking to me. He's
also blonde. Yeah, yeah, I mean, if we're if we're
trying to go off like a parent stereotype, it doesn't
seem like Rory has a particular type. Well, I don't know.

(23:29):
There was. So there was this h chapter in the
book Gilmore Girls in the Politics of Identity by Molly McCaffrey,
and she had a major bound to pick with Rory's
romantic choices. I thin to the point of saying that
because you know a lot of people um enthusiastically who
loved Gilmore Girls say it's a feminist show because you've

(23:50):
got a single mom pulling herself up by her bootstraps,
raising a strong, intelligent, independent daughter, all that stuff on
and on, and McCaffrey's like, uh. She goes so far
as to say it's not only like no, I wouldn't
necessarily call it feminists, but that it's not feminist because
of Rory's poor romantic choices, which I feel like it
is very harsh because I am someone who is a

(24:13):
feminist and b has made terrible romantic life decisions. But
McCaffrey writes about how uh she's controlled by logan and
in that relationship ends up falling back on gender roles
and concerns about money, that really she just secretly wants
to live the life of Emily and Richard, her grandparents,

(24:34):
rather than the independent life of principles that her mother lives,
and that she goes so far as to say that
Rory has no agency, that she's only ever throughout the
series pursued by men, but does know pursuing that she
is superficially perfect judging by her intelligence and her appearance,
but that underneath it all, she just wants to be

(24:54):
a traditional kept woman. Oh so many were sponses to that.
I had hit me with some. Okay, so, first of all,
portraying a girl who's like eighteen too, so she graduates
college of the end of the show, so she's twenty two.
She's twenty two the end of the show, Um, so

(25:15):
portraying a very young woman as exploring all of these
kinds of gender role choices, whether it is something that's
more free wheeling like Laurela or more traditional and d
a r like Emily Gilmore. Why is that an inherently
unfeminist because she should can? Is there no room I'm

(25:39):
struggling even with my words. Is there no room for
exploration and identity seeking within the idea of gender equality?
That's That's exactly what I came away from that chapter with,
um just feeling like whoa whoa, whoa whoa whoa. Hey,
we've all made like bad love life choices. I mean,

(26:01):
who among us has always stated the perfect person? Obviously
we would have been married years ago if we had
data the right person from the beginning. Um, And yeah,
like even I've been in relationships where I have been
controlled to a degree, But you get out of those
ideally and you learn and you grow and you go
on to find your perfect person. And so yeah, I

(26:24):
was really sort of taken aback about McCaffrey's intense stand
on on Rory's character as a whole being a reason
why the show isn't feminist. Yeah, I mean, I can
I can see arguments of the show revolving too much
around just their relationships with men as being a strike

(26:46):
against its feminism. But it's also I mean, it's a
drama on the w B, sure, but the core, the
core never shifts. The core is still the women's relationships
with each other. Yeah, and that goes to not only
a Rory and Laura Lae, but also their best friendships
with Lane and Suky, with their you know, Laura and

(27:08):
her mom. All of these kinds of female relationships being
really driving the show. Well. How wonderful too, though, to
see representations of female friendship like that, that there's no
cattiness with Suki or with Lane, that these women are
there to support each other. And sure they might fight
or disagree or whatever, but the core, like I said,
the core is still the strength of their relationships. Oh

(27:30):
and I still remember in the first season when Rory
starts dating Dean and she's all about Dean and Lane
feels really left out, And how during that time that's
so resonated with those high school experiences of your super
tight girl friendships being invaded Suddenly by high school dating,
which of course is like can just take up all

(27:50):
of your time as opposed to middle school dating in
quotes when like you're just like talking on the phone
for five minutes. Um, so should keep talking about feminism,
I mean, because this is something that's I think an
appeal for a lot of stuff. I've never told you
listeners to the show because S. C. Smith, who we've
started on the podcast before, would completely disagree with the

(28:12):
idea that it is unfeminist. So over the Daily Dot,
she wrote that it was and is a feminist show
without being explicitly feminist, making it appealing to a wide
base of viewers who fell in love with characters like Emily,
Paris Rory, and Laurelai without realizing they've been suck or
punched by social progressivism until it was too late. Yeah,

(28:35):
and that goes back to what I was saying earlier
about simply presenting these characters, these lives, these stories without
having to be like, hey, hey she's a single mom.
Hey that means she had sex when she was a teenager.
There's no like, there's nothing preachy about it. There's nothing
preachy about whether it's the feminist aspect or the girl

(28:55):
power aspect, or or really any of it. That it's
just a show about really real people, minus perhaps how
fast paced and hyper intelligent all of their conversations are.
And we should also note too, how the whole relationship
between Rory and Laura La kind of starts off on
a feminist foothold because Rory is short for Laura La.

(29:18):
Laura La named her after herself, and she also gave her,
notably Gilmore, her last name, and not Christopher's last name. Well,
that occurred to me too, being a thirty one year
old person watching this show. Rewatching this show, I was like, wait, Gilmore, girls, Gilmore,
that's Laureli's last name. It was her parents last name.

