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Redefining ‘Mother’: The Unconventional Representation of Motherhood in ‘Gilmore Girls'

Writer's picture: Rebecca Kate HodgeRebecca Kate Hodge
Jul 30, 202111 min read

Updated: Jan 11, 2022

Abstract: Amy Sherman-Palladino created several individual and contrasting mother characters within her drama-comedy series ‘Gilmore Girls’ which first aired on US television in the early 2000’s. This paper focuses on the show’s main mother character, Lorelai, and discusses this unconventional representation of motherhood in relation to generally accepted and expressed norms, along with other established theories on the mother. It evaluates Sherman-Palladino’s unique characterisation and modern, arguably controversial ideas on the mother-daughter relationship that are crucial to not only the script’s storyline but the essence and heart of women’s strength and empowerment. This paper explores how her writing demonstrates the complexity of mother-daughter relationships by considering previous and existing ideas on mothering, and how Sherman-Palladino challenges the pre-existing, pre-twenty-first century expectations and definitions of the mother, particularly with the unique relationship between the two main characters- Lorelai and Rory.

Gilmore Girls is a dramedy written and produced by Amy Sherman-Palladino, set in the present day at the time of its airing between the years 2000 and 2007. The series is centred around a young, single mother and her teenage daughter who live in the small, fictional town of Stars Hollow. Lorelai was just sixteen when she had Rory, and it is this detail that is the central axle around which all the major aspects of the show revolve. In her 2018 interview with the Rolling Stone, Sherman-Palladino expressed her full immersion into and devotion to her work, saying “You have to fall in love with your story and what you want to tell people, and live in a world that you’re gonna enjoy for a while” (Perelman, 2021). In another interview with Variety in 2019, Sherman-Palladino shared “It’s not about the plot, it’s about the people… The truth of what the characters are feeling has to be the most important thing you put out there.” (Moreau, 2019). From just these two statements it is clear that Palladino truly values the messages her writing sends out to its audience, and they suggest not only a passion but a definite purpose and creative intent behind her words. With this recognition of Palladino’s genuine emotional connection to the story and its characters, this paper will focus on one character who epitomises the show’s sentiment- Lorelai Gilmore. This main mother character and her relationship with her daughter will be compared with previous and existing ideas and expectations of mothers. The real and, arguably still, somewhat taboo concepts of teenage and single motherhood are explored. This paper will illustrate how Amy Sherman-Palladino challenged pre-existing, pre-twenty-first century expectations and definitions of the mother through the lacing of feminism and women’s strength and empowerment, sometimes rather subtly, but firmly, into her work.

The characterisation of Lorelai Gilmore is unlike traditional, previously accepted norms for a lead mother character. Firstly, she has experienced teen pregnancy and raising a child whilst, for the first few years of Rory’s life, still a child herself. Lorelai is the daughter of “an old-money Hartford family” who fell pregnant with her childhood sweetheart when they were only sixteen (Brinkema, 2012: 8). We learn fairly early on in the series that she declined the father’s proposal, much to her parent’s explicit disapproval, and left the family home to raise her daughter alone (Brinkema, 2012:8). Bradley discusses how teenage parenthood is “frequently associated with poor health, lower education and fewer economic opportunities” (Houlihan, 2016: 5). Considering this association, it appears that Sherman-Palladino actively resists this stereotype even in the Gilmore Girls backstory; wasting no time in breaking the pattern of conforming to previous presumptions, and, in fact, presenting the complete opposite of this cultural expectation. As we also learn from the first few episodes, Lorelai was brought up in a wealthy, formally-educated and business-minded household. This is clear from the pilot episode when Lorelai reluctantly but desperately turns up at her parents’ mansion to ask to borrow money in order for Rory to attend a private school that will provide a better chance of acceptance into Harvard University- the school they both dream for her to attend.

In a 2014 study into “The Teen Motherhood Crisis”, the proposed resolution is to change the environments of the teens, having previously stated one explanation for the pandemic as being that “teen mothers have had disadvantaged childhoods” (Lang, 2014). It is also suggested that policies ought to focus on “providing opportunities that disadvantaged women would not like to forgo due to a teen birth” (Lang, 2014). The repeated use of the word ‘disadvantage’ supports the assumption of teen pregnancies correlating with lower class lifestyles and unprivileged upbringings. This is not the case Sherman-Palladino chose to represent in Gilmore Girls. Instead, she paints over the perception that money and opportunities prevent sexually active teenage relationships, conventionally considered a 'rebellion', that can lead to accidental pregnancies. Sherman-Palladino broke the ‘perfect world’ stereotype and allowed for a child of an upper-class background to make a big, life-altering “mistake”.

