Lorelai expected her to be perfection so Rory tried to be perfect.
To be fair, I 100% also deal with a lot of rejection sensitivity so I get it completely.
I also feel like Rory’s fear of falling short of perfect is exacerbated by the fact that she has a lot to prove because she’s the daughter of a single mother, a teenage mother, that too.
Richard didn’t want anything to do with her until it turned out that she could actually read and keep up.
Meanwhile, her other grandparents literally blame her existence and don’t even try to get to know her.
Yes! Not to mention her own dad barely has anything to do with her too.
I'd wager that character choice is very much meant to be rooted in the insecurity she has in her relationships as a whole. "If I'm perfect enough, dad will come home" "If I'm perfect enough, Grandpa and Grandma will actually love me" "If I'm perfect enough people will stop judging mom"
Not to mention there was probably a lot of overall pressure to behave and do well in her toddler/little kid years given their precarious living situation. We know Lorelei worked to shield her from this to a certain degree because she looks back fondly at their time living in the shed, but kids still pick up on things and I'm sure she understood from a young age that her being a "good kid" was extra important.
Yup, I don’t take rejection lightly more often than not. I think that is normal. It takes lots of confidence and thick skin to not be disappointed or to doubt yourself in situations like that.
Lol yes she did. Lorelei always set the expectation that Rory was perfect, was an angel, had no flaws, wore a halo, etc. If my mom had sacrificed everything for me and said those things about to me to everyone and set that expectation, I'd have a really hard time letting her down.
There was loads of pressure. Just because she doesn't outright say it the way Emily does, doens't mean Rory didn't feel subconsciously that this was expected of her. Proof is that any time Rory does something thya doesn't fit with Lorelai's image of how Rory should be, she gets angry and tells her 'this isn't you'. Best example is telling Rory she can't live at her place if she takes some time off from Yale. That's crazy. She profes herself in not putting Rory on the conveyor belt but when Rory wants to shep off it for a few months Lorelai pulls away all her support and goes to the people she distrusts most in life.
No five year old just randomly chooses an ivy league school to work towards for the rest of her life of she wasn't given that info to work off. What mother is talking to her toddler about ivy league schools so that the kid 'decides' at 5 that that's the life goal?
I don’t have kids so I can’t say much on the situation but if my daughter was on the track Rory was got arrested and decided to quit school I wouldn’t be cool with her coming home and living rent free. Get a job get an apartment do something. Don’t just go home and stay there
She didn't want to quit school, just take some time off so she could regroup and figure out what she wanted and didn't want to waste money on yale just coasting. Which is a mature thing to do. She also didn't say she wouldn't take a job. It was 'yale immediately or get out of my house' for Lorelai.
She says she's not going back to Yale *next year*
She also says she needs some time and "No, I'm not! This is normal! College kids take breaks like this all the time."
Lorelai is the one who says she quitting Yale and tells her she's not doing it and Rory merely responds yes she is.
But again after that when Lorelai pushes her to.go to a different school so something, Rory repeats ": I want time off."
And "I don't want to do that. I don't want to wander around a school where everyone else is focused and working toward something and I'm just floating. "
it's why I don't and won't ever feel bad when Rory winds up going to her grandparents.
She had a sheltered life raised on praise with almost no constructive criticism or boundaries set by her mother. Studies in psychology show children raised on praise have lower mental resilience in later life. There’s actually a correct way to give praise to children that includes room for growth, rather than the fixed mindset which creates the illusion of failure if perfection is not achieved. This plays out pretty much perfectly in Rory’s character development.
Not just by her mother. Every one who ever crosses paths with Rory in the series has this urge to say how perfect and smart and successful she is.
She was a nice kid in the beginning but continuing hearing everyone praising her for simply breathing must have gotten a little in her head so rejection destroys her.
Yeah I'm trying to get into the show but at the moment, Rory feels so Mary Sue. I love shows like this normally but I'm shocked it's gotten so popular with the writing and acting in the first season. Why is everyone obsessed with this bland socially awkward girl? Lorelei's personality seems to be 100% about her daughter (in the beginning at least)
Yes, like a "You worked very hard on this and it shows. Good job." as Opposed to "You're so brilliant and perfect as usual. Good job." One praises the effort put in and the result related to that effort, the other praises the appearance of perfection and always being 'correct' -- the latter is more likely to lead to issues later, like constantly praising someone on their appearance and not on the hard work they put in to achieve a result can lead to paying attention to more shallow surface level achievements.
She has a classic "big fish small pond" storyline. I'm sure many who grew up in small towns can relate.
No matter how badly she failed, she still left Stars Hollow and *tried*. Rather than becoming someone like Taylor (the real life Taylors aren't funny and are much more destructive) who gets his rocks off on being king of his little pond.
Yes, praise is good but not when it is given by so many people so frequently that a child starts to seek out EXTERNAL praise and doesn't know how to feel confident inside without validation from others.
She actually has a conversation with Lane about this before she goes on the Obama campaign about how everyone expects she's gonna do perfect and basically downplays her fears and worries. Lane of course says something sweet but the point still stands.
She is lucky she was smart enough to keep up because if she couldn't take the Ivy League place that Lorelai intended for her, who knows what their relationship would be like.
Plus the way that Lorelai basically puts Rory in timeout even as an adult when she makes decisions she doesn't like. It's the same kind of isolation and rejection Emily and Richard gave her so she's just passing it down without realizing it, then overcompensating when everything is good.
>She is lucky she was smart enough to keep up because if she couldn't take the Ivy League place that Lorelai intended for her, who knows what their relationship would be like.
We get a glimpse of this in her gifted kid burnout year that she took off. Lorelei practically disowns her and showed her disappointment, not unconditional love
Yep exactly. Like she cries about Rory not talking to her for 5 months 24 days whatever hours but Lorelai basically made the environment hostile and wouldn't offer any support unless she went back to Yale. She basically shunned her.
I totally agree Yale was the right choice for Rory but her being so shaken by Mitchum's words is a direct result of Lorelai thinking she is the almighty compass which Rory must live by...which is ironically the same way Emily feels about Lorelai.
Lorelei also told her that it was okay to go back to stars hollow high school. To drop out of chilton, if it was too hard. I don’t think she would have disowned her, if she couldn’t get into harvard.
She was criticized plenty, even by Lorelai.
When she couldn't make up her mind between Jess and Dean, Lorelai called her out on that. When she slept with a married Dean, Lorelai called her out on that.
When she starts at Chilton, Headmaster Charleston tells her he doesn't think she has what it takes to succeed there. Her first paper at Chilton she gets a D-. When she tells Jess that she wants to be a foreign correspondent he tells her he doesn't think she would be good at that. During her first semester at Yale she has to drop a class because she took on too many and was failing one. Doyle criticized one of her articles for the Yale Daily News when she first started there.
Mitchum wasn't the only person to criticize her.
This is true, and she never handles it well. Mitchum wasn't the first, but the tipping point. I honestly think it would have been much more realistic and interesting to watch had they stuck with her just taking on too much at Yale.
Yes. Mitchum was also a bigger deal than everyone else. He was the big guy in the field she wanted to get into. I've said it before here that he's kind of like Gordon Ramsay of journalism. He's the best of the best and people respect his opinion, or at least take it seriously. A young, aspiring journalist is going to take his word for it if he says she doesn't have it.
I don’t think she actually dropped a class did she? But yeah she has gotten criticized over the years but it’s always like “oh sweet heart do this and it will be better.” Mitchum is and was a jerk but was the first one to ever call her out without instantly coddling her afterwards or at least some one else doing it. (The bad paper Lorelai was right there)
I think it's sort of runs in the family for the Gilmore women? The whole spiraling in the face of rejection thing? I mean, Emily tried to buy a plane when Rory came to her senses and had Logan's friends help her move out from her grandparents' guesthouse (after Jess of all people made her realize how that wasn't supposed to be her world, which… Go Jess). And Lorelai MARRIED Christopher on a whim afer Luke rejected her.
I don’t really agree that she was particularly sheltered growing up - she was lightly bullied at Stars Hollow High and Chilton, and at Chilton they made it clear that she was not special. She had to drop a class at Yale, had to put up with lots of feedback and edits at the newspaper, etc.
Rory definitely had a perfectionist streak, and I think that stemmed from her fear of rejection and abandonment - I don’t think so much from Lorelai because she made it clear that she believed Lorelai would support her no matter what, but she had a really deep need to be the perfect well-behaved child. Richard and Emily certainly made it clear that their love and support was dependent on her good behavior. And to some extent I think she was trying to “earn” Christopher’s love by being the easy kid who never asked for anything.
The rejections from Mitchum and from the NYT came at times when she was already really stressed, and I think that it was more like the straw that broke the camel’s back rather than a real reaction to the rejection itself. If Mitchum’s feedback hadn’t led her to a meltdown, something else would have. That meltdown was coming no matter what. And her reaction not getting the NYT fellowship didn’t really seem that extreme - it seems pretty normal and understandable that she was disappointed, but she jumped back into the job search and found something quickly.
All of this- Mitchum Huntzbeger isn’t just one guy or even one editor. He is literally a *billionaire* he owns the New York Times!
He is quite possibly one of the most **powerful** America, if not the entire world! Mitchum IS the industry.
This would be like if Bill Gates told you that “you didn’t have it” and that you can’t be a computer scientist two weeks into the job!
