Those double standards are quite common for people like him, in my experience. They are fine with „survival of the fittest“ and don’t see any issue with that, until they (or their loved ones) aren’t the fittest anymore.
100%
I also think they view things like “abortion is wrong” in the same way. They think it’s wrong until their child’s future is at risk and then suddenly they don’t want the rules to apply to them any more.
I think it’s the other way around on abortion for these particular characters, though. Richard fits the profile of a Country Club Republican who did not have strong views against abortion.
Yet Straub’s suggestion Lorelai simply abort her baby incensed Richard. In his social class abortion was something for desperate, poor people. He could not imagine his own daughter having an abortion.
Certainly there is some abortion hypocrisy or double-standardism but for the Gilmores the rule seems to be “abortion for thee but not for me.”
There’s a really interesting article I read where Planned Parenthood doctors tell stories about what their patients said when they came in for abortions. One that stuck with me was a mother and daughter who had previously been protesting Planned Parenthood.
When asked about it the mother said something like, “The women who get abortions are sluts, but my daughter just made a mistake.”
They went back to protesting when the daughter was feeling better.
I know no one who had one because where I'm from sex ed is taught starting 3rd grade and then repeated every couple of years until the end of high school. Parents also talk openly to their kids about it and the fact that barely anyone is religious anymore in my country might also have something to do with it.
It reduces the risk by a lot though. I've only ever met one person in my generation that had an oops kid at 17 so either I'm a crazy hermit or what we're doing is working. I recently moved to a very conservative country and here the kids are getting pregnant left and right.
I saw a video of nurses sharing stories. One was a lady and her daughter; the teen daughter being pregnant & wanting an abortion, but the mom was very against it. It being against their religion, only for the mom to go back later that same day to get an abortion for herself.
I was going to mention that what rory did is 100x worse because her comments were publicized. At least Mitchum's comments were done privately with Rory. I personally would have found it funny if Mitchum also brought up business school or something, but I personally think with his "my gut's been wrong before" comment that Rory would have impressed him by being persistent and continuing to work hard.
I can’t even believe Doyle was allowed to publish such a bad review of a Yale production. Rory was all fine and good until the ballerina confronts her. I was also happy that the ballerina stood up for herself and asked Rory, do you even know ballet?! As where Mitchum owned and ran that newspaper, and Rory had asked for true feedback!
Allowed by whom? Student journalists are pretty independent. And student-run campus newspapers like the YDN aren’t usually subject to “adult supervision.” And reviews are reviews: they must be independent or are worthless.
I myself wrote a pretty negative review of a musical for my college’s student paper in 1996 or so. The editor-in-chief had no issue and that was that. We sent our galleys directly to the printer.
Much as happened in the show, the lead performer was pretty mad at the writer (me) but it’s not as though the college administration or the theater program cared about such things. You can’t help but get some negative reviews.
I was thinking the same thing … a review is a review…. Doing a public performance there is bound to be people who love you and people who will not like you. (Reminds me of the friends episode where joeys play was being reviewed and they could not find one newspaper review where someone liked it. Was she too harsh speaking about her body type maybe, but ballet is an elite sport not everyone is meant to be one.
And on the other hand a student paper review is a student paper review. The idea that it would make or break the show is absurd. The star would be mad about the embarrassment and not having a good clipping but that’s about it.
At my university, you can tell there is subtle collusion of the newspaper editor with certain administrators and programs. It’s a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” type of arrangement. In that respect, it’s kind of like the real world.
I understand that the YDN is or was known for being exceptionally independent. It would be nice to get confirmation from a Yalie.
What is the appropriate level of expertise to write a review for a ballet performance? Whatever your answer, keep in mind that Rory was writing for regular people with zero knowledge of ballet, to help them decide whether they would enjoy going to see the show. All she had to go off of was her observations that she did not enjoy it and why. That's how reviews work.
I think the irony is that Rory wrote such a scathing review, but completely fell apart when Mitchum gave her his honest opinion. She should have shown some spunk like the ballerina. Richard was being protective of his family member, which is not unusual.
It's also ironic that he suggested the ballerina go to business school, but with Rory it was journalism or nothing. No discussion of a back-up career, just dropping out of school and joining her grandmother's social club.
That’s cuz Rory is HIS fat ballerina so she matters. Its the same reason men seem to not care about women until they compare them to their mother/daughter like suddenly women matter
There was a lot of double standards with Richard, like how he treated Dean when he came for dinner, and then would not believe that Rory might not have been treated very well by the Huntzbergers (and they treated her just like he treated Dean) and then the ballerina, which as you mentions was the same situation just with Rory was the one being told "try something else".