Sherman-Palladino did not leave the controversy of her writing in the show’s past, but continued her bold, non-conforming attitude into the present relationship between Lorelai and Rory. This, however, does not mean she created a leading character that was necessarily always perceived a ‘better’ mother than the typical presented in other earlier works (like the mother character Carol from The Brady Bunch, for instance). Lorelai and Rory’s “unusual dynamic” is attributed to the fact that Lorelai had her daughter young, and Sherman-Palladino allowed Lorelai to still have a youthfulness about her personality. In a sense, she made Lorelai “child-like”, but this youthfulness also allowed her to be “far more understanding” of her daughter’s teenage problems (Armus, 2021). Due to Lorelai’s young-at-heart nature, the girls’ interactions and conversations are more sister-like at times (Keeler, 2013: 20). An example of this, amongst many, is in the third episode of the first season. Rory was invited to play golf with Lorelai’s father, much to Lorelai’s trepidation. Later, Lorelai finds that Rory rather enjoyed herself. Confused and upset, Lorelai takes her feelings out on Rory, starting quite an immature, sister-like spat:

Lorelai: You’re wearing my sweater. Rory: So? Lorelai: No, it’s okay, it’s just I thought I asked to you to at least ask, you know, before you borrow my stuff. … Rory: This is not your favourite sweater. Lorelai: Yes, it is, and now it’s gonna be all stretched out just like everything else you borrow. Rory: I couldn’t possibly stretch them out, your boobs are way bigger than mine! Lorelai: That is not true. Rory: Yes, it is. Lorelai: Your boobs are totally bigger than mine! Later in the episode Lorelai apologises to Rory for her immature behaviour at a wedding taking place at the Inn Lorelai manages. She explains her feelings and why she wanted a different life for herself and Rory.

Lorelai: “I’m sorry. A crazy evil spirit obsessed with bra size took over my body!” Rory: “It happens.” … Lorelai: Not having them in my life just felt so right, I just never thought… I’m sorry. (They both notice a young girl being told to cross her legs and sit like a “lady” as her mother had not “spent five hundred dollars” for her to “run around and mess it up”.) Rory: Thank you for not putting me in a dress like that.

(S1 Ep3: ‘Kill Me Now’)

Sherman-Palladino created Lorelai as a ‘cool mum’, not enforcing any strict rules but rather treating Rory as equal to herself, and respecting her as her own individual person. Hiddleston writes that “Lorelai was in charge, but with Rory’s permission” (2007: 33). Rory is naturally mature for her age and is more serious in nature than Lorelai. This arguably backwards character contrast means Rory is sometimes the one playing ‘adult’ in the relationship:

Rory: The longer you wait the harder it is gonna be. Lorelai: I will tell them when I’m ready to tell them. You have to accept that because I’m the mother and you’re the daughter, and in some cultures, that means you have to do what I say. Rory: If you don’t tell them in two weeks, I will. Lorelai: Though apparently not in this one. (S2 Ep2: ‘Hammers and Veils’)

Rory is also the one who occasionally has to “draw the line” or set things straight after Lorelai has a childish moment (Hiddleston, 2007: 34):

Rory: Usually I have to drag you out of here kicking and screaming to go to dinner… you whine, you complain, you act like a child. Lorelai: I do not. (S1 Ep18: ‘The Third Lorelai’)

Hiddleston points out that Lorelai, as much as she is youthfully uninhibited, she does display some typical parental behaviour, saying “she can certainly be the mother instead of the best friend when necessary” (2207: 34). Examples of this are her refusal to lie to the mother of Rory’s friend Lane and her dragging of the two sixteen-year-olds she chaperoned to a concert out of an adult party.