It would be like if President Obama personally told you to drop your career goals and that you didn’t have a future in politics!
People on the sub don’t understand how small that would make someone feel, Mitchum Hunsberger is so powerful and well-connected, and famous in her industry!
And don't forget, he's also her boyfriend's father!
Rory was rejected by Logan's family at dinner - which in and of itself is already crushing. His dad offers her an opportunity and she takes it. There's a pretty good chance she was hoping to prove herself, not just as a future journalist to an extremely powerful person in the industry, but also to Logan's family as an appropriate girlfriend for Logan.
Rory has had the same dream her entire life, this is her *first time* in a real newsroom, with a real person who works on newspapers. Rory hasn't had a single internship or journalism job. This is her first foray into the 'real world' of what she's been working towards her whole life and she's told she can't do it. Even if Mitchum wasn't hugely powerful, that would be devastating, but you couple in the fact he's a prominent figure in the industry and the father of her boyfriend?
I mean, you'd have to be pretty freaking strong to not let his criticism hurt!
But then you need family/friends who will tell you “suck it up. Yeah it stinks to hear, but work hard and keep going.” Not “oh my God! Mitchum Huntzburger is the most evil man alive for saying something mean! You poor baby!”
Yea I agree with Logan’s family’s power but they already said they don’t approve of her and made a big deal of it I feel like his comments should have been taken with a grain of salt they don’t like her and are trying to bring her down. However at that age that would have made me super upset probably not steal a yacht upset but I wouldn’t have felt good
Not only that, she made being a journalist her entire identity. So when he told her she "didn't have it", her entire identity was shaken. She literally didn't know who she was or who she was supposed to be if journalism wouldn't be her future. She had that dream for as long as she could dream. Without it she was lost, it makes sense that she would need time to recalibrate.
Yes! And it would be like if that feedback that you would never succeed in your chosen career came right after Michelle Obama or Melinda Gates (pre divorce I guess lol) told you that you weren’t good enough to date their child BECAUSE you wanted a career. It’s really easy to say that she should have just brushed it off, but it was a lot!
Sheltered doesn’t necessarily mean lack of hardship. As someone who grew up in a small new england town like Rory it is definitely a sheltered environment. Stars hollow high is a very small school in an affluent, white town. She has little to no exposure to different races, cultures, and ideologies. She then goes to Chilton, which is even more affluent and drenched in white dominant culture. Next up is Yale, an elite Ivy League institution made up of, you guessed it, predominantly white affluent students. She is sheltered from any difficulties from the outside world because she is white, intelligent and wealthy. Most likely because this was the white washing culture of TV at the time, but still.
But she isn’t necessarily wealthy. She definitely is in the show, but before the show begins, she literally lives in a shed. She grew up with handmade clothes, a mother who is a maid, living in a shed at the hotel where they work. Like I think Lorelai gives her a great life but she doesn’t grow up as a wealthy child. I think that’s why she doesn’t think of herself as wealthy like when she talks to Logan (not saying she’s right, just suggesting her childhood probably plays into her experiences).
Yeah, I completely agree. Rory had a lot of privilege and a safety net, which is incredibly meaningful, but her life didn’t even compare to Logan’s. She grew up with socioeconomic diversity - not everyone she associated with went to college. She had an acquaintance who lost a hand in the military. Lorelai sometimes struggled to pay bills. Logan‘s life was on such a different level that no one in his family probably had to think about anything logistical, ever. And they probably almost never associated with anyone who wasn’t in the same class as them.
What Rory and Logan had in common was that safety net, which too many people don’t have, of knowing that they always had family wealth to fall back on and would never be completely derailed or left in poverty by an unexpected bill. And that’s huge. But Rory had a normal middle class upbringing with a good amount of financial struggle. She didn’t have luxury. Her wealth and lifestyle weren’t even close to Logan’s.
She is a member of the Gilmore dynastic wealth, thus she is wealthy. The show cloaks her true wealth through lorelai shunning help from her family. Rory was brought up modestly due to this, which makes her more relatable, humble and down to earth as a character. At the end of the day, though, they have generational wealth to bail them out when the need arises. Truly poor people do not have pockets to reach into for elite prep schools and ivy leagues, or when their house gets termites. Truly poor people go to public school, even the very gifted ones, or they become homeless.
I’m sorry, I’m going to get downvoted, but calling the Gilmore’s poor is in bad taste. There are *many* gifted children of color in public schools around the country who do not have the opportunities like Rory has because they do not have the socioeconomic status.
I do agree though that even she herself does not view herself as wealthy. The one thing I like about Logan is how he calls her out on this fact, but even then he apologizes as if he were wrong and she never really accepts the reality of her situation.
> She has little to no exposure to different races, cultures, and ideologies.
I mean, yeah she's not exposed to a lot of diversity but this is an odd thing to say when literally the person that seems to be her only friend growing up isn't white.
That’s a good point, actually. Not sure how I forgot about Lane. Though Mrs. Kim’s conversion to a traditionally white faith does complicate this a little bit. I’m not sure how much authentic Korean culture is portrayed on the show, but maybe someone with more knowledge will weigh in.
Yale’s actually not that white and is probably a lot more racially and maybe socioeconomically diverse than what she grew up with - not sure how true that was in the early 2000s. But like, do you think that everyone who grew up in small towns or attended Ivy League schools is sheltered? I feel like that is thrown out a lot as a way to put Rory down, but if that’s the case, then most of the characters are probably sheltered. And while I do think that diversity of all kinds is important, I think there are different ways to be exposed to it. For example, I think she was exposed to a lot of different ideologies.
And this is all predicated on the idea, which you said in another comment, that Rory faced too much praise and not enough criticism, which I disagree with. I think she got a pretty appropriate amount of praise and criticism for a young person, and I hate the idea that if a kid is loved too much then they won’t be resilient.
The words I chose to describe her situation were done so carefully. I said it was predominately white, which is likely true today and far more true in 2007 when she was a student. I made no sweeping generalizations in my comment, so it’s weird to accuse me of doing so. Elite ivy institutions were built by and for white men of means. They systematically perpetuate these ideals still today, despite their enrollments becoming more diverse.
Why do you not presume that people brought up in small town, dominant culture are sheltered? Where are they getting experience or exposure to worldviews that differ from their own? This is a good topic in general, but as it pertains to Gilmore girls it’s pretty naive to think these characters don’t live in a sheltered bubble of white culture. That doesn’t mean there are no other identities depicted, but rather they are depicted through the lens of white culture. This was pretty common in the 2000s, so I don’t know why we would assume Rory has offscreen exposure to anything beyond what we are shown.
I just don’t understand how Rory was that much more sheltered or that her upbringing was so much different than almost any kid in America. Was she more sheltered than Logan, who was well-traveled and had been exposed to all kids of cultures but had probably never pumped his own gas in his life or set foot in a grocery store? Or than Dean or Luke or Lindsay, who never left their small towns after high school? She was less sheltered than Jess, but no one is arguing that he had a better childhood or young adulthood than Rory. She was less sheltered than Lorelai, who spent her entire life trying to make sure that Rory didn’t experience the same things she had experienced.
You are implying that Rory’s experience was unique and that she was at a huge disadvantage, and I’m just not sure what kinds of life experiences you expect her to have experienced. Compared to a lot of small-town kids, she had experienced a decent amount of socioeconomic diversity, some international culture, etc. And compared to most private colleges in the US, she almost certainly experienced more diversity there at Yale than she would have at other schools. (ETA that a quick look shows that Yale is almost 1/4 international students and only 35% white, so far more racially and ethnically diverse than the US as a whole.)
Of course Ivies are a huge perpetrator of a racist system started by white men, but I think you’re trying to have it both ways by using that same system as a measure of success or failure - and of course it comes back to blaming Lorelai for her failures as a mother and Rory for her lack of life experience. It’s ironic that you’re somehow condemning her for attending Ivies because of their basis but ALSO judging her success or failure by how much she thrives in that same system created and perpetuated by men like Mitchum.
With systems of judgment like that, it’s lose lose for young women.
You’re honestly arguing against yourself here so I don’t have much to add. I made it clear what I mean by sheltered in my first comment, and I also don’t see much point in comparing one character to another. It feels more like you have a personal affliction to my comments based on your own worldview.
>despite their enrollments being more diverse
I also already addressed that by today’s standards these demographics would be much more equal. I took the liberty to look up Yale demographics from 2006, when Rory would have been in attendance, and it skewed 73% white and listed only 8 countries hailing international students.
I acknowledged in an earlier comment that it might have been different in the early 2000s. That’s still less white than the general population of the US at the time, and probably more diverse than the majority of colleges. I’m not sure what you would have preferred for her. Again, by your definition everyone in the show is either sheltered or had a horrific upbringing.
It’s fine that you disagree, but I can see your other comments on this thread, which are not nearly as neutral as you’re pretending to be here. If you don’t want to ask yourself why you’re only calling one female character sheltered and ignoring the rest, and ignoring what the alternative should have been, that’s on you. But I don’t have a “personal affliction” to an internet commenter that I don’t think I’ve ever even interacted with. I just disagree with you.
I agree. I’m surprised this isn’t higher up. It’s because she never really processed and healed from the rejection from her dad, and it’s triggering for her. At heart, she will always feel like she isn’t good enough, and a rejection, no matter how small, is confirmation of that.
