In The New 'Gilmore Girls,' Rory Gilmore Turns Out To Be A Bad Journalist

The beloved show Gilmore Girls returned to the screen last week. In a Netflix revival, the characters are facing new challenges, but one character has been seen as a disappointment: Rory Gilmore. Megan Garber of The Atlantic describes why.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

What happens when the person you looked up to falls from grace? Some fans of the show "Gilmore Girls" had that experience over the weekend. The show ran for seven seasons and wrapped up in 2007, and last week, Netflix brought back the show for a four-part mini-series.

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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Fans were looking forward to catching up with a lot of the characters, especially Rory Gilmore. She's the ambitious, aspiring young journalist who had dreams of winning a Pulitzer.

CORNISH: So in the original series, I really loved her as a character, especially as a young teenage girl, you know - that she could be so sort of curious about the world and so passionate about academics. And I mean it's just - it's not something that you see depicted very often in any kind of pop culture.

SHAPIRO: That's actual journalist Megan Garber. She's a culture writer at The Atlantic who grew up watching "Gilmore Girls." She says she was disappointed with the new Netflix season and especially Rory's character.

CORNISH: That's because - spoiler alert - even though Rory does become a journalist, she's not a very good one.

MEGAN GARBER: I was talking with a lot of my journalist friends yesterday about that. And we all just were so infuriated. So I think the main one - the most obvious one is that she sleeps with a source. That's, A, just unethical on its face. But, B, Rory Gilmore herself doing that sort of fits into this pretty pernicious trope that we see a lot in Hollywood of women journalists sleeping with sources.

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ALEXIS BLEDEL: (As Rory Gilmore) I was interviewing people, and then, you know, the line moved up. And I kind of bonded with this one group. And I tagged along with them to P.J. Clarke's. We had burgers and drinks and more drinks. And then there was this guy.

GARBER: And now it has happened with Rory Gilmore, which is a disappointment. So that's the main thing. She also is interviewing a source who is very nicely talking with her and, you know, being very cooperative and explaining himself to her. And she falls asleep as he is talking. So that's both bad journalism and just extremely rude.

SHAPIRO: Even though Garber has been let down by this character, a character she used to identify with, she says maybe there's a lesson in that disappointment.

GARBER: This happens all the time in real life, you know, where you - there's someone you look up to, admire them maybe your whole life even. You love their work. And then you learn more about them. And you learn that they are flawed people just like everyone else.

So I think that it's a very common feeling to have. I don't know that "Gilmore Girls" intended itself (laughter) as sort of an object lesson in that. But I think that is probably what ended up happening. And I do think that this is the - a show just from the beginning about adulthood really and about realizing that your heroes are themselves human.

CORNISH: That was Atlantic culture writer Megan Garber. We reached her on Skype. "Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life" is out now.

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YO LA TENGO: (Singing) Come along with me to my little corner of the world. Dream a little dream in my little corner of the world. You'll soon forget that there's any other place. Tonight, my love...

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