Lorelai: Move your asses, outside, now! … I am not even gonna begin to tell how completely insane it is to take off with anyone you don’t’ know or drink things that you know what’s in them… do you understand me? (S1 Ep13: ‘Concert Interruptions’)

Sherman-Palladino puts it herself, “Lorelai can be a bit of a kid, but this is a woman who made a life for herself with no formal education, a woman of great determination…” (Minow, 2004). Of course, it was not the lack of opportunity that prevented Lorelai from attending University, but her pregnancy. However, her motherhood is never portrayed as “a burden”, neither is her singleness in parenting (Armus, 2021). Smart writes that “traditionally shame as been ascribed to the state of single motherhood” represented by the Victorian ‘fallen woman’, as well as the construction of single mothers as “out-of-control” and of “low-status” (1992; cited in Morris & Munt, 2019: 2). Lorelai doesn’t explicitly rely on a man for consistent financial or parenting support, the only exceptions to this being the financial support from her parents for Rory’s education which she intends to repay, and the one time borrowing from Luke, the diner owner and close friend, for renovation expenses on her Inn. She worked her way up from the lowest rank of maid in the hospitality business in order to build a life for herself and her daughter away from the pressured environment she grew up in.

Even throughout Lorelai’s dating history on the show, Sherman-Palladino created it such that it was never in search of a replacement father for Rory, or a missing piece to their incomplete household. Instead, Lorelai and Rory are framed as already complete, as partners, as the two pieces of a two-piece puzzle. Sherman-Palladino presented a “positive construction of the power of maternity” without the need for a man to ‘fix’ their unorthodox family structure (Lloyd, 2020). Lorelai’s quirky, excitable and sometimes child-like character is “never ‘solved’ ‘solved’ by a potential mate” or portrayed as even needing to be ‘solved’ (Armus, 2021). However, Sherman-Palladino still allowed the want for aspects of a traditional family life. Lorelai frequently “pines over having a partner” and although she believes she shouldn’t “have to want it”, she does (Armus, 2021). Furthermore, children not raised within a nuclear, two-parent family- especially children born out of wedlock- are often expected to underachieve, but Sherman-Palladino abolished those expectations and instead illustrated that a non-traditional, often seen as ‘broken’, family can thrive in many ways (Moses, 2016). For example, Rory receives offers from all of her top University choices and Lorelai ends up owning her own Inn.

As much as a couple of mother-daughter relationship hiccups have been mentioned, these are far and few between. Lorelai and Rory are “friends and accomplices”, sharing in everything from coffee and junk-food to comedy ‘bits’, crazy fantasies, and never-ending pop culture references. Their relation to each other therefore goes deeper than their genes (Da Ross, 2013: 63-64). It is something they both value more than anything else in their lives.

Lorelai: I think you’re a great, cool kid and the best friend a girl could have. (S1 Ep6: ‘Rory’s Birthday Parties’)

It has been noted that before Gilmore Girls “exchanges between mothers and daughters were commonly characterised by hostility”, but Sherman-Palladino’s non-conforming creation reimagined the mother-daughter relationship “to be romanticised rather than toxic” (Lloyd, 2020). Sherman-Palladino is well aware of, even intentional about, the disparity between Lorelai and Rory’s relationship and that what’s expected of mother-daughter relationships (Hiddleston, 2007: 35). A line in the pilot episode wittily highlights their unique relationship, using subtle sarcasm to joke about conventionality and their lack of it: Lorelai: This is it. She can finally go to Harvard… then I can resent her for it and we can finally have a normal mother-daughter relationship. (S1 Ep1: Pilot)

Irigaray’s psychoanalytic theory of motherhood argues that women (seen collectively as mothers) have historically been “associated with nature and unthinking matter”, contrastingly to men who are “associated with culture and subjectivity”, and women serve as only their “unacknowledged support” (1930; cited in Donovan, 2021). Sherman-Palladino certainly confronts this idea through the characterisation of Lorelai Gilmore, giving a single mother not only career success but a strong, mutually nourishing relationship with her daughter alongside that.

Amy Sherman-Palladino, writing on the brink of the twenty-first century, redesigned the mother of western society. Gilmore Girls subtly argued for gender equality and demolished many existing stereotypes of women, specifically mothers (The Take, 2021). Lloyd argues that Sherman-Palladino “provided a generation with a touchscape depiction of the power of maternity” and that the show’s airing on primetime American television “forged the space” for a reconceptualisation of motherhood and, more broadly, womanhood (Lloyd, 2020). The subtle and wittily delivered feminism distinctly flavours her debut creation, serving a unique expression of a historically performed relationship. The main mother character of Lorelai embodies the non-conventional, anti-assumptive attitude Sherman-Palladino displays through this collective written work. A quote from Sherman-Palladino herself perfectly sums up her passionate, defiant nature as a writer: “You have to be fearless. You have to believe in your work enough to step up to bat for it when someone tries to change it. Stick to your guns, stand up for your story, and believe in those words you’ve put on the page” (Perelman, 2021). References:

 
 
 

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