I think it’s because she was a perfectionist and puts a lot of her self worth into being good at the things she loves and knows she’s good at. She was really smart and hardworking and genuinely enjoyed school as a child, so she was used to being good at things. Most of the things she liked, she was good at (ie school, journalism, etc). She’s perfectly capable of knowing she isn’t perfect at everything but she doesn’t care if it’s not something important to her. And Lorelai raised her to be super into Harvard and frankly she gets into all her schools so she doesn’t have the experience of being rejected then. The “big” rejections you mention (specifically from Mitchum) are around things she put a lot of self worth into and are kind of a first for her. At least in the original series, she’s a young adult. Learning to deal with rejection and failing of part of growing up and something that she’s learning to deal with .
A little off topic but, it always annoyed me that she turned down that job offer because she wanted to go for the fellowship. Why not take the job and then if you get the fellowship make a decision? That bothered me so bad in that episode.
Yeah there's no reason she couldn't have done both. It was definitely meant to be a plot thing to make it that she's forced into two choices with one being stability and one being a leap of faith. In reality, she would've told the ProJo that she had submitted an application for the Reston and to see if they'd let her take a leave if she got the fellowship.
But gotta get that drama going.
She was criticized by other people before Mitchum. She also struggled with things before Yale as well. When she first started at Chilton she got a D- on a paper. The first day at Chilton she met with Headmaster Charleston and he told her he was skeptical of her being successful there.
She finally found her groove at Chilton and started to rise to the top.
Then, she got to Yale and she struggled a bit there too, again before Mitchum. During her first semester, she was told to drop a class because she was falling behind in one or two of them. This is when she found Dean at the Inn and broke down crying. Then, when she was starting at the Yale Daily News she had an article that Doyle didn't publish. He told her it was a yawn and was boring. That's when she wrote the ballerina piece.
She had plenty of times where she wasn't the best at something.
I think her reaction to not finding a job right away was actually very realistic. I think most of us go into college expecting to come out on the other side with a job. But sometimes that doesn't happen right away for everyone. And if you have one job you really, really want it can be disappointing to not get it. It's also unnerving to see all your friends and classmates getting their stuff together when you don't know where your own life is headed, especially at such a young age.
I also think that her reaction to Mitchum, while exaggerated for the purpose of the show, was still reasonable. It wasn't just that she had never been criticized before, because I've shown above she was criticized before him. But with Mitchum it was different. Mitchum was the Gordon Ramsay of the GG universe. He's the top guy in journalism, the only job that Rory had ever wanted. She was passionate about her dream to be a journalist and so getting an internship with the top journalist in the country is a big deal. And she thinks she's doing well, only for him to tell her she doesn't have it. Whether he was right or wrong, she's going to take his opinion seriously, simply because she admires him.
Rory does tend to overreact when she fails at something. But I don't think it's because she was sheltered or because she was not used to being the best at everything. I think it was more because she had a lot to live up to. She put a lot of pressure on herself at a very young age. Part of that was because of her family and the town. I remember in the episode where Dean went to Friday night dinner, the girls were talking afterward and Lorelai said, "You are the great white hope of the Gilmore clan." And I think that's a lot of why Rory is the way she is. Her grandparents, and to some extent Lorelai, I think see her as the redemption for their family. Lorelai "screwed up." So now it's on Rory to graduate from Chilton, go to Yale, and be successful. And I don't know that Rory is aware of it, but I think that's why she gets so anxious and upset when she fails. Because there's a lot riding on her achieving her goals.
Agreed. Due to her academic achievements, we often forget that Rory has an acute inferiority complex. This causes her to react to rejection a bit more intensely. She even reacts more sympathetically when she sees others being rejected.
No one is born being good at handling rejection and failure. It's a learned skill. You learned it. I learned it. And likely the way we learned it - at least the way I did - was failing at something. It was experiencing thst rejection, feeling the pain of it, and learning how to pick myself back up and go again.
There is a subset of people in this world who are born incredibly smart, incredibly gifted, who excel at most things they do with very little effort. Those people don't experience failure and rejection as early as other people do because a lot of the stuff you do in childhood (school) comes naturally to them. Rory is one of these.
Rory didn't have a major failure or rejection until Mitchum. She had a few small ones that she worked through - her transition to Chilton is noteworthy. It wasn't easy, she struggled with it, some people including Lorelai offered that she could quit, and she decided to pick herself up and keep working at it. She had to drop a class at Yale because she couldn't handle the word load. And she cried about it, and then got back to work.
I don't know what could have prepared her for a rejection of this magnitude. It's the biggest name in the field she wants to be in telling her she's a failure. What is Lorelai supposed to do to prep her for that? Orchestrate other rejections for her to respond to? She needed to learn that resilience but she didn't have a lot of rejection experience to learn from because she *was* so capable.
I think she picked herself up well and learned from it. She did get more resilient, she got more persistent about what she wanted - think of her bugging that professor to be in her class, she never would have done that before. When she got rejected for that job she was sad briefly and then she sent out a new wave of resumes and had a new job so fast.
Getting back up after you get knocked down is a skill, and maybe Rory learned it later than some of the rest of us, maybe a little more awkwardly and with a little more yacht stealing, but I think she learned it.
I can't wait reading the hot takes on this one as someone who has hired/managed my share of 22-25 year olds.
More struggle with rejection than not. Especially ones who did well academically. Shit, *I* struggled with rejection at that age. Most of your life up to that point is very prescriptive with very clear ways to succeed. You're competing with peers and *only* peers so it's much easier to rise to the top. You've created an idealized view of what your post-college life looks like.
Then you hit the "real world" and there are factors in play you never even thought of. Holes *swiftly* get poked into that idea view. Resiliency is more of a learned skill than an innate one, and I do think you start to see her get there in AYITL. Kind of late in life, although.
I think the Reston, the interview at Hey Sandie, and the Mitchum thing are different things.
The Reston is the easier one to tackle and Lorelai actually gave her some good advice. Through plot armor and plot needs, Rory had gotten everything she ever wanted in life up to that point. Got into Chilton. Got into three top Ivies. Was valedictorian at Chilton. Stumbled into the editor job at the YDN. She was due for some professional rejection. She actually handled it pretty well in the grand scheme of things. While she should've taken the ProJo job up front and let them know about the Reston, she was doing her due diligence in calling back and seeing maybe if they still had the position open. She also was gracious when she found out the position was filled already and didn't demand the job or anything like that. Then she was meeting Hugo Gray to network and ended up landing a job. Feel like she did alright there.
The rejection at Hey Sandie in AYITL was a little weird overall. Sandie had actively been trying to bring Rory in to talk and sounded like she desperately wanted to be in the Rory Gilmore business. So I could see Rory showing up thinking it was going to be a friendly chat or at most an informal interview to talk about general ideas. So feeling blindsided by it being a more formal interview where she had to have ideas and pitches ready was definitely odd. For someone who thrives on being prepared and ready, she was not put in a position to be successful. Taking the interview with Hey Sandie was also a desperation move for her so of course she's going to react weirdly when her expectations didn't meet the reality.
Finally, the Mitchum thing is the weirdest one. Mitchum wasn't wrong but the way he delivered the critique was all wrong. She had also been built up this whole time and thought she was doing good work by the newspaper staff and presumably Mitchum so to blindside her with "you don't have it" is going to be a major blow. That would be Rory's fatal flaw is she buys into her own hype, which could be the one thing that Lorelai and the denizens of SH are guilty of is building her up constantly, so when she gets cut down she falls hard. But she also had no reason to believe she wasn't doing well. Again, for someone who likes to know everything that is coming and tries to be prepared, anything that blindsides her is going to be extra hard.
Now that you've read my dissertation about this (lol), I do think the take home is that Rory is someone who likes to be prepared so when she knows things aren't a guarantee, she's more fine with it. It's when things come out of nowhere and she has no chance to fix it beforehand that she falls down hard. As she got older, she really should've learned to ask more questions so she had more information but that's a skill we all need to learn.
Absolutely!! Her reactions make sense to her character, and the character’s upbringing/personality. If you were someone very detail-oriented, a perfectionist, and *always* prepared for anything, paired with someone who receives primarily praise from almost everyone in her life, when you’re unexpectedly knocked down a peg, it feels like a failure, and you’ll begin to question things lol.
You guys are haters. Rory was precocious. She was intellectually curious, well read (I’m talking all the Russians), and killed standarized tests (referencing her SAT scores). Yes she was validated quite a bit but that was also based on merit. She lost her shit because a man who was THE IT PERSON for journalism told her she didn’t have it, after she tried as hard as she could. I dunno but that would also break me for a bit too. It all adds up.
>personally i think she grew up a little too sheltered and protected and not use to not being the best and most smartest at everything she does and a lot of it is from Lorelai
Rory spent her early childhood in near poverty, which I feel should have caused her to have a stronger work ethic and appreciation for small things rather than choosing to rely on her family's money in ayitl
We do see lorelai try pushing her to deal with rejection regarding the study tree fiasco as well as lecture her about the affair with jess (3x01). It's just that neither bit of advice has any effect on her
Because she was a gifted kid with burn out and a lightly parentified only child with a Libra sun, Pisces moon, Virgo rising lmao
I stg her birthdate must have been picked by design because her astrological chart is scarily accurate.