(29:39):
She didn't name her after Christopher, and not of course
that there's anything wrong with that, I mean whatever, It
was just like, oh, this is totally She's giving her
her full name and Laura La mom Laura Lai herself
was named after Richard's mother, Laura La tricks quote unquote
tricks Um, and in the pilot episode, Rory says to

(30:01):
Dean about her having the same name as her mom.
She was lying in the hospital thinking about how men
named boys after themselves all the time. She says her
feminism just sort of took over personally. I think a
lot of dem or all went into that decision. Yeah,
so there you have, right out of the gate. I mean,
Amy Sherman Palladino and Dan Palladino were making intentional choices

(30:22):
with all of this, sure, but notably according to a
whole bunch of things we read, that is the first
of I think two or three times the word feminism
has ever uttered in the show. But I can't be
too critical of that for several reasons. But also, if
Amy Sherman Palladino and Dan Palladino are writing this show

(30:43):
in a time period when it was not okay for Sookie,
one of the main characters, to be gay, then they're
probably not going to wave the feminist flag too literally either,
And so I can't fault them for writing in that environment.
But Sherman Paladine has gone on the record more recently
as saying like, well, nowadays, they'd all be gay. Yeah,

(31:05):
they'd all be talking about feminism and they'd all be gay.
She's like, it's just a different time now. Well, I
think they snuck the feminism, and more subtly as s. E.
Smith noted whether it was just the basic premise of
the single working mom taking care of her daughter in
a very well adjusted and healthy kind of way and
not demonizing her for it. But also you have all

(31:28):
of the book references throughout. I mean, one of the
things that I personally loved about Rory and so many did,
was that she was such an avid reader. And one guy,
Patrick Lenton in Australia went through and painstaking lee noted
every single book reference in the whole series and tied
up three hundred thirty nine titles and some feminists standouts

(31:52):
include Gender Trouble by Judith Butler to Simone de Beauvoir
titles Second Sex and Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter and
A Room of One Zonne by Virginia Woolf. So I mean,
it's it's the feminist special, just sneaking them in well.
And you know what's so funny because the show is
so notable both for its fast paced dialogue but also

(32:13):
all of these pop culture references and literary references. But
I had watched just the very first pilot episode when
I read this article about this guy compiling the list
of books and to give you an idea of how
many literary references are squeezed into each episode. As I
was scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling down this list,

(32:33):
I was like, that was mentioned in episode one, that one,
that one was mentioned that one. She and Dean talk
about that book. So like, there is a lot going
on in every episode. So it's no surprise that you
hear a lot from fans online who were like, it
was such a treat to get the DVD to watch
it first too, then get the DVDs and now have
it come back on Netflix. Because the older you get,

(32:55):
the more life experience you get, the more of those
references that previously went over your head are caught. Yeah,
I mean, and there is literally so much packed into
each episode by virtue of the dialogue. It's very unique,
rapid fire style of dialogue, the likes of which I

(33:16):
didn't see again until watching Scandal, which as a similar
like staccato, really quick monologue style. Well yeah, and then
Aaron Sorkin shows right, very true. Um, but thanks to
mental flaws, we know that a page of Gilmore Girl's
script accounted for just five seconds of talk, as opposed

(33:37):
to typically a page of dialogue and a screenplay would
account for one minute, and Sherman Palladino and and Palladino
her husband. We're very painstaking about the scripts, like they
would all pass through their hands just to make sure
that they maintain the exact same tone because it's so

(33:59):
I mean, it's mistakable the way these characters talk to
each other. And Lauren Graham and Alexis Blodell had to
have like speech coaches just to be able to get
all of the words out fast enough and do the
back and forth dialogue. Well yeah, and then people had
to go back and review the shots to make sure
that there were no dropped words because if you're just

(34:19):
talking super fast and you don't have cute cards and
it's not like you have a teleprompter or anything like that.
And also they had to nail everything. There was no improvisation.
According to Keiko Againa, who was talking to I think
it was BuzzFeed. Uh, she had this list of like
amazing Gilmore Girls trivia that you never knew or whatever,
and one of those things was like, no, this was
not oh we're chattering because we're going off script and

(34:42):
where you know, we're kookie and we're just chatting. No,
it was like this was all very specifically written in
this style by those two writers. Well, in addition to
the Gilmore Girls dialogue being one of those love it
or loath it aspects of the show, can we also
talk about their appetites? Because I feel like any time

(35:03):
we post something Gilmore Girls related, if someone hates the show,
there will be a comment on how they hate how
much they eat and yet stays slim. And this was
something that I was thinking about a lot, especially after
reading the essay passed the pop Tarts. The Gilmore Girls
is Perpetual Hunger by Susannah B. Men's and Leah E. Men's,

(35:28):
who really analyze their eating in the show, and they
made some notable observations about how as much as Laura
line Rory talk about food and especially junk food and
pizza and ice cream and all of their favorite greasy delights,
you never see them eat it. You only see the
what will be eaten and then the aftermath, yeah, or

(35:51):
what they're eating it like the grandparents House and stuff
like that, Yeah, where they will only like pick at
the food. And Lauren Graham has said that the food
that was served during those scenes was disgusting. So I
don't know. Maybe this was like a mercy role for
the actors that Okay, we're not going to literally make
you sit here and eat pizza. But that's beside the point.
But they read all of the symbolism though into their

(36:13):
food habits um writing that quote their flaunted proclivity for
junk food is also a stand in for sexuality. Really,
I mean they wrote it. I mean, I know, but
do you think that? Do you? What do you think? No?
I don't think that. I don't think that any human.
Palladino was like, we can't show how much they really

(36:36):
want to have sex and want to indulge in, so
they're just diverting it into food. I think it was
a hallmark that she created of their relationship. Yeah, I
think it's part of that slumber party aspect. These people
are very specifically written to be sort of bff beyond
just mom and daughter, and part of that is like, hey, girlfriend,
you feeling bad? You want some ice cream? Do you

