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

things she does? The Wicked Witch of the West is, well, just plain wicked and a witch . . . and presumably from the west. Emily Gilmore has a more complex character profile.
     

Exhibit A: The Definition of Success
     
    Emily went to college at a time when earning an “MRS” degree (going to college mainly to find a husband) was considered a viable—even expected—pursuit, and not the post-feminism joke it is today. She is a graduate of Smith College, one of the five remaining, private, women’s liberal arts colleges in the northeast still known as the Seven Sisters, all now considered in some circles to be competitive with the Ivy League. Among notable real-life Smith alumnae are Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan, and even feminist icon Gloria Steinem! So Grandma Gilmore is an educated, capable woman in her own right, as well as one who did very well for herself—or at least as expected—marrying young to trust fund Yalie Richard Gilmore. By today’s standards, however, Emily would be considered to have completely squandered her potential, wasting her own talent, education, skills, and opportunities to play supportive wife to her high-achieving executive husband: a glorified secretary keeping track of their social engagements and busying herself arranging fundraisers and tea parties with various high-society charitable organizations in between hair appointments and managing their household staff with an iron fist. Imagine—if Emily had concentrated all that effort, energy, no-nonsense leadership, strict attention to detail, and my-way-or-the-highway attitude on something that actually mattered in the greater world instead of focusing it all on berating maids about the acceptable distance between candlesticks, what she could have done at the helm of a Fortune 500 company! Yet she resents her daughter Lorelai for having wasted her potential? Pot, meet kettle.
     
    The thing is that, for the most part, Emily does consider herself to be a success story. And given the societal constraints during the time in which she grew up, she is. To Emily, the position in life she’s carved out for herself by Richard’s side is not only perfectly acceptable, but enviable. Why her own daughter—or anyone—wouldn’t want to be in her (designer) shoes is a complete mystery to Emily. So naturally she was genuinely shocked and offended when, at Rory’s twenty-first birthday party, her own husband gruffly blurted out that he wanted more for their intelligent and capable granddaughter than Emily’s “frivolous” life among ladies who lunch (“Twenty-One is the Loneliest Number,” 6-7). It was a good enough life for his wife, but not for his granddaughter? Richard backpedaled, of course: he honestly didn’t intend it as an insult, but I can’t help but wonder whether, were Emily and Richard twenty-one themselves nowadays, his aspirations for Rory would also apply to Emily. Impossible to say for sure. I do think that, somewhere deep down, Emily knows she could have run Richard’s businesses at least as well as, if not better than, he has. But she would never even suggest something so—in her eyes—disrespectful to her husband, and certainly never in front of other people.
     
    At some points, however, it clearly leaks through that, underneath it all, Emily is not entirely satisfied with her life. True, she resents it when others don’t take her role seriously. But there are also times when Emily is openly impressed by and even downright jealous of her daughter, the capable, self-made businesswoman. The very few instances in the entire series that are a result of this jealousy—comparing herself to Lorelai and feeling the need to defend her own choices and lifestyle—are some of Grandma Gilmore’s sharpest as well as most poignant moments, Lorelai is surprised and touched when Emily uncharacteristically compliments her dressmaking and parenting skills (“Rory’s Dance,” 1-9). In a later fleeting instance, Emily wistfully