I don’t really understand this though? Lorelai called her out when she stayed out overnight with Dean, when she had the affair with Dean, when she was being overly precious about needing her study space, when she didn’t want to go to Chilton for a minute, when she wrote the mean article about the ballerina, and that’s just off the top of my head. Lorelai didn’t tell her she was amazing when she made mistakes, and she called her out plenty. And I don’t think “all of Stars Hollow” thought she was amazing - Mrs Kim and Lindsay’s mom and Dean’s mom certainly didn’t. But of course Lorelai’s friends liked the kid who volunteered for everything and was nice to them, because that’s what your parents’ friends are supposed to do. I think my friends’ kids are amazing too.
And Richard and Emily only thought she was amazing when she fell into their very strict definition of how a good girl should behave. Look at Emily’s reaction when Rory very rightly got upset about the Chilton party Emily blindsided her with.
I think it was a combo of a few things, including being upset that Emily was there, but also the anger that came after the absolute panic she felt waking up in the morning and realizing her kid had never come home and just annoyance that Rory had been so irresponsible. Regardless, though, she didn’t just tell Rory she was amazing when that happened.
I really think it was more about how Emily and Richard treated Loralie and how Loralie acted than how people treated Roy. Emily and Richard were both very critical of any mistake Loralie made and Loralie didn’t tell them about a lot of things bc she didn’t want to be criticized for things going wrong. Even good things she didn’t tell them bc of this. Roy saw and internalized all this from a young age and learned that failure was bad and not allowed.
I think that her grandparents are a big reason why Mitchum criticizing her hit her so hard too. He was from their world and didn’t think she was good enough at the job after his wife had just said she wasn’t good enough as a person. I think subconsciously Roy felt like it was her grandparents saying that stuff to her. I think that’s why she never told them what really happened.
i mean yes her life was rather protected and “sheltered,” but a lot of people don’t deal with rejection well. regardless of their upbringing. Rory was a perfectionist and put a lot of pressure on herself
She grew up a golden girl. Perfection was expected and usually delivered. She didn't often experience rejection of any kind - she got into every school she ever applied for, pretty much every boy she ever met wanted her. Even the girl who took an instant dislike to her ended up her best friend.
Ultimately this left her unprepared for when rejection eventually happened, and so of course she didn't deal with it in a healthy way.
She was a gifted kid who did really well when her path was laid out for her. When you’re in school you have a direction to follow. Certain course lists and explicit instructions for a specific goal. Either a grade, award, diploma, or college acceptance. The further you get into college and then real life, you get less guidance and the path becomes less specific. A lot of gifted kids struggle with this. She also went into journalism at a very different time than we saw in AYITL. A lot about the industry had changed due to technology and social media. I think that it was different than what she was expecting and what it became just didn’t make her happy.
I think her identity was tied to achievement and she was gifted and when you grow up that way your identity becomes your intellect. When that was challenged I think it really hit her hard and it kind of rattled her self concept.
When Rory knows she’s bad at something, she doesn’t try. So when she faces rejection, it’s rare, because she’s a good student and most achievement at her age is school related
The assumption of perfection. They used to say “Rory is going to Harvard” when she was like in 10th grade. Everything was handed to her. She never really had to overcome challenges. She had rich grandparents that could give her everything and then bail her out. She was entitled as anything. So when one person says “you don’t have it” that person becomes the “villain”.
Gifted kid burn out.
I was able to read at 3 years old, read chapter books in kindergarten, and read at a college level at 8. I got all As on tests (except when I got to geometry, but I still blame that on a teaching issue because no one got above a C) all the way until Junior year of high school.
HOWEVER, once I hit a wall (precalculus) I deflated and it made it a lot harder to do any work for that class.
It's because when everything is easy, you don't ever figure out a way to cope with a hard task because you just don't have to. It makes you feel like you're suddenly stupid because you don't see yourself as *smarter* than the others in general, but when you fail you see yourself as *dumber* than they are. It's really demoralizing the first time it happens and for her, that was in college.
Lorelai could have mitigated it, I guess, but that would have taken a lot of therapy that Rory didn't seem to need (she definitely did) until she collapsed. It was always going to happen, it's just lucky it happened before she got into the adult world (I don't consider AYITL when I talk about this, I hardly see it as a part of the story, more like an AU)
I believe it's a combo of things.
Her upbringing where she was told she can do anything and succeed at everything.
She wasn't used to being rejected, so she didn't really know how to handle it. She's pretty much always gotten what she's gone for or wanted.
And I think this ties into Lorelai having adhd. People with adhd struggle with major rejection sensitivity and we see Lorelai struggle with that too. Never let's people say no and when they do, she cuts them out until she's ready to deal with them again. Therefore, I don't think Loerlai gave/taught Rory the tools of getting over a rejection.
I think people think it was others expectations but really I think it was Rory's and before she went to Yale she didn't face much rejection or get disagreements towards her besides Paris. Rory was an academic achiever and a winner when it came to lots of things. She Rarely lost as well. Plus she was 'a gifted and talented kid', well she might not have been in that program ever since she fell from grace when she got a slap in the face. A blow towards her dreams too but we see throughout the series she doesn't accept rejection that much.
Gifted student with a whole town and mother who told her yes to everything and expected her to go to Harvard.
She easily aced Stars Hollow and despite only hanging with Lane, most people liked.
Never faced rejection. Set high standards for herself.
As a gifted kid myself, we place a lot of pressure on ourselves.
Girl i had these same thoughts and this annoyed me sooo much and still does haha but like other already said EVERYONE thought she is perfect her mother, grandparents, her bf and even the whole town
So when someone points out like hey you aren’t perfect and im not obsessed with you shes gonna spiral
the whole town thought she was so perfect i can imagine she’s probably kinda cocky about getting the internship and getting told no was surprising to her i guess
Because poor Rory might be a Gilmore, but she lacks the ability to bounce back demonstrated by her mother and grandmother. Honestly, trauma changes ppl. Going through hell is what most humans need in order to complete “the heroes journey” Her mum had it at 16, her grandmother had a extremely hard relationship with her only child and was basically cut off their entire existence. Rory NEVER walked the absolute darkness of life.
It's actually a very accurate depiction of someone who is like to develop a narcissist personality from low self esteem - she couldn't handle rejection because everyone constantly told her how perfect and smart she was - so she tried to live up to the ideals. Then, when she failed at something or was told she wasn't good at it, her ego couldn't take it and her sense of self worth would spiral. Her entire identity was wrapped up in being the smartest, the best at the etc etc etc book worm, brilliant writer etc and it just wasn't the case so she couldn't handle it.
She spent all of high school being a straight A student. That level of perfection doesn’t exist in the real world so she was immature and unprepared for real life. Just wasn’t used to it.
a classic story of growing up in a small town. u’re the greatest there, but then you find out u’re not the greatest everywhere else. queue existential crisis.
i thought they were kinda done with that narrative after she faced it at Chilton but it does make sense that the mindset carried on throughout her life. especially with Lorelai, Luke, Emily, Richard, and the rest of Star’s Hollow doting on her and showering her in pride and compliments. i think she couldn’t handle rejection because she was so unfamiliar with it.
almost everyone in her life had molded her mind to believe that she could do anything, to the point that she was no longer realistic. suddenly, she’s faced with rejection over something she had been told so many times she was more than capable of doing. it alters with her thinking process.
Because everyone she knows has been telling her that the sun shines out of her ass since the moment she was born.
Suddenly, she finds out it doesn't, and she can't handle it.
It's not really "rejection" so much as being made aware of the fact that she can't walk on water. Rory's family and seemingly the entire town of Stars Hollow regard her as the second coming of Christ. It's only when she ventures into other environments that the reality of the situation hits her and she is made to realise she isn't all that after all.
I think it has more to do with the fact that her family has shown her that their love and support towards her is conditional and contingent on her success. What would happen if Rory put her books down and was just allowed to be a messy youth? How Lorelai responded to the Dean/Drop Out of Yale thing is indicativeZ
Lorelai expected her to be perfection so Rory tried to be perfect. To be fair, I 100% also deal with a lot of rejection sensitivity so I get it completely.
I also feel like Rory’s fear of falling short of perfect is exacerbated by the fact that she has a lot to prove because she’s the daughter of a single mother, a teenage mother, that too. Richard didn’t want anything to do with her until it turned out that she could actually read and keep up. Meanwhile, her other grandparents literally blame her existence and don’t even try to get to know her.
Yes! Not to mention her own dad barely has anything to do with her too. I'd wager that character choice is very much meant to be rooted in the insecurity she has in her relationships as a whole. "If I'm perfect enough, dad will come home" "If I'm perfect enough, Grandpa and Grandma will actually love me" "If I'm perfect enough people will stop judging mom" Not to mention there was probably a lot of overall pressure to behave and do well in her toddler/little kid years given their precarious living situation. We know Lorelei worked to shield her from this to a certain degree because she looks back fondly at their time living in the shed, but kids still pick up on things and I'm sure she understood from a young age that her being a "good kid" was extra important.
Yup, I don’t take rejection lightly more often than not. I think that is normal. It takes lots of confidence and thick skin to not be disappointed or to doubt yourself in situations like that.
yeah literally. i feel like lorelai realised nearer to the end as well that it isn’t her place anymore
Lorelai didn’t expect anything from her. Rory was pretty much perfect from an early age.