(36:57):
want to hang out? Do want pizza? Pizza is easy,
we can just call we both work, we both go
to school, Like, let's let's eat some pizza. Well, and
in a very Carrey Bradshaw kind of way. Uh. There's
also the intentionality of Laurea la disdain for cooking, and
she does not cook. The only thing that is made
really in the Gilmore kitchen is coffee. Also, I, even
in high school, is concerned about Rory's caffeine and take. Yeah. Yeah,

(37:21):
Luke is super concerned about that. Yeah. There's a scene
where Lane with her drumsticks, walks up to Rory and
Laurel and it's like, hey, Laura, can I practice drums
on your pots and pants later? And of course Laura
makes the crack of like, well, they're not getting used
for anything else. But yeah, very very like I love
Lucy Ish, not that Lucy didn't cook or whatever, but

(37:43):
Laurelize to me very much seems like the modern day
sort of Lucy. But she's not the only mom and
the show who doesn't cook, because think about it, when
they go over to the mansion, Emily is not cooking. No,
she's got made something exactly Who bring the food that
no one's all that interested in? Um, And I do

(38:04):
like though, how the cook and a caregiver in the
more traditional sense of the word is Luke. Yeah, a
dude wearing a you know, constant stubble and backwards baseball cap.
I know he looks at very much like dude roommate. Yeah,
he's got that, like the plaid shirt and acid washed
jeans where they asked, now, I'm just picturing acid washing

(38:26):
jeggings for some reason on Luke, and then I'm loving it.
That's quite an image. My mom also, I think, had
a little quiet crush on Luke. Could not know actually
Luke was not my type. Not a baseball cap. No,
well no, but aside from the baseball cap and all
that stuff, I mean, what's not to like about, you know,

(38:47):
the quiet that's all silent type, Caroline. Yeah, yeah, kind
of the tall, silent type. Like he's sensitive underneath all
of that. He struggles the whole show with figuring out
how to love and how to express his emotions, and
so it's it's kind of nice and in a very

(39:09):
like I'm watching a TV show way of seeing a
guy who's struggling with how to deal with his emotions
and how to express emotion and all that stuff, but
without being a jerk, because so often I feel like
culturally and in the media, if somebody doesn't know how
to deal with their emotions. They might be mean or

(39:30):
abusive or vitriolic or anything like that, but Luke is
very much just the gentle giant almost. And I appreciate
how they allow the friendship between Luke and Laureli to develop. Well. Yeah,
and and Sherman Palladino talked about that too, saying like
I was not going to rush anything, whether it's Luke
and Laureli or pretty much any other plot development. She

(39:52):
wade about how she just wanted to let things develop
and take their time, and when the time was right,
she would have it happen. So is there me room
for critique on The Gilmar Girls? Is it a perfect
television product? Well? Of course not nothing on TV is perfect. Man.
I know a lot of people take issue, for instance,
with the diversity thing that there's not really a range

(40:17):
of uh well, sexual orientation for one, We've already talked
about that how that wasn't going to fly with the producers,
but also race and ethnicity. I mean, you've got Lane
and her family who are Korean. You've got French Michelle,
who a lot of people are like, is he French
or gay? And Amy Sherman Palladino has said, and yes,
I'm gonna keep using her full name. Oh I do too. Yeah,

(40:40):
just Amy sounds too casual. It sounds too casual. But
she has said that they quote unquote went on the
record early in the show by having him say something
about liking women or something. But she's like, we never
really went back and addressed it, because what's the point, Like,
you can think about him whatever you want to think
about him. And the actor who played Michelle uh uh

(41:00):
swore on his mother's head apparently that he never asked
the show runners what Michelle's sexual orientation was because it
just wasn't important. Again, it was another aspect of the
show that was like, we don't need to hit anyone
over the head with anything. We can just have the
characters be characters. But again, I'm like going back into like, oh,
it's so wonderful. Oh wait, that there was not really

(41:22):
any diversity, I know, aside from the Kims, who some
people have criticized as being too stereotypical, particularly Mrs Kim,
but you have you and I Kristen read so many
things from Asian American writers who were like, that was
my mother, you know, that was me trying to sneak
out of the house and put on the band shirt
and listen to rock and roll. Where my very traditional

(41:42):
mother was, you know, telling me I was going to
get in trouble for all of that stuff. So so
I don't know. I mean, I can't speak to that personally,
being someone who did not grow up in a Korean
American household. Shockingly, wait what, I know the things you
learned about me, but that really is the extent of
their diversity. I mean I cannot name a black character
who named black character on the show for instance. Um.

(42:07):
And also when it comes to how the show reflects
real life in terms of laurelize situation as a single mother,
I mean, she really is living in a utopia because
if we look at the real world situation for single moms,
like American single moms are living in poverty. Very few
are able to have a massive two story home in

(42:31):
a gorgeous town in Connecticut where everyone is ready to
help you, and you have the fallback of your very
wealthy parents who can help send your very smart daughter
off to a private school. And then Yale. Yeah, yeah
they didn't. They never really kind of delved into the
whole money thing. Yeah, there there would be times when

(42:53):
Laurel I was short on cash, and especially when she
was opening the Dragonfly in but it would just be
a temporary obstacle that would very quickly be solved so
we could get back to the relationships exactly. Who wants
to talk about money? That's so tacky? And then of
course there are concerns about Rory and Laurelized relationships of like, Okay,

(43:16):
is this healthy or are they just straight up codependent? Yeah?
I I thought about that a lot, because it's natural for,
you know, parents to be close with their children, and
then the kids start to get older and they rebel
and break away, and then you know, even if they
do fix the relationship with their parents and stay close,

