Free Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series) by Jennifer Crusie, Leah Wilson

friends second.
     
    Why? Because Lorelai is allowing Rory to be different from her, different from what she wants her to be. In accepting this new Rory, she’s doing what Emily can’t. Lorelai is being a role model.
     
    I suppose it’s gratifying to see the Gilmore Girls growing and maturing and all that. But still, it’s sad the way time marches on. I can’t help but wonder: Will Rory ever move back to Stars Hollow? Will Lorelai ever marry or have another child? Will my daughter meet a vapid, selfish rich kid and make me feel like I’m in a lower social class? Thank god for DVDs and reruns. It feels good to relive those good old days—back when Lorelai was a best-friend mom first, and Rory was still a virgin.
     
    Stephanie Lehmann is the author of the novels Thoughts While Having Sex , Are You in the Mood? , The Art of Undressing , and You Could Do Better , which is about a curator at the Museum of Television. Her plays have been produced Off-Off Broadway, and her essays have appeared on Salon. com. Originally from San Francisco, she now lives in Manhattan with her husband and son. Stephanie finds it hard to believe that she no longer lives with her daughter. Stephanie’s mother says she’ll get used to it, which may or may not be insulting. Stephanie’s glad her daughter does come home from college to visit occasionally, and when she does, they enjoy drinking coffee and eating something with sugar in it and gabbing while watching TV. Stephanie does the same when she visits her mother. You can visit Stephanie at her Web site www.StephanieLehmann.com .
     

Charlotte Fullerton
    In Defense of Emily Gilmore
     
    EMILY (to Lorelai): You’re muttering under your breath. Years of experience have taught me that when you do that, it’s usually about me. (“There’s the Rub,” 2-16)
     
     
     
    Emily Gilmore is the third Gilmore Girl and as such, Charlotte Fullerton argues, much maligned. A woman who’s doing the best she can playing by the rules of her generation and her social class, Emily has much more in common with Lorelai than she or her daughter—or the viewers—may realize.
     
    Hear ye, hear ye! Court is now in session!
The defense will now present its evidence in the case of the
Viewers vs. Emily Gilmore. All rise.
     
     
    I T’S NOT HARD to find ways to attack the eldest of the three Gilmore Girls. Emily is an easy target. If I had a nickel for every time I read a rant in an online fan forum about what a “bitca” Emily is, I’d have . . . a whole lot of nickels. She’s a judgmental, overly critical, impossible-to-please, perfectionist, control-freak snob, who takes a sadistic pleasure in belittling those she considers beneath her in social standing, and particularly enjoys making her only offspring, Lorelai, miserable. And those are her good qualities! Okay, seriously. Taking pot shots at Emily Gilmore and her laundry list of faults may be cathartic, but it hardly scratches the surface of this complicated and therefore highly compelling character.
     
    I do not intend to make excuses for Emily’s often petty and vindictive behaviors and attitudes. But I do want to explore her reasons . Every real, live human being has his or her own personal internal logic that lies behind the choices he or she makes. Well-rounded, well-grounded, fictional characters like Emily Gilmore do as well. This is what engages us, convincing us to care about them as if they were more than just words on a page and actors on a stage. Now, whether a person’s internal logic is ever obvious to those around them—or even to him- or herself—is entirely up for grabs. A blind spot for self-awareness can make for an interesting fictional character, if a frustrating acquaintance in real life. When actors ask, “What’s my motivation?” it is a critically important question, not just the clichéd one-liner it’s become. Why does this character think this way? Why does this character say the things she says and do the