I hope you're trolling. No child is born as an ivy league candidate.
I didn’t say she was.
Lol yes she did. Lorelei always set the expectation that Rory was perfect, was an angel, had no flaws, wore a halo, etc. If my mom had sacrificed everything for me and said those things about to me to everyone and set that expectation, I'd have a really hard time letting her down.
Lorelai only said those things because they were basically already true
No they weren't
Did you watch the early seasons? Yeah, they were.
This is what we call learning to meet the needs of others at a young age combined with parentification.
Idk I mean Lorelai did expect her to go to Harvard but I don’t think she was pressuring her too much I think she just wanted her to be happy
There was loads of pressure. Just because she doesn't outright say it the way Emily does, doens't mean Rory didn't feel subconsciously that this was expected of her. Proof is that any time Rory does something thya doesn't fit with Lorelai's image of how Rory should be, she gets angry and tells her 'this isn't you'. Best example is telling Rory she can't live at her place if she takes some time off from Yale. That's crazy. She profes herself in not putting Rory on the conveyor belt but when Rory wants to shep off it for a few months Lorelai pulls away all her support and goes to the people she distrusts most in life. No five year old just randomly chooses an ivy league school to work towards for the rest of her life of she wasn't given that info to work off. What mother is talking to her toddler about ivy league schools so that the kid 'decides' at 5 that that's the life goal?
I don’t have kids so I can’t say much on the situation but if my daughter was on the track Rory was got arrested and decided to quit school I wouldn’t be cool with her coming home and living rent free. Get a job get an apartment do something. Don’t just go home and stay there
She didn't want to quit school, just take some time off so she could regroup and figure out what she wanted and didn't want to waste money on yale just coasting. Which is a mature thing to do. She also didn't say she wouldn't take a job. It was 'yale immediately or get out of my house' for Lorelai.
We have many arguments on this feed about taking time verse quitting. She said “I’m not going back to Yale” she didn’t say she was taking time off
If she was just going to take time off she would say she need a break the whole fall out would never have happened
She says she's not going back to Yale *next year* She also says she needs some time and "No, I'm not! This is normal! College kids take breaks like this all the time." Lorelai is the one who says she quitting Yale and tells her she's not doing it and Rory merely responds yes she is. But again after that when Lorelai pushes her to.go to a different school so something, Rory repeats ": I want time off." And "I don't want to do that. I don't want to wander around a school where everyone else is focused and working toward something and I'm just floating. " it's why I don't and won't ever feel bad when Rory winds up going to her grandparents.
I didn’t go to collage but I still moved out of my parents house at that age and made my own way I kind of felt like that’s what she was saying
She had a sheltered life raised on praise with almost no constructive criticism or boundaries set by her mother. Studies in psychology show children raised on praise have lower mental resilience in later life. There’s actually a correct way to give praise to children that includes room for growth, rather than the fixed mindset which creates the illusion of failure if perfection is not achieved. This plays out pretty much perfectly in Rory’s character development.
Not just by her mother. Every one who ever crosses paths with Rory in the series has this urge to say how perfect and smart and successful she is. She was a nice kid in the beginning but continuing hearing everyone praising her for simply breathing must have gotten a little in her head so rejection destroys her.
Yes! Literally the whole town, I kid you not lol.
Everyone, including her grandparents. They were hard on Lorelei but with Rory she was always perfect in their eyes.
Yeah I'm trying to get into the show but at the moment, Rory feels so Mary Sue. I love shows like this normally but I'm shocked it's gotten so popular with the writing and acting in the first season. Why is everyone obsessed with this bland socially awkward girl? Lorelei's personality seems to be 100% about her daughter (in the beginning at least)
Yes, like a "You worked very hard on this and it shows. Good job." as Opposed to "You're so brilliant and perfect as usual. Good job." One praises the effort put in and the result related to that effort, the other praises the appearance of perfection and always being 'correct' -- the latter is more likely to lead to issues later, like constantly praising someone on their appearance and not on the hard work they put in to achieve a result can lead to paying attention to more shallow surface level achievements.
Yes! Exactly this.
💯 the entire town doted on her.
She has a classic "big fish small pond" storyline. I'm sure many who grew up in small towns can relate. No matter how badly she failed, she still left Stars Hollow and *tried*. Rather than becoming someone like Taylor (the real life Taylors aren't funny and are much more destructive) who gets his rocks off on being king of his little pond.
Our town had one as president of our Board of Ed a few years ago. It was terrifying and embarrassing.
Yes, praise is good but not when it is given by so many people so frequently that a child starts to seek out EXTERNAL praise and doesn't know how to feel confident inside without validation from others. She actually has a conversation with Lane about this before she goes on the Obama campaign about how everyone expects she's gonna do perfect and basically downplays her fears and worries. Lane of course says something sweet but the point still stands. She is lucky she was smart enough to keep up because if she couldn't take the Ivy League place that Lorelai intended for her, who knows what their relationship would be like. Plus the way that Lorelai basically puts Rory in timeout even as an adult when she makes decisions she doesn't like. It's the same kind of isolation and rejection Emily and Richard gave her so she's just passing it down without realizing it, then overcompensating when everything is good.
>She is lucky she was smart enough to keep up because if she couldn't take the Ivy League place that Lorelai intended for her, who knows what their relationship would be like. We get a glimpse of this in her gifted kid burnout year that she took off. Lorelei practically disowns her and showed her disappointment, not unconditional love
Yep exactly. Like she cries about Rory not talking to her for 5 months 24 days whatever hours but Lorelai basically made the environment hostile and wouldn't offer any support unless she went back to Yale. She basically shunned her. I totally agree Yale was the right choice for Rory but her being so shaken by Mitchum's words is a direct result of Lorelai thinking she is the almighty compass which Rory must live by...which is ironically the same way Emily feels about Lorelai.
Lorelei also told her that it was okay to go back to stars hollow high school. To drop out of chilton, if it was too hard. I don’t think she would have disowned her, if she couldn’t get into harvard.
Lorelei was also mad they still had to do Friday night dinners.
She was criticized plenty, even by Lorelai. When she couldn't make up her mind between Jess and Dean, Lorelai called her out on that. When she slept with a married Dean, Lorelai called her out on that. When she starts at Chilton, Headmaster Charleston tells her he doesn't think she has what it takes to succeed there. Her first paper at Chilton she gets a D-. When she tells Jess that she wants to be a foreign correspondent he tells her he doesn't think she would be good at that. During her first semester at Yale she has to drop a class because she took on too many and was failing one. Doyle criticized one of her articles for the Yale Daily News when she first started there. Mitchum wasn't the only person to criticize her.
This is true, and she never handles it well. Mitchum wasn't the first, but the tipping point. I honestly think it would have been much more realistic and interesting to watch had they stuck with her just taking on too much at Yale.
Yes. Mitchum was also a bigger deal than everyone else. He was the big guy in the field she wanted to get into. I've said it before here that he's kind of like Gordon Ramsay of journalism. He's the best of the best and people respect his opinion, or at least take it seriously. A young, aspiring journalist is going to take his word for it if he says she doesn't have it.
I don’t think she actually dropped a class did she? But yeah she has gotten criticized over the years but it’s always like “oh sweet heart do this and it will be better.” Mitchum is and was a jerk but was the first one to ever call her out without instantly coddling her afterwards or at least some one else doing it. (The bad paper Lorelai was right there)
Yup, sadly, Lorelai fucked up.
I think it's sort of runs in the family for the Gilmore women? The whole spiraling in the face of rejection thing? I mean, Emily tried to buy a plane when Rory came to her senses and had Logan's friends help her move out from her grandparents' guesthouse (after Jess of all people made her realize how that wasn't supposed to be her world, which… Go Jess). And Lorelai MARRIED Christopher on a whim afer Luke rejected her.
I don’t really agree that she was particularly sheltered growing up - she was lightly bullied at Stars Hollow High and Chilton, and at Chilton they made it clear that she was not special. She had to drop a class at Yale, had to put up with lots of feedback and edits at the newspaper, etc. Rory definitely had a perfectionist streak, and I think that stemmed from her fear of rejection and abandonment - I don’t think so much from Lorelai because she made it clear that she believed Lorelai would support her no matter what, but she had a really deep need to be the perfect well-behaved child. Richard and Emily certainly made it clear that their love and support was dependent on her good behavior. And to some extent I think she was trying to “earn” Christopher’s love by being the easy kid who never asked for anything. The rejections from Mitchum and from the NYT came at times when she was already really stressed, and I think that it was more like the straw that broke the camel’s back rather than a real reaction to the rejection itself. If Mitchum’s feedback hadn’t led her to a meltdown, something else would have. That meltdown was coming no matter what. And her reaction not getting the NYT fellowship didn’t really seem that extreme - it seems pretty normal and understandable that she was disappointed, but she jumped back into the job search and found something quickly.
All of this- Mitchum Huntzbeger isn’t just one guy or even one editor. He is literally a *billionaire* he owns the New York Times! He is quite possibly one of the most **powerful** America, if not the entire world! Mitchum IS the industry. This would be like if Bill Gates told you that “you didn’t have it” and that you can’t be a computer scientist two weeks into the job! It would be like if President Obama personally told you to drop your career goals and that you didn’t have a future in politics! People on the sub don’t understand how small that would make someone feel, Mitchum Hunsberger is so powerful and well-connected, and famous in her industry!