(43:37):
they're still their own person. They're still independent. But you
wouldn't know it from from this show. There's no there's
no breaking away. There's definitely like we're best friends. We
never fight. And I was like, God, they never fight?
How do they never fight? They have a couple of fights,
but basically they never fight. Compared to my mom and

(43:59):
I and I school, they never fight. Yeah, um, and
I half expect after the credits role on the final
episode for Laura I to hop in her jeep and
high tail it to the Obama bus to track down Rory.
So yeah, I mean, like, but but that's just part

(44:20):
of that's the show. I mean, that's the whole thing
is is their intense close relationship. Well, it's it's like
you've put an Instagram filter on real life. And that's
what Gilmore Girls is, the stars hollow filter. It should exist. Um,
but I have a feeling that one of the biggest
criticisms of the show at this point are the final

(44:42):
words for a show that was built on dialogue, the
final words where I guess so. Yeah, Roy was talking
about how she wasn't going to wear the world's Greatest Journalist,
had that Laura I got her, and Laura I says,
how will people know that you're the world's greatest journalists?
I guess they'll just have to read your articles and
find out. Rory says, I guess so, and the camera

(45:05):
pans back from their table at Looke's and the screen
cuts to credits. Yeah. So, but those were not shockingly uh,
those three words were not the four words that Amy
Sherman Palladino had him mine the whole time the show
was going what do you think the four words are?
I love you too? No, I don't know. Maybe that's

(45:27):
a good guest. Yeah, that's what immediately thought of. And
it's Rory saying that to Kirk, like, no, impossible, he's
an awkward He looks like the bizarro version of Chris
Hardwick to me, Kirk, Yeah, I could see that nervous
fans because I kept looking at him and I was like,
what else is this guy in? Like why do I

(45:48):
recognize him? Oh? You don't? You just think he looks
like Bizarro? You don't host at midnight, You're just Kirk Um.
And I do enjoy when I see characters like Kirk
pop up now on other shows. He's talked up on something.
I forget what it was, but it's always fun to
see a Gilmore Girls cameos somewhere else. And I'm sure

(46:08):
that those actors hate that they buy people like me
or just considered Gilmore Girls cameos while they're on other shows.
But well, so do you think that? I mean, Gilmore
Girls has been off the air for a while now
and it is coming back on Netflix. People are excited
about everybody's talking about it. Do you think that Gilmore
Girls will go down in television history as one of

(46:31):
one of the better ones. Yeah, I think it already has.
I mean, I think that you just can't deny that
a show that focuses so closely on women's relationships with
each other was not and and for so long and
in such a unique kind of way, isn't great television?

(46:52):
I think so. I think it is. Despite what my
fiance might say about The Gilmore Girl whatever, our significant
others can go watch like die Hard or something. Yeah,
I don't like I can understand why people don't like
the dialogue sometimes, but I think it's fantastic. I think
it's fantastic too. Um, I'm a little envious because they pack.
I just get so jealous that they've got all these

(47:14):
pop culture references that I'm like, I can only catch
so many of these. But those aren't our final words
for this episode, are they, Caroline, No, for sure not.
We would be remiss to not talk to some of
the internet's foremost Gilmore Girls experts. Yeah, the Gilmore Guys,
The Gilmore Guys, Kevin Porter and demi Ata gig Bay

(47:38):
who listeners. If you're not familiar with the Gilmore Guys,
the whole shut up is that Kevin is a long
time fan of The Gilmore Girls. He watched it religiously
when it was out and since, and Demi is brand
new to the show and they're watching it sequentially. In
each episode of the Gilmore Guys talks about the next episod,

(48:00):
so that Kevin has seen for the zillionth time and
Demi has seen for the first time. So yes, that
means Demi hasn't even seen all the Gilmore Girls haven't
even seen season seven yet. Don't ruin it. I know, Demmi,
if you're listening to this podcast, we spoiled so much
for you, um. But we had such a great time
talking to them about why they love the Gilmore Girls

(48:21):
and also just their journey podcasting. Um. And one of
my favorites to learn was which stars Hollow character they
would be. So thanks so much to Kevin and Demi
for talking to us. And here's our convo about the
Gilmore Girls with the Gilmore Guys. Folks. We are so

(48:45):
excited to introduce the Gilmore Guys to you too. Gilmore Guys,
could could you introduce yourselves to our lovely listeners? Sure,
I'm Kevin Porter and I'm DEMI did you wee big
where the Gilmore Guys we we did a little bit
differently on our show. I was wondering if you guys
were going to say that say it in in Unison

(49:05):
Gilmore Guys in Unison. Um. I also felt like Caroline,
I should be doing like the la la melody in
the background as we introduce you. There's so many things missing.
I'm so sorry we don't. We don't have all of
the bells and whistles. Instead, we just have despair well
for stuff I've never told you. Listeners who aren't familiar

(49:29):
with your podcast, what is this Gilmore Guys? Sure so.
Gilmore Guys is a podcast where we go through every
single episode, including including season seven, of Gilmore Girls, and
talk about it with special guests, with comedians and actors
and and writers and people who are big fans of

(49:51):
the show, and we just get into it and talk
about every single aspect of Gilmore Girls. And I like
that you went ahead had mentioned that it does include
season seven. Yes, well, I mean we've been getting that
because I think in the very early days of the
show we said like, oh, maybe we won't do season seven,
and we keep getting emails about it from people who

(50:11):
are catching up there, like you need to do it,
So I just want to put the word out there, yes,
we are for sure doing it. Well, early on in
the pilot, actually, both of you seemed a little daunted
by just the scale of this project, and you even
mentioned that you might be skipping some of the episodes
just to make it all the way through. So what changed?

