Yeah, they (especially she) can be stuffy, possessive and overbearing, but sometimes Lorelei & now Rory can be equally smug & condescending & self-righteous in their revolt against Emily & Richard. They don’t want Rory banging whats-his-face in their pool house, they don’t have to put up with it. Still, they need to have a direct discussion with her- not subtle harassment & their sending in their minister (poor guy!) to talk with Rory about her most valuable gift.
Now, Rory is getting her free ride to Yale courtesy of Dad, so the obligation to Richard & Emily is over. Maybe, R & E can now really get on with their lives w/o having to bail out the brats.
I have a lot of sympathy for Richard & Emily, even though I’m generally on Lorelei’s side in their disputes. I don’t think either of the elder Gilmore’s is deliberately hateful (though Emily sometimes comes close). Rather, it’s that neither of them really understands Lorelei, but nevertheless want her to be happy, prosperous, and safe; and thus their attempts to help her always backfire.
Richard is very emotionally reserved and doesn’t really know how to express his feelings well, even though he may feel them passionately. Consider the expression on his face when Rory came crying to him in the S5 finale. Nobody who watches the show can have any doubt that he adores her more than he loves anyone else–probably including Emily and Lorelei–but he felt extremely uncomfortable and didn’t know how to deal with it. Lorelei the First drilled into him that public displays of emotion, whether positive or negative, were not allowed, and he has no internal facilities for dealing with it.
Emily’s a little more complex. It’s a pity we haven’t seen her parents (as far as I know), because I think there’s something very intricate going on in her head. Emily KNOWS that she has driven Lorelei away with certain very specific behaviors, and she even warned Lorelei on at least one occasion that the same thing might happen between the two youngest Gilmores; even so, she can’t seen to stop herself from doing things that alienate her girls. She can’t stop herself from meddling, and I don’t think it’s as simple as always thinking she’s right. Someone given to psychobabble might say she’s trapped in a toxic childhood.
Even so, the look of despair and loneliness on Emily’s face when she realizes the end result of one of her schemes breaks my heart.
Now, I know that my fondness for Richard is in part because I’ve always liked Edward Herrimann anyway. And while Emily would indeed drive me nuts- Lorelei (II) does seem to deliberately bait her. Also, I just saw the episode where Emily reassures Rory that, while she’s had many disappointments and embarrassments with Lorelei, Rory’s existence has never been one of them & I went awwwwwww!
I have the same sympathy for them that I had for my great aunt who once told me when I was 7 that she “didn’t like football anymore because those blacks always just seem to end up in a pile.”
They just don’t know any better.
I have rather enjoyed the show’s recent exploration of white privliege. That Rory was lulled into an acceptance of her position and then has slowly come to realize how shitty those people can be.
Wow, Fabulous Creature, you give quite a comprehensive synopsis!
I feel pity for Richard and Emily despite loathing a lot of their actions. The same way I can be driven absolutely batshit insane by my mother’s passive aggressiveness and then, a few minutes later, be crippled with pity and guilt because she is an aging woman who lives by herself and who can’t for the life of her see that that is partially because of how she approaches her personal interactions.
Wait, what are we talking about? Oh, yes, Richard and Emily (fictional characters), not my mom. Anyhow, the similarity, as Fabulous Creature pointed out, is that they really don’t get how they are contributing to the problem. They do want Lorelei to be happy and safe and all that, and it just eludes them that she might define that differently than they do.
Sure, it would be wonderful if they sought out or developed some capacity to understand how their actions affect their relationships, but since I can see how freakin’ unlikely that is with my mom, I think I’d be annoyed if it “just happened” with Richard and Emily. A lot of the time in life, people just aren’t willing to change, especially when they are of a class or a generation not particulerly inclined to forthright communication and self-awareness.
**
And**—I do think that Rory was pretty crappy to them towards the end of her stay there. I hope that comes back to her in some fashion or another, because she was disrespectful and just plain mean at times.
I didn’t start watching GG until at least the second season, and it seemed to me that R&E were quite reasonable and that Lorelai was pathologically childishly rebellious against them for no good reason.
Then the writers decided there wasn’t enough reason to hate R&E, and made them irrationally irritating again.
Now I’ve caught up on the first season, so I can see the groundwork that was laid in the first place to demonize R&E. Yet despite their unfounded belief in “superior breeding,” I’d still rather spend a weekend with them than with Lorelai.
I often find E&R simultaneously sympathetic and loathsome. Their intentions are good, but their actions are almost always rooted in their assumption of the inherent superiority of their way of life. They want the girls to be happy, but they are incapable of imagining a kind of happiness that doesn’t involve taking their “natural” place amongst the ruling class.
That said, Lorelai can’t see their actions as anything *other * than an attempt to control her. She imagines that they do the things they do because they are ashamed of her, and they want her to have the life they have, not because they want her to be happy, but because they want her to reflect better on them.
Rory is a repugnant little ingrate. Don’t get me started. If you’ve watched the entire run of the show, think back on how many times Rory has ever said “Thank you.” It didn’t happen often. At least not nearly as often as it should have, given that she’s never been denied anything she wanted, and she certainly wants a lot.
I think that one of the great things about Gilmore Girls is that the main characters are inherently flawed, Richard and Emily included. I have a great deal of sympathy for them, but little pity.
If you find the lead character of the show unlikeable, why do watch it? Or am I reading too much into your statement that you wouldn’t want to spend a weekend with Lorelai?
I always felt that Lorelai’s rebellion against her parents was founded, more than anything, on the fact that they judged her for getting pregnant in high school and never accepted her decision to raise Rory on her own. I feel sorry for Emily when she feels like she doesn’t know her own daughter, but when she acts like there was nothing she could have done to prevent it she’s being ridiculous. She drove Lorelai away by constantly judging her.
Oh, just you wait. Emily’s mother (“Gran”) is to Emily what she is to Lorelai. She came to visit, but only for one episode, I think. And I don’t know which season. I didn’t get the sense (at the time) that the writers were trying to show us more about Emily’s history and character, but after reading this thread, perhaps they were.
I would say the same for Richard’s mother. She was Emily’s kryptonite. I was actually disappointed that they decided to kill her off. I loved watching the interaction between the two of them. It certainly explained some of the insecurities that Emily has.
I also have a lot of sympathy for Emily and Richard. One of the things this show has done really well is the absence of villains. During all the Lorelai/Emily fights you can see where they’re both coming from and understand that they both have some stuff right and some stuff wrong. The show has managed to continue in that fashion now that Rory is part of the triangle. And of course, you can see how much their fractured relationship with Lorelai has cost Richard and especially Emily.
You can also see how similar Emily and Lorelai are in so many ways – most obviously, how every word out of Emily’s mouth is a joke, just like Lorelai. But also, such at the end of S5, how willing Lorelai is to try to manipulate Rory into doing what Lorelai thinks is the right thing. (Of course, we see in S6 that Lorelai has learned her lesson on that front, while Emily never has.)