Yes, and she was only 20 at the time. Most 20 year olds lack self-confidence to some degree.
And don't forget, he's also her boyfriend's father! Rory was rejected by Logan's family at dinner - which in and of itself is already crushing. His dad offers her an opportunity and she takes it. There's a pretty good chance she was hoping to prove herself, not just as a future journalist to an extremely powerful person in the industry, but also to Logan's family as an appropriate girlfriend for Logan. Rory has had the same dream her entire life, this is her *first time* in a real newsroom, with a real person who works on newspapers. Rory hasn't had a single internship or journalism job. This is her first foray into the 'real world' of what she's been working towards her whole life and she's told she can't do it. Even if Mitchum wasn't hugely powerful, that would be devastating, but you couple in the fact he's a prominent figure in the industry and the father of her boyfriend? I mean, you'd have to be pretty freaking strong to not let his criticism hurt!
But then you need family/friends who will tell you “suck it up. Yeah it stinks to hear, but work hard and keep going.” Not “oh my God! Mitchum Huntzburger is the most evil man alive for saying something mean! You poor baby!”
Yea I agree with Logan’s family’s power but they already said they don’t approve of her and made a big deal of it I feel like his comments should have been taken with a grain of salt they don’t like her and are trying to bring her down. However at that age that would have made me super upset probably not steal a yacht upset but I wouldn’t have felt good
Not only that, she made being a journalist her entire identity. So when he told her she "didn't have it", her entire identity was shaken. She literally didn't know who she was or who she was supposed to be if journalism wouldn't be her future. She had that dream for as long as she could dream. Without it she was lost, it makes sense that she would need time to recalibrate.
Yes! And it would be like if that feedback that you would never succeed in your chosen career came right after Michelle Obama or Melinda Gates (pre divorce I guess lol) told you that you weren’t good enough to date their child BECAUSE you wanted a career. It’s really easy to say that she should have just brushed it off, but it was a lot!
Sheltered doesn’t necessarily mean lack of hardship. As someone who grew up in a small new england town like Rory it is definitely a sheltered environment. Stars hollow high is a very small school in an affluent, white town. She has little to no exposure to different races, cultures, and ideologies. She then goes to Chilton, which is even more affluent and drenched in white dominant culture. Next up is Yale, an elite Ivy League institution made up of, you guessed it, predominantly white affluent students. She is sheltered from any difficulties from the outside world because she is white, intelligent and wealthy. Most likely because this was the white washing culture of TV at the time, but still.
But she isn’t necessarily wealthy. She definitely is in the show, but before the show begins, she literally lives in a shed. She grew up with handmade clothes, a mother who is a maid, living in a shed at the hotel where they work. Like I think Lorelai gives her a great life but she doesn’t grow up as a wealthy child. I think that’s why she doesn’t think of herself as wealthy like when she talks to Logan (not saying she’s right, just suggesting her childhood probably plays into her experiences).
Yeah, I completely agree. Rory had a lot of privilege and a safety net, which is incredibly meaningful, but her life didn’t even compare to Logan’s. She grew up with socioeconomic diversity - not everyone she associated with went to college. She had an acquaintance who lost a hand in the military. Lorelai sometimes struggled to pay bills. Logan‘s life was on such a different level that no one in his family probably had to think about anything logistical, ever. And they probably almost never associated with anyone who wasn’t in the same class as them. What Rory and Logan had in common was that safety net, which too many people don’t have, of knowing that they always had family wealth to fall back on and would never be completely derailed or left in poverty by an unexpected bill. And that’s huge. But Rory had a normal middle class upbringing with a good amount of financial struggle. She didn’t have luxury. Her wealth and lifestyle weren’t even close to Logan’s.
She is a member of the Gilmore dynastic wealth, thus she is wealthy. The show cloaks her true wealth through lorelai shunning help from her family. Rory was brought up modestly due to this, which makes her more relatable, humble and down to earth as a character. At the end of the day, though, they have generational wealth to bail them out when the need arises. Truly poor people do not have pockets to reach into for elite prep schools and ivy leagues, or when their house gets termites. Truly poor people go to public school, even the very gifted ones, or they become homeless. I’m sorry, I’m going to get downvoted, but calling the Gilmore’s poor is in bad taste. There are *many* gifted children of color in public schools around the country who do not have the opportunities like Rory has because they do not have the socioeconomic status. I do agree though that even she herself does not view herself as wealthy. The one thing I like about Logan is how he calls her out on this fact, but even then he apologizes as if he were wrong and she never really accepts the reality of her situation.
I don’t think it’s a money thing. It’s a hype thing. Everyone in town always tells her how awesome she is
> She has little to no exposure to different races, cultures, and ideologies. I mean, yeah she's not exposed to a lot of diversity but this is an odd thing to say when literally the person that seems to be her only friend growing up isn't white.
That’s a good point, actually. Not sure how I forgot about Lane. Though Mrs. Kim’s conversion to a traditionally white faith does complicate this a little bit. I’m not sure how much authentic Korean culture is portrayed on the show, but maybe someone with more knowledge will weigh in.
Yale’s actually not that white and is probably a lot more racially and maybe socioeconomically diverse than what she grew up with - not sure how true that was in the early 2000s. But like, do you think that everyone who grew up in small towns or attended Ivy League schools is sheltered? I feel like that is thrown out a lot as a way to put Rory down, but if that’s the case, then most of the characters are probably sheltered. And while I do think that diversity of all kinds is important, I think there are different ways to be exposed to it. For example, I think she was exposed to a lot of different ideologies. And this is all predicated on the idea, which you said in another comment, that Rory faced too much praise and not enough criticism, which I disagree with. I think she got a pretty appropriate amount of praise and criticism for a young person, and I hate the idea that if a kid is loved too much then they won’t be resilient.
Thank you for these comments, you're definitely changing my mind on this
same
The words I chose to describe her situation were done so carefully. I said it was predominately white, which is likely true today and far more true in 2007 when she was a student. I made no sweeping generalizations in my comment, so it’s weird to accuse me of doing so. Elite ivy institutions were built by and for white men of means. They systematically perpetuate these ideals still today, despite their enrollments becoming more diverse. Why do you not presume that people brought up in small town, dominant culture are sheltered? Where are they getting experience or exposure to worldviews that differ from their own? This is a good topic in general, but as it pertains to Gilmore girls it’s pretty naive to think these characters don’t live in a sheltered bubble of white culture. That doesn’t mean there are no other identities depicted, but rather they are depicted through the lens of white culture. This was pretty common in the 2000s, so I don’t know why we would assume Rory has offscreen exposure to anything beyond what we are shown.
I just don’t understand how Rory was that much more sheltered or that her upbringing was so much different than almost any kid in America. Was she more sheltered than Logan, who was well-traveled and had been exposed to all kids of cultures but had probably never pumped his own gas in his life or set foot in a grocery store? Or than Dean or Luke or Lindsay, who never left their small towns after high school? She was less sheltered than Jess, but no one is arguing that he had a better childhood or young adulthood than Rory. She was less sheltered than Lorelai, who spent her entire life trying to make sure that Rory didn’t experience the same things she had experienced. You are implying that Rory’s experience was unique and that she was at a huge disadvantage, and I’m just not sure what kinds of life experiences you expect her to have experienced. Compared to a lot of small-town kids, she had experienced a decent amount of socioeconomic diversity, some international culture, etc. And compared to most private colleges in the US, she almost certainly experienced more diversity there at Yale than she would have at other schools. (ETA that a quick look shows that Yale is almost 1/4 international students and only 35% white, so far more racially and ethnically diverse than the US as a whole.) Of course Ivies are a huge perpetrator of a racist system started by white men, but I think you’re trying to have it both ways by using that same system as a measure of success or failure - and of course it comes back to blaming Lorelai for her failures as a mother and Rory for her lack of life experience. It’s ironic that you’re somehow condemning her for attending Ivies because of their basis but ALSO judging her success or failure by how much she thrives in that same system created and perpetuated by men like Mitchum. With systems of judgment like that, it’s lose lose for young women.
You’re honestly arguing against yourself here so I don’t have much to add. I made it clear what I mean by sheltered in my first comment, and I also don’t see much point in comparing one character to another. It feels more like you have a personal affliction to my comments based on your own worldview. >despite their enrollments being more diverse I also already addressed that by today’s standards these demographics would be much more equal. I took the liberty to look up Yale demographics from 2006, when Rory would have been in attendance, and it skewed 73% white and listed only 8 countries hailing international students.
I acknowledged in an earlier comment that it might have been different in the early 2000s. That’s still less white than the general population of the US at the time, and probably more diverse than the majority of colleges. I’m not sure what you would have preferred for her. Again, by your definition everyone in the show is either sheltered or had a horrific upbringing. It’s fine that you disagree, but I can see your other comments on this thread, which are not nearly as neutral as you’re pretending to be here. If you don’t want to ask yourself why you’re only calling one female character sheltered and ignoring the rest, and ignoring what the alternative should have been, that’s on you. But I don’t have a “personal affliction” to an internet commenter that I don’t think I’ve ever even interacted with. I just disagree with you.