(50:32):
How long did it take me to hit your stride
and what have been your secrets to your success? Well,
arguably we haven't hit our stride yet. We're still waiting.
We're still waiting on that. Well, Demmi can speak to
that maybe as someone who would like never even watched
the show before, what it was like to start it.
I think the biggest daunting thing for me was just

(50:55):
that I've never ever watched a show for seven seasons
live like and it felt like that was what it
was gonna be, having to watch a show like this
week to week and not really being able to binge
on episodes as much as I was accustomed to at
that point. So doing something like that and then not
even knowing if I would like the show from the
very early points would be a bit of a struggle,

(51:17):
But I think when we hit our stride was when
I realized I liked the show, and once we realized
people were listening. And I think that getting feedback and
knowing we're not just screaming into a void about the
show was really instrumental in having us figure out that
this is something that we could keep up as long
as we sort of took it a less scholarly approach
and sort of made it our own thing and made

(51:38):
it sort of brought out the comedy of the podcast
and focused on what it was that we loved about
doing a podcast and bringing that into what we loved
about the show. So, Demmi, what was your turning point
that transitioned you from this podcast host to a straight
up gilly. I wish I could remember. I feel like

(52:00):
it was definitely something in the early seasons. I was
never too down on the show. I never thought this
is an awful thing to watch, but I do remember
thinking early on in the show that there were definitely
some episodes that ran a bit slower than others, and
I wasn't wondering how long would take the show to
hit it stride, But I think it was around Rory's birthday,
Parties episode six of the first season to get to

(52:23):
that one, but it's a very good episode if you
haven't yet become accustomed to the world of Gilmore Girls.
I think that's the episode that sort of sinks into
it because it brings all the characters into a central
location around a central event, and you kind of get
the feel that it's more than a show about three
generations of women arguing all the time. You know, oh, well,

(52:44):
then we have to ask the question of what, according
to the Gilmore guys, is the Gilmore Girls about? Then
in our own words, yes, well, I was gonna say
three generations of women arguing that don't know what to
say I would say, I mean, gosh, it would be
hard to condense it all, but essentially, uh, it is

(53:08):
a uh whimsical examination of female relationships the end. I mean,
I could speak and I have spoken paragraphs about like
what the show is and what it means to me
and blah blah blah blah blah, But essentially I would
say that like it's just about it's a drama. It

(53:30):
is a family drama that takes female relationships seriously. Is
what I would like, like would be the most concise
way of putting it, although I don't feel like that
communicates how funny the show is either. How would you
put it, Demi, I don't know. I feel like I
would just say it's a very funny drama that shows

(53:53):
life in a small town as viewed through the lens
of three generations of a family. Because I feel like
focusing on the female relationships part of it sort of
undermines the fact that they don't really try to play
as like, yeah, it's drama, but also there are women.
They don't really lean on the fact that they're women

(54:14):
all too often in the show, which is one of
its highlights. I think the name Gilmore Girls sort of
oversells the idea that this is something that only women
will understand and relate to, and really it's just it's
just like a lot of other shows on television. The
characters just happened to be women. Well, so hallmarks of
the show that a lot of people, even if they
haven't watched much of Gilmore Girls, the hallmarks that people

(54:35):
are familiar with are all of the pop references, the
rapid fire dialogue, and of course, the instatiable junk food appetites.
So what would you describe as the hallmarks of your show,
the Gilmore Guys. I think music drops is one big
hallmark of our show. We do a recurring thing where
every time we have to give a prediction as to

(54:56):
some sort of romantic happenstance, we drop a room five
Q and we have to hit by a certain point
the climax of the prediction. So that's one. Um. A
lot of our hallmarks I think are more hard hallmarks
we do of things out of comedy rather than hallmarks
of I mean, I guess that's what hallmarks of the
show are too, But I would say stuff like that

(55:20):
sort of going off on tangents that are less related
about Gilmore Guys than less relevant to this show than
relevant to our personal lives and what we just want
to talk about. I guess, um, we have a lot
of recurring bits that we do. What would you say
our other hallmarks, Kevin? I would say that, And then

(55:41):
uh certain getting obsessed with certain clips from the show
and certain bits of dialogue that we just play over
and over and over again to the point where it
becomes hypnotic or musical and just in out, such as
uh Dean in season one saying nice chicken or right now.

(56:03):
We're obsessed with this clip in season five of Roy's saying,
is that a new shirt? Because I like it? And
she just says that in a very high pitched voice,
and we just play that over and over and over again,
almost like to the obnoxious point of being like a
Morning Zoo Crew DJ jay or something, but hopefully telling
that line. Well. And guys, guys, you can't downplay the

(56:25):
precision of your fashion insights. Oh of course the fashion report, Yes,
you know, to two guys who know so much about fashion,
as you can tell from the pictures we take for
our show. Uh, just really getting into like all the
details of we have no idea what we're talking about
with fashion. That started as like a joke. I mean,

(56:48):
I guess that's the show too. It started as a
joke and now it's just become yeah, kind of a
cornerstone segment. Um and then it's something I would other
I would say as well, would be a segment of
the show. It's just like making sure we're having a
conversation with the audience, with the audience of the TV
show on our podcast, because we just try to do

