‘Gilmore Girls’: The Number One Reason Fans Hate Rory Gilmore
How many rewatches did it take you to see cracks in Rory Gilmore? Was it one spin through the acclaimed series, Gilmore Girls, or did A Year in the Life sour you on Rory’s character? It doesn’t matter if you’ve watched Gilmore Girls just once, or if you caught up with the Gilmore family multiple times over the years, at some point, you’ve probably questioned Rory’s decision-making abilities. Rory is actually one of the most polarizing characters on the show, and there is one big reason a lot of fans don’t particularly care for her.
Rory is painfully immature
Rory is continuously touted as being the epitome of mature from a young age, but when you really look at her actions, she’s actually incredibly immature. Throughout the seven seasons of Gilmore Girls, she regularly makes questionable decisions, and there doesn’t seem to be a ton of development on that front. Sure, at the beginning of the series, Rory is pretty driven for a 16-year-old, but her character never builds on that; instead, she remains static.
Her immaturity is apparent when she sleeps with her married ex-boyfriend, Dean, and simply assumes they are back together because they had sex. She never stops to think about the fact that he’s married to someone else. After she well and truly screws up his life, she then jets off to Europe to avoid the entire problem, without ever mentioning it to him. Even though Dean is so not a nice guy, Rory’s behavior is troubling.
Rory’s immature makes her utterly blind to her own privilege
Rory also lives in this bubble where she doesn’t actually realize how privileged she is, and it never seems to click for her either. You can accept that from a 16-year-old student just beginning prep school, but by the time Rory is in her senior year at Yale, you’d think she’d realize just how much her privilege has influenced her life. Still, she doesn’t seem to get it. Even Logan Huntzberger, who was raised surrounded by opulence, appears to accept the way his personal privilege has influenced his life, even if he throws tantrums about it on occasion.
Vice points out that Rory and her family can’t manage to wrap their heads around the idea that she wouldn’t get a fellowship she applied for, regardless of its selectivity. Rory even turns down a job and then tries to get it back after she’s rejected by The New York Times. The moment is the perfect representation of the privilege Rory clearly enjoyed without ever owning up to it.
Rory doesn’t deal well with adversity
Any adverse situation sends Rory reeling. Again, this hints at her severe immaturity. When Lorelai questions her decision to sleep with Dean, she freaks out and takes off to Europe, not speaking to Lorelai for weeks at a clip. When Mitchum Huntzberger tells her she doesn’t “have it,” she steals a yacht and drops out of Yale. When she doesn’t get the fellowship she wants, she again loses it and turns down Logan’s proposal.
Time apparently did little to help Rory turn into a full-fledged adult, either. In A Year in the Life, Rory, now in her 30s, appears to be up to her same old tricks. She’s sleeping with an engaged Logan and has no idea what she’s doing with her life. It would seem that because things didn’t turn out the way she wanted, she just completely stood still. Maybe she assumed things would just fall into place for her, another sign of her privilege and immaturity, or perhaps she just doesn’t know how to pivot when things don’t turn out. Either way, Rory’s instability makes her a pretty unlikeable character if you really stop to think about it.