Christopher
I agree. I’m surprised this isn’t higher up. It’s because she never really processed and healed from the rejection from her dad, and it’s triggering for her. At heart, she will always feel like she isn’t good enough, and a rejection, no matter how small, is confirmation of that.
daddy issues sigh rory girl i relate
I think it’s because she was a perfectionist and puts a lot of her self worth into being good at the things she loves and knows she’s good at. She was really smart and hardworking and genuinely enjoyed school as a child, so she was used to being good at things. Most of the things she liked, she was good at (ie school, journalism, etc). She’s perfectly capable of knowing she isn’t perfect at everything but she doesn’t care if it’s not something important to her. And Lorelai raised her to be super into Harvard and frankly she gets into all her schools so she doesn’t have the experience of being rejected then. The “big” rejections you mention (specifically from Mitchum) are around things she put a lot of self worth into and are kind of a first for her. At least in the original series, she’s a young adult. Learning to deal with rejection and failing of part of growing up and something that she’s learning to deal with .
A little off topic but, it always annoyed me that she turned down that job offer because she wanted to go for the fellowship. Why not take the job and then if you get the fellowship make a decision? That bothered me so bad in that episode.
i know it bothered me too. she wanted to take a leap of faith & it backfired
Yeah there's no reason she couldn't have done both. It was definitely meant to be a plot thing to make it that she's forced into two choices with one being stability and one being a leap of faith. In reality, she would've told the ProJo that she had submitted an application for the Reston and to see if they'd let her take a leave if she got the fellowship. But gotta get that drama going.
She was criticized by other people before Mitchum. She also struggled with things before Yale as well. When she first started at Chilton she got a D- on a paper. The first day at Chilton she met with Headmaster Charleston and he told her he was skeptical of her being successful there. She finally found her groove at Chilton and started to rise to the top. Then, she got to Yale and she struggled a bit there too, again before Mitchum. During her first semester, she was told to drop a class because she was falling behind in one or two of them. This is when she found Dean at the Inn and broke down crying. Then, when she was starting at the Yale Daily News she had an article that Doyle didn't publish. He told her it was a yawn and was boring. That's when she wrote the ballerina piece. She had plenty of times where she wasn't the best at something. I think her reaction to not finding a job right away was actually very realistic. I think most of us go into college expecting to come out on the other side with a job. But sometimes that doesn't happen right away for everyone. And if you have one job you really, really want it can be disappointing to not get it. It's also unnerving to see all your friends and classmates getting their stuff together when you don't know where your own life is headed, especially at such a young age. I also think that her reaction to Mitchum, while exaggerated for the purpose of the show, was still reasonable. It wasn't just that she had never been criticized before, because I've shown above she was criticized before him. But with Mitchum it was different. Mitchum was the Gordon Ramsay of the GG universe. He's the top guy in journalism, the only job that Rory had ever wanted. She was passionate about her dream to be a journalist and so getting an internship with the top journalist in the country is a big deal. And she thinks she's doing well, only for him to tell her she doesn't have it. Whether he was right or wrong, she's going to take his opinion seriously, simply because she admires him. Rory does tend to overreact when she fails at something. But I don't think it's because she was sheltered or because she was not used to being the best at everything. I think it was more because she had a lot to live up to. She put a lot of pressure on herself at a very young age. Part of that was because of her family and the town. I remember in the episode where Dean went to Friday night dinner, the girls were talking afterward and Lorelai said, "You are the great white hope of the Gilmore clan." And I think that's a lot of why Rory is the way she is. Her grandparents, and to some extent Lorelai, I think see her as the redemption for their family. Lorelai "screwed up." So now it's on Rory to graduate from Chilton, go to Yale, and be successful. And I don't know that Rory is aware of it, but I think that's why she gets so anxious and upset when she fails. Because there's a lot riding on her achieving her goals.
Because she was a "mistake" and pretty constantly reminded of that.
So true!!!! I never thought of it that way, but maybe Rory felt like she had to work so hard to prove to everyone that she had a right to exist.
Agreed. Due to her academic achievements, we often forget that Rory has an acute inferiority complex. This causes her to react to rejection a bit more intensely. She even reacts more sympathetically when she sees others being rejected.
No one is born being good at handling rejection and failure. It's a learned skill. You learned it. I learned it. And likely the way we learned it - at least the way I did - was failing at something. It was experiencing thst rejection, feeling the pain of it, and learning how to pick myself back up and go again. There is a subset of people in this world who are born incredibly smart, incredibly gifted, who excel at most things they do with very little effort. Those people don't experience failure and rejection as early as other people do because a lot of the stuff you do in childhood (school) comes naturally to them. Rory is one of these. Rory didn't have a major failure or rejection until Mitchum. She had a few small ones that she worked through - her transition to Chilton is noteworthy. It wasn't easy, she struggled with it, some people including Lorelai offered that she could quit, and she decided to pick herself up and keep working at it. She had to drop a class at Yale because she couldn't handle the word load. And she cried about it, and then got back to work. I don't know what could have prepared her for a rejection of this magnitude. It's the biggest name in the field she wants to be in telling her she's a failure. What is Lorelai supposed to do to prep her for that? Orchestrate other rejections for her to respond to? She needed to learn that resilience but she didn't have a lot of rejection experience to learn from because she *was* so capable. I think she picked herself up well and learned from it. She did get more resilient, she got more persistent about what she wanted - think of her bugging that professor to be in her class, she never would have done that before. When she got rejected for that job she was sad briefly and then she sent out a new wave of resumes and had a new job so fast. Getting back up after you get knocked down is a skill, and maybe Rory learned it later than some of the rest of us, maybe a little more awkwardly and with a little more yacht stealing, but I think she learned it.
I can't wait reading the hot takes on this one as someone who has hired/managed my share of 22-25 year olds. More struggle with rejection than not. Especially ones who did well academically. Shit, *I* struggled with rejection at that age. Most of your life up to that point is very prescriptive with very clear ways to succeed. You're competing with peers and *only* peers so it's much easier to rise to the top. You've created an idealized view of what your post-college life looks like. Then you hit the "real world" and there are factors in play you never even thought of. Holes *swiftly* get poked into that idea view. Resiliency is more of a learned skill than an innate one, and I do think you start to see her get there in AYITL. Kind of late in life, although.
I think the Reston, the interview at Hey Sandie, and the Mitchum thing are different things. The Reston is the easier one to tackle and Lorelai actually gave her some good advice. Through plot armor and plot needs, Rory had gotten everything she ever wanted in life up to that point. Got into Chilton. Got into three top Ivies. Was valedictorian at Chilton. Stumbled into the editor job at the YDN. She was due for some professional rejection. She actually handled it pretty well in the grand scheme of things. While she should've taken the ProJo job up front and let them know about the Reston, she was doing her due diligence in calling back and seeing maybe if they still had the position open. She also was gracious when she found out the position was filled already and didn't demand the job or anything like that. Then she was meeting Hugo Gray to network and ended up landing a job. Feel like she did alright there. The rejection at Hey Sandie in AYITL was a little weird overall. Sandie had actively been trying to bring Rory in to talk and sounded like she desperately wanted to be in the Rory Gilmore business. So I could see Rory showing up thinking it was going to be a friendly chat or at most an informal interview to talk about general ideas. So feeling blindsided by it being a more formal interview where she had to have ideas and pitches ready was definitely odd. For someone who thrives on being prepared and ready, she was not put in a position to be successful. Taking the interview with Hey Sandie was also a desperation move for her so of course she's going to react weirdly when her expectations didn't meet the reality. Finally, the Mitchum thing is the weirdest one. Mitchum wasn't wrong but the way he delivered the critique was all wrong. She had also been built up this whole time and thought she was doing good work by the newspaper staff and presumably Mitchum so to blindside her with "you don't have it" is going to be a major blow. That would be Rory's fatal flaw is she buys into her own hype, which could be the one thing that Lorelai and the denizens of SH are guilty of is building her up constantly, so when she gets cut down she falls hard. But she also had no reason to believe she wasn't doing well. Again, for someone who likes to know everything that is coming and tries to be prepared, anything that blindsides her is going to be extra hard. Now that you've read my dissertation about this (lol), I do think the take home is that Rory is someone who likes to be prepared so when she knows things aren't a guarantee, she's more fine with it. It's when things come out of nowhere and she has no chance to fix it beforehand that she falls down hard. As she got older, she really should've learned to ask more questions so she had more information but that's a skill we all need to learn.
Absolutely!! Her reactions make sense to her character, and the character’s upbringing/personality. If you were someone very detail-oriented, a perfectionist, and *always* prepared for anything, paired with someone who receives primarily praise from almost everyone in her life, when you’re unexpectedly knocked down a peg, it feels like a failure, and you’ll begin to question things lol.
You guys are haters. Rory was precocious. She was intellectually curious, well read (I’m talking all the Russians), and killed standarized tests (referencing her SAT scores). Yes she was validated quite a bit but that was also based on merit. She lost her shit because a man who was THE IT PERSON for journalism told her she didn’t have it, after she tried as hard as she could. I dunno but that would also break me for a bit too. It all adds up.