(57:11):
we always do Twitter Q and a question answer and
any anytime people have questions about the show or about
the particular episode, always try to get to those. What
we answer everyone's male who mails in? And we do, uh,
you know, a whole episode, whole episodes just dedicated to
answering people's emails and whatnot. So so those would be

(57:31):
some other hallmarks well. And just as a podcast host
to a podcast host, I am curious about how much
time both of you put into the show because you
also put out a lot of shows. You have such
um consistent fan engagement, like you're talking about, and you're
also doing live events, right, So I mean it's different

(57:53):
than prepping, you know, it's the time that we spend
prepping the show before we record is very different than
what would be normally required of a comedy podcast, just
because we want to really do our homework and do
our research and prepare the right clips and blah blah blah,
and so I would I would estimate we put in

(58:17):
about like six hours of prep work just to make
sure all of our bases are covered. That's before we
even turn on the mics, so you know, and just
examining like, oh, what did people say about the episode
when it came out, how was they received, what were
the ratings, what else was on w B at the time,
what were the promos that they were airing for those episodes,
blah blah blah blah blah. Uh. So, you know, we

(58:39):
spend a good amount of time doing that and then
also on the post and on the post production and
just making sure it sounds as good as it possibly
can be and cutting out stupid stuff that we say. Well,
one of the most entertaining things to listen to throughout
the podcast is how sort of the hints and wishes

(59:02):
wistful longings for the second seventh season to be redone
or reboot of some sort. And obviously that's happening now
to some extent with the Netflix deal and Demi you
wrote about this recently in The Guardian and kind of
asked this question of whether the show could work in
the context of and obviously that was more about like

(59:24):
the show picking up from where it left off. But
I'm curious to know y'all's perspective on whether just the
entire show itself, if we plopped Stars hollow and picked
back up with Rory when she was in ninth grade,
if the show could still work because there are so
many facets of culture that would just seem out of place,
especially technology, even outside of the technological aspect of having

(59:50):
to update things to sort of fit in the scope
of two fifteen and the technology we use and this
sort of different way that drama plays out. I hate
to say it, but I don't think show like this
could exist nowadays because it's too it's too placid, nothing,
nothing big happens. It's not event television. It's the kind
of thing that would maybe run as a mini series

(01:00:11):
and then get nominated for a lot of awards, but
it's not really dramatic enough to see a teenager's life
play out in a frankly a fairly calm way for
seven years, and that's it's lovely to see. But it
was also lovely to see in a time when that
sort of television was all over the air waves. But

(01:00:31):
now it's it's not there as much anymore unless it's
got a sort of hook to it, Like even the
podcast we do doesn't work without the hook of us
being guys. So I think that for a show like Gilmore,
where the whole idea is that it doesn't need a hook,
it's just a very nice television show to watch is
not as much of a draw in a world where

(01:00:52):
every sort of television show has something to pull itself
by the reins. I think Demmi is right in that
most TV shows that are on now have to be
some sort of concepts, So it's taking a thing and
putting it somewhere else. So, you know, like the c W,
which was you know, formerly the w B and Gilmore

(01:01:13):
Girls season seven was on the c W. Now almost
everything they do is some sort of genre thing, like
a zombie Icily is doing zombie stuff, Jane the Virgin
is a play on Telenovela's Crazy Ex Girlfriend is a
musical romantic comedy. Uh, and then of course all their
superhero shows and stuff. So I don't know if it

(01:01:35):
couldn't exist at all. It just I don't think it
could exist for sure a network TV. I think it
would be a very specific sort of home. It would
have to find on something like Cable, maybe even something
like ABC Family, which of course Bunheads was on afterwards,
but even then that got canceled after one season because
maybe it wasn't high concept enough. I don't know. I

(01:01:56):
don't know if that sort of show could thrive. I
think the closest uh parallel we could see too it
also starting lawn Graham would be Parenthood, which is the
only drama I can recall on network TV of the
last like five five to eight years that was just
the logline was, oh, it's a family and they go

(01:02:18):
through stuff and they have conflicts being like and it's
not and they're also werewolves or something like that. It's
just that low concept of a thing. And Parenthood survived
for you know, five or six seasons however long it was,
So could guild more again, I'm not sure, But as
far as like, and that's just like from a network perspective,

(01:02:39):
like from a content perspective, I think definitely. I think
the stories they tell sometimes they hinged on uh you know,
an achronistic technology to us now and Roy has lines
like oh I didn't get your page or something. But
otherwise the core of the stories they're telling couldn't those
conflicts couldn't be solved with like a tweet or a

(01:02:59):
text message or something. So I think the core if
they like remade a quote unquote for a new generation
in I think the core of it would be the same. Yeah,
kind of like it kind of reminds me of the
show Awkward a little bit, like Awkward seems kind of
like a little bit of an update minus minus the lore,
like character, actually minus the whole like female relationship. Right. Well,

(01:03:23):
and then again Awkward is like that's MTV. Yeah, of course,
and that's like that. I don't know if Awkward could
make it in a in a network television model that
we have. Now, you know, well, do you guys consider
the show to be feminist? Do you think it's a
feminist show? Uh? You know, I don't know if it's
for us to say, especially it's like two guys like

(01:03:45):
this is feminist and this isn't feminist, But I would
say that there's definitely strong female relationships, strong female characters
are independent, and a metric that a lot of people
apply I to see how a TV show or a
movie is treating its female characters is something called the

(01:04:07):
Bechtel test. Have you guys heard of this? So what
we found in for your listeners who may not have
heard of it. It's essentially you just ask yourself a
couple of questions about a movie or TV show. Are
you know question number one? Are there two or more
female characters? In the movie or TV show. Number two,
do they talk to each other? Number three? Do they

