Stereotypes Of Gilmore Girls

Thirty-something, Lorelai Gilmore, mother of sixteen year old, Rory Gilmore, is depicted as a strong, independent woman in the WB 2000 television show Gilmore Girls. The seven season series follows these two women through their lives, love, college, career, and social relationships as they navigate the world together and independently. The show represents many (second wave) feminist ideals, the empowered have-it-all attitude in powerful female leads, while ignoring class and racial privileges. The men of Gilmore Girls come in several forms, the sex appeal, the father figure, the friend-zoned “nice guy,” and the “perfect boyfriend” trope. However, the three most loved and discussed male characters, Dean, Luke, and Jess, are the most problematic

Luke embodies the patriarchal “alpha male” stereotype seen in all forms of media. Gillam and Wooden, authors of Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Disney/Pixar define “alpha male” as the standard for all things stereotypically patriarchal, “unquestioned authority, physical power and social dominance, competitiveness for positions of status and leadership, lack of visible or shared emotion, social isolation” (3). This is an apt description of Mr. Luke Danes. Through his interactions with Jess, his nephew, we see his view of himself. He believes he is to be the unquestioned authority and to be respect at all times because Jess is under his roof. Luke’s patriarchal ideals are also evident in his relationship with Rory, he is overbearing and overprotective of Rory when she starts

Jess embodies all of the innate negatives of hegemonic masculinity, “characteristics that depict men as unemotional, independent, non nurturing, aggressive, and dispassionate. Which are seen as the causes of criminal behavior” (Connell 840). The audience learns that Jess has had a rough childhood due to a flighty and ditzy mother who jumps from boyfriend to boyfriend and an absent father. This glimpse into Jess’s trauma filled childhood sets the stage for the “not his fault” narrative when he becomes the love interest for Rory. Susan Jeffords, in The Curse of Masculinity, discusses this trope although she is specifically talking about Disney’s Beauty and the Beast it is easy to make parallels. Jess is aggressive, confrontational, disrespectful, and rude to everyone except for Rory while he is actively pursuing a relationship with her. “The anonymous "no one”’s who failed to teach him any differently seem finally to be more at fault for his behavior himself” (Jeffords 168). Jess is the stereotypical “bad boy,” physically a James-Dean-like punk in a leather jacket that all the girls want to sleep with. He is coded as the bad boy that apparently every young woman falls for at least once. Lorelai even says “it’s about time for a Jess” while trying to accept the budding relationship between Rory and Jess. He steals, starts fights, and is extremely rude to