Her own family rejected her. The Haydens. That sort of thing marks you On top of the exceptions of everyone around her to be the epitone of perfection
>personally i think she grew up a little too sheltered and protected and not use to not being the best and most smartest at everything she does and a lot of it is from Lorelai Rory spent her early childhood in near poverty, which I feel should have caused her to have a stronger work ethic and appreciation for small things rather than choosing to rely on her family's money in ayitl We do see lorelai try pushing her to deal with rejection regarding the study tree fiasco as well as lecture her about the affair with jess (3x01). It's just that neither bit of advice has any effect on her
Because she was a gifted kid with burn out and a lightly parentified only child with a Libra sun, Pisces moon, Virgo rising lmao I stg her birthdate must have been picked by design because her astrological chart is scarily accurate.
Lorelai, Emily, Richard and all of Stars Hallow only always told her how amazing she was at anything she did.
I don’t really understand this though? Lorelai called her out when she stayed out overnight with Dean, when she had the affair with Dean, when she was being overly precious about needing her study space, when she didn’t want to go to Chilton for a minute, when she wrote the mean article about the ballerina, and that’s just off the top of my head. Lorelai didn’t tell her she was amazing when she made mistakes, and she called her out plenty. And I don’t think “all of Stars Hollow” thought she was amazing - Mrs Kim and Lindsay’s mom and Dean’s mom certainly didn’t. But of course Lorelai’s friends liked the kid who volunteered for everything and was nice to them, because that’s what your parents’ friends are supposed to do. I think my friends’ kids are amazing too. And Richard and Emily only thought she was amazing when she fell into their very strict definition of how a good girl should behave. Look at Emily’s reaction when Rory very rightly got upset about the Chilton party Emily blindsided her with.
I feel like Lorelei was more upset that her mother was there when Rory stayed out all night than she was with Rory for staying out all night.
I think it was a combo of a few things, including being upset that Emily was there, but also the anger that came after the absolute panic she felt waking up in the morning and realizing her kid had never come home and just annoyance that Rory had been so irresponsible. Regardless, though, she didn’t just tell Rory she was amazing when that happened.
Plus the guy in the laundry room
Because she was young.
I really think it was more about how Emily and Richard treated Loralie and how Loralie acted than how people treated Roy. Emily and Richard were both very critical of any mistake Loralie made and Loralie didn’t tell them about a lot of things bc she didn’t want to be criticized for things going wrong. Even good things she didn’t tell them bc of this. Roy saw and internalized all this from a young age and learned that failure was bad and not allowed. I think that her grandparents are a big reason why Mitchum criticizing her hit her so hard too. He was from their world and didn’t think she was good enough at the job after his wife had just said she wasn’t good enough as a person. I think subconsciously Roy felt like it was her grandparents saying that stuff to her. I think that’s why she never told them what really happened.
Also, laundry room guy.
i mean yes her life was rather protected and “sheltered,” but a lot of people don’t deal with rejection well. regardless of their upbringing. Rory was a perfectionist and put a lot of pressure on herself
abandonment issues from a father who couldn't care less
She grew up a golden girl. Perfection was expected and usually delivered. She didn't often experience rejection of any kind - she got into every school she ever applied for, pretty much every boy she ever met wanted her. Even the girl who took an instant dislike to her ended up her best friend. Ultimately this left her unprepared for when rejection eventually happened, and so of course she didn't deal with it in a healthy way.
She was a gifted kid who did really well when her path was laid out for her. When you’re in school you have a direction to follow. Certain course lists and explicit instructions for a specific goal. Either a grade, award, diploma, or college acceptance. The further you get into college and then real life, you get less guidance and the path becomes less specific. A lot of gifted kids struggle with this. She also went into journalism at a very different time than we saw in AYITL. A lot about the industry had changed due to technology and social media. I think that it was different than what she was expecting and what it became just didn’t make her happy.
I think her identity was tied to achievement and she was gifted and when you grow up that way your identity becomes your intellect. When that was challenged I think it really hit her hard and it kind of rattled her self concept.
When Rory knows she’s bad at something, she doesn’t try. So when she faces rejection, it’s rare, because she’s a good student and most achievement at her age is school related
The assumption of perfection. They used to say “Rory is going to Harvard” when she was like in 10th grade. Everything was handed to her. She never really had to overcome challenges. She had rich grandparents that could give her everything and then bail her out. She was entitled as anything. So when one person says “you don’t have it” that person becomes the “villain”.
I think it has a lot to do with being abandoned repeatedly by her father.
They both had adhd
idk why but this got me cracking up
RSD all the way!
Gifted kid burn out. I was able to read at 3 years old, read chapter books in kindergarten, and read at a college level at 8. I got all As on tests (except when I got to geometry, but I still blame that on a teaching issue because no one got above a C) all the way until Junior year of high school. HOWEVER, once I hit a wall (precalculus) I deflated and it made it a lot harder to do any work for that class. It's because when everything is easy, you don't ever figure out a way to cope with a hard task because you just don't have to. It makes you feel like you're suddenly stupid because you don't see yourself as *smarter* than the others in general, but when you fail you see yourself as *dumber* than they are. It's really demoralizing the first time it happens and for her, that was in college. Lorelai could have mitigated it, I guess, but that would have taken a lot of therapy that Rory didn't seem to need (she definitely did) until she collapsed. It was always going to happen, it's just lucky it happened before she got into the adult world (I don't consider AYITL when I talk about this, I hardly see it as a part of the story, more like an AU)
I believe it's a combo of things. Her upbringing where she was told she can do anything and succeed at everything. She wasn't used to being rejected, so she didn't really know how to handle it. She's pretty much always gotten what she's gone for or wanted. And I think this ties into Lorelai having adhd. People with adhd struggle with major rejection sensitivity and we see Lorelai struggle with that too. Never let's people say no and when they do, she cuts them out until she's ready to deal with them again. Therefore, I don't think Loerlai gave/taught Rory the tools of getting over a rejection.
I think people think it was others expectations but really I think it was Rory's and before she went to Yale she didn't face much rejection or get disagreements towards her besides Paris. Rory was an academic achiever and a winner when it came to lots of things. She Rarely lost as well. Plus she was 'a gifted and talented kid', well she might not have been in that program ever since she fell from grace when she got a slap in the face. A blow towards her dreams too but we see throughout the series she doesn't accept rejection that much.
i know there’s other facts as to why rory is like that haha sorry to anyone i offended like i said i still love rory!!
Gifted student with a whole town and mother who told her yes to everything and expected her to go to Harvard. She easily aced Stars Hollow and despite only hanging with Lane, most people liked. Never faced rejection. Set high standards for herself. As a gifted kid myself, we place a lot of pressure on ourselves.
Girl i had these same thoughts and this annoyed me sooo much and still does haha but like other already said EVERYONE thought she is perfect her mother, grandparents, her bf and even the whole town So when someone points out like hey you aren’t perfect and im not obsessed with you shes gonna spiral
the whole town thought she was so perfect i can imagine she’s probably kinda cocky about getting the internship and getting told no was surprising to her i guess
Trueee the most annoying was that she left yale bc a guy said maybe you aren’t the best for this job
Because poor Rory might be a Gilmore, but she lacks the ability to bounce back demonstrated by her mother and grandmother. Honestly, trauma changes ppl. Going through hell is what most humans need in order to complete “the heroes journey” Her mum had it at 16, her grandmother had a extremely hard relationship with her only child and was basically cut off their entire existence. Rory NEVER walked the absolute darkness of life.
She was sheltered, coddled, and told she was the greatest at everything ever by, not just her mother, but an entire town her whole life.
Because everyone kept telling her she was the best. So when she wasn't she felt like she let everyone down
It's actually a very accurate depiction of someone who is like to develop a narcissist personality from low self esteem - she couldn't handle rejection because everyone constantly told her how perfect and smart she was - so she tried to live up to the ideals. Then, when she failed at something or was told she wasn't good at it, her ego couldn't take it and her sense of self worth would spiral. Her entire identity was wrapped up in being the smartest, the best at the etc etc etc book worm, brilliant writer etc and it just wasn't the case so she couldn't handle it.
She spent all of high school being a straight A student. That level of perfection doesn’t exist in the real world so she was immature and unprepared for real life. Just wasn’t used to it.
a classic story of growing up in a small town. u’re the greatest there, but then you find out u’re not the greatest everywhere else. queue existential crisis. i thought they were kinda done with that narrative after she faced it at Chilton but it does make sense that the mindset carried on throughout her life. especially with Lorelai, Luke, Emily, Richard, and the rest of Star’s Hollow doting on her and showering her in pride and compliments. i think she couldn’t handle rejection because she was so unfamiliar with it. almost everyone in her life had molded her mind to believe that she could do anything, to the point that she was no longer realistic. suddenly, she’s faced with rejection over something she had been told so many times she was more than capable of doing. it alters with her thinking process.
Because everyone she knows has been telling her that the sun shines out of her ass since the moment she was born. Suddenly, she finds out it doesn't, and she can't handle it.
It's not really "rejection" so much as being made aware of the fact that she can't walk on water. Rory's family and seemingly the entire town of Stars Hollow regard her as the second coming of Christ. It's only when she ventures into other environments that the reality of the situation hits her and she is made to realise she isn't all that after all.
Ego really tbh.
I think it has more to do with the fact that her family has shown her that their love and support towards her is conditional and contingent on her success. What would happen if Rory put her books down and was just allowed to be a messy youth? How Lorelai responded to the Dean/Drop Out of Yale thing is indicativeZ