(01:04:28):
talk to each other about something that's not a man
or the male main character, et cetera. And what we
found in doing the first season um was that it
kind of failed the reverse Bechtel test, you know Moore
Girls did in that two males didn't talk to each
other until like episode five, which is actually like not

(01:04:50):
something like Damie was saying. It's not saying they emphasize
and like we're women, but you know, it's not a
focal point of the show. But it's just one of
those things that's that's in a in a strange way,
almost casually progressive, if that makes sense, and that like,
oh yeah, let's just have all the lead most all
the leads to be female, and that they talked to

(01:05:11):
each other, if that makes sense. So I think there's
definitely some feminist value to it. Of course, Lorela is
like an amazing strong character, and they're all like human characters.
I think would be the best way to put it, like,
regardless of this is what a woman should be or
shouldn't be or blah blah blah. That Amy Sherman Palladino

(01:05:32):
took care to create these well rounded, nuanced, flawed, amazing
people that happened to be women. I think is the
main strength of the show. Well, you mentioned casually progressive.
Now stars Hollow is a pretty straight white town. Do
you think do you think that their lack of diversity

(01:05:54):
detracts from it from the show at all? I don't
think it detracts from an as much as it does
paint the idea that this is a very uh, very
specific view of a small town. It doesn't try to
make a point about its lack of diversity, doesn't really
try to make a point of the few black characters

(01:06:14):
it does have. And I don't think that's necessarily a
huge flaw of the show as much as it is
just kind of this a real reflection of the show
creators sort of life like it's not you know, she
is a white a straight white woman, and she's writing
a show about straight white women, and and it's sort

(01:06:35):
of I wouldn't say it's a criticism of the show
that it doesn't have too many minority characters, but it
does sort of limit the stories they can tell, and
it doesn't really it's one thing that they don't kind
of delve into in the sense that they don't really
delve into stories that are so female specific at times,
or make a point about female relationships in the show.

(01:06:57):
They can't do like I think they so much don't
want to get pointed about the drama they have. They
want to keep it general that they don't even see
the idea that general conflict can apply to portraying the
conflict of other races as well, or other sexualities, or
even uh, the conflicts that anyone different than the characters

(01:07:21):
they portray would experience. You know. They just want to
present conflicts and stories that are applicable to people of
literally every creed, which means not doing something that is
so specific to women, or to men, or to white people,
or to gay people or anyone. It's just here's a
story that applies to a person, and we just have

(01:07:42):
we just happen to have given the avatar for that
person to a female white woman. That was a lot
of rambling. I don't know if that made sense, that
made total sense. Um. Since everyone is now asking YouTube
about the Netflix reboot, I am curious to know if
each of you, could, you know, put a bug in

(01:08:03):
Amy Sherman Palladinos here and be like you must do this.
I want to see this. Is there anything do you
have any kind of like wishless? I mean also for
you to me, you haven't even seen the entire show yet, right,
Oh my gosh, there's still so much. So yeah, I mean,
is there is there anything that that you would especially
like or something I don't know, a character you wouldn't

(01:08:26):
mind never seeing again. Well, I'll assure you that we
have no power, influence and control over what Amy Sharman
Paladina decides to do. And uh, I mean as far
as what I want to see, I don't really have
any expectations for it, truthfully, of like, they need to

(01:08:49):
hit this point and they need to do this with
Luke and then Jess needs to blah blah blah, and
then Rory's got a dada because especially to like in
the age of like the reboot and the revival and
blah blah blah, it seems like setting yourself up to
be disappointed by walking in with too much of that baggage.
So and maybe that's the politicians answer is like I

(01:09:10):
want them to do whatever they want to do. But
that is truly my answer. If anything. You know what,
here's one thing I would love to see. I would
love to see Kirk's successful uh in successfully running his
own business of some sort. That is like just a
crazy the uh success story and just he's huge and

(01:09:32):
and uh and he's a millionaire now. That would be great.
That's really sweet. Um. One one thing I'm curious to
get y'alls take on is do you think Suky will
be and the Netflix reboot? I mean, Melissa McCarthy obviously
is like so huge now and has been kind of
absent from all of the reunion stuff. I think if

(01:09:56):
they do, it will kind of be what they did
with Bradley Cooper and What American Summer, where he's just
kind of there for one or two days filming all
of his scenes, and maybe we hear Sukie's voice off
screen saying things to suggest that she's in the room,
but we don't see her as much as we'd like to,
or there are a lot of stand in shots. And
that's even just the best case scenario, because in my mind,
it's a foregone conclusion that Melissa McCarthy will not be there, like,

(01:10:21):
which is a shame, but it's also I think it's understandable,
and I like to imagine that even though everyone would
love to see it and can't imagine the show without Suki,
she is not one of the central for like the
central characters of the show, and I think that they
could rewrite or they could write this sort of finale

(01:10:41):
to the show without her being there more than a
few episodes. Like even in the show as we're watching now,
she's not in too many episodes. She doesn't have too
many main stories, especially when she gets pregnant. It's just
kind of touch and go when she comes into deliver
a few quips, and I think that's exactly what it
would be for the new season. But her Risotto, magic Risotta,

(01:11:03):
magic Rosta. You could just make a risotto and then go, hey,
I made a risotto. Just played that clip in every episode,
just coming around. Yes, what a brilliant solution. Um One.
One final question I have for YouTube is could you
which Kevin which stars Hollo character would Demi be and Demi?

(01:11:28):
Same to you for Kevin, oh dang uh? For Demi, well,
Demi is uh loyal and thoughtful and contemplatives, So I'm
gonna go with Luke. Demmi would be Luke, which is
funny because I was gonna go with Taylor because you
keep the whole show running. Yes, I'm very much the

(01:11:52):
Taylor in the bad way. Well, guys, those are all
of our questions. Are there any parting thoughts on the
Gilmore Girls or the Gilmore Guys that you would like
to leave our listeners with that we haven't asked you about. Uh,

(01:12:13):
you can just check out our show Monday and Wednesdays.
It's on iTunes and SoundCloud and wherever you can find
podcasts and and check our website Gilmore Guys Show dot
com for tour dates and we'll be hitting the road
again in January, doing some dates up in the Pacific
Northwest and Portland and Seattle and hopefully come into a
town near you. So thanks again so much to Kevin

(01:12:39):
and Demi. I loved talking with them because I am
just impressed by such passion and dedication to the Gilmore
Girls honestly, and I mean it's it's a passion and
dedication that so many of our listeners have. So I
hope you guys really enjoyed our chat with them and listeners.
Now it's your turn. We want to know what you
all think about the Gilmo Our Girls, What are your

(01:13:00):
favorite episodes, who are your favorite characters, what do you
want to see happen in the Netflix reboot? And do
you think season seven is as bad as everyone else thinks?
Because oh, you know, I think there are some redeeming
qualities And do you think it's a feminist show? Mom
Stuff at how stuff works dot com is where you
can send us all your Gilmore Girls thoughts, and you

(01:13:22):
can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast and messages
on Facebook. And huge thanks to those of you who
sent us some audio letters of the things that you
love about the Gilmore Girls. So the listener mail segment
of this episode is going to be a little bit different,
and we're going to share a few of your letters
and Gilmore Girls reminiscences with you right now. Hi, Christine, Caroline,

(01:13:50):
this is Anna. I'm from Saratoga Springs and a member
of a very large family of Sminty listeners. I was
really excited to see you both work covering Gilmore Girls,
which is quite possibly my favorite TV show. Um In
terms of favorites from that show, I would say my
favorite moment has to be was in TJ's wedding. For

(01:14:12):
a lot of reasons, the Renaissance aspect definitely being one
of them, but the first dance two sand Pulp's reflecting
Light was definitely has to be my favorite moment in
the series, um, just because watching Luke and Lorely dance
was really interesting. You see they start off, you know,

(01:14:34):
with a lot more space between the two of them
and a little awkward in their steps, and by the
end of the song, you see they're just physically closer
and moving smoothly, and you see them get comfortable, which
for me is kind of what their whole relationship arc was. Um. So,
I don't think that was intentional, but that was something
I always noticed and really enjoyed when watching that scene.

(01:14:58):
So U keep sharing all the awesome shows. I listened
to y'all every week, and I'm constantly converting other people
to listen. Have a great day, So thanks for that, Anna,
And next up we have Liz, who shared her Gilmore
Girls thoughts and in a follow up email, she wrote,

(01:15:20):
I think something about having four brothers and no sisters
growing up reinforced my attraction to a show full of
female influence. I also got the rare opportunity to visit
the set back when they were filming on a w
B studio tour. Flip the f out as I stood
in their doorway and walked on Emily's driveway and wandered
around the gazebo. Total fangirl moment. And here's what else

(01:15:44):
lived at to day. I am a huge Gilmore Girls fan.
I love the wit of the show. I love the humor,
I love the intelligence of strong female characters. I'm I
think it's creative and fan since it first came out
back in two thousands. Um, what's kind of weird. But
I recently realized is it came out in two thousand.

(01:16:06):
I was sixteen, the character Greorious sixteen now just a
few months out from World returning thirty two, which is
the same age as the lore like character when the
show first starts. Um, it's just kind of um interesting
to me that the show is still such Um, you know,

(01:16:28):
a piece of my pop cultural reference and things that
I that I think about in relation to my life. Um,
it's definitely show that I keep coming back to. You know,
almost every life transition I go through, I end up um,
you know, doing sort of new binge watch of Gilmore Girls.
And as I've done that over my life. It's been

(01:16:51):
interesting to see how you know, obviously the show hasn't
actually changed, but my viewing of it has. And when
it first started, I was very much he Rory in
terms of which character I would vote or I would
identify with most. So you know, as a as a teenager,
I also worked to a private school. I also, you know,
more uniform every day. I had a lot of similar

(01:17:15):
experience as a the Rory character. And then in college,
I think I started to identify more with the overlye character. Um,
you know, she was like doing more dating and whatnot.
And now as I approached the aide red lie Is
at the beginning of the show, I find myself identifying

(01:17:36):
more with Emily in the show. So it's just kind
of this weird influence on my life that I also
kind of love because it's such a strong show and
it's you know, it's something that people kind of are
like fiercely attached to it, and I'm I'm thrilled to
hear that it's um, you know, supposed to be be coming

(01:17:58):
back for a short revived bowld To and the show
properly with the original writers. And finally, Lindsay shared with
us her favorite episode Kurik's movie. Enough said, so thanks
again to everybody who's written into us. Mom stuff at
house stuffworks dot com is our email address and for
links all of our social media as well as all

(01:18:19):
of our blogs, videos, and podcast with this one. So
you can learn more about the Gilmore Girls and Gilmore Guys,
head on over to stuff mom Never Told You dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is house stuff works dot com