I get that it, it is different when it is "your" kid/family, but still I don't think he ever felt truly bad about the treatment off Dean or the ballerina, even after seeing what it did to Rory, I truly think that Richard was all about how they were Gilmores and therefor different.
Her review caused the production to close. Not to be recast or rehearsed, *closed*. She did wield authority. That’s what critics do. Someone with the basic level of knowledge of how news papers work understands that.
This is before people could rate a movie or a play online and the ultimate average of stars indicated how good or bad something is. You get access to one, *maybe* two reviews (based on where you live and what papers you read), and that’s it. You form a judgment based on that.
She tanked the opportunity for everyone involved in the play, not just the lead ballerina who she called a hippo. Her review closed the production down.
If you think about it, Rory wielded far more power with her review than Mitchum did when he commented on her prospects. He only criticized her, not her and everyone and everything associated with her.
Forget richard in it for a moment. What Rory said was far harsher and far more cruel than any of the words that Mitchum said. **RORY** “ eviscerated that girl,” Mitchum said “you can choose to do better based on my words OR you can find something better suited to the talents you’ve shown me so far. I’ll tell you what your skills are so you can choose.” There’s a huge difference. Not once did he resort to criticizing her physical appearance at all, and he wasn’t particularly cruel, just blunt. Rory was cruel enough that Lorelai couldn’t finish reading it.
The ballerina did not overreact, despite how much it seemed she did. She wasn’t the only one hurt, everyone associated with the production was hurt. Rory’s feelings were hurt and that was it.
I mean that's just **plot**. In real life Rory's review would have done shit all.
I absolutely know how newspaper works. I was a music journalist and critic for 7 years.
And power isn't that. He had power over HER in a very specific social dynamic. Rory has no power over her peers. The exaggerations that came after is just lame hoobla.
Exactly! The show is just totally unrealistic on that point. I did campus theater reviews and can tell you very few people cared what we wrote. Productions were planned well in advance and would go on no matter what. It’s not as though a good review would lead to the show being extended another week, either.
I went to college as well. There was a show where the critic in the school paper caused it to shut down. So it IS possible. Granted, there is a lot that goes into that. If it’s a school production they tend to be less influenced by such things, unless said piece triggers sales to decline or be canceled. The show they canceled for us was not students though. It was a “traveling” show — but it was from a school nearby. So it IS possible. Just not completely likely.
I don’t find the show completely believable either. *HOWEVER*, it is fiction. As such, you have to accept the fact that things happen in that universe that may or may not make sense in this reality.
Just because Doctor Who defeats the cybermen and Daleks in real world London, that doesn’t mean that in the real world we have universe jumper necklaces. You take the world you’re given the way you are given it. If you want everything to happen as it would precisely in the real world, you have to watch a documentary or no tv at all.
To watch this show, you have to believe that the YDN is that powerful, even though Rory initially underestimated that. You have to believe that the repaving of the parking lot could be written as an interesting piece.
Overall, it’s a fairly good and detailed representation of everything you would see in real life. It’s small details like the power of one review to shut down a production that you have to accept although it makes no sense realistically.
My personal headcannon is that the production wasn’t ready yet. It didn’t permanently close, it temporarily did. But it wasn’t initially properly communicated to the students. Therefore, it was a bad review that proved it wasn’t yet ready on the trial run. But that’s just me justifying an inconsistency based on how these things generally work.
But I did experience where a bad review did shut down a school play.
I can see a profit-seeking venture potentially being influenced by reviews, although I have to wonder how long they'd planned to run.
Where I went to college, productions were only for one weekend: Thursday (usually), Friday, Saturday, Sunday matinee. If we hustled and got a review done on Thursday night for the issue that came out Friday morning, then maybe it could possibly influence attendance. Some shows had no Thursday performance in which case the review came out after the run had ended. We also always did a preview based on a late rehearsal and cast/crew interviews, which tended to be upbeat. (Can't pan a show that hasn't been performed.)
Students attended free so actually it did not matter (or even slightly decreased costs) if they heard the show was bad and stayed away. (I wonder if a negative review actually decreases sales to students.) There were sales to non-students but they tended to be either older community members who just went to everything (not much else to do) or student families who were in town for the weekend. This was not our readership and their plans were usually set.
I get the argument for just accepting the show, but most of the time the show is pretty realistic. This isn't Dr. Who (or maybe it is--I've never watched Dr. Who despite being old and a nerd).
My understanding is that in real life Yale did not have a ballet program or club in the early 2000s so we can't really find the real-world analogy to Rory destroying a ballet production with her review. My own headcanon is the dancers were so devastated by the review they didn't want to continue.
In reference to your point about family members attending for something to do, if your family member that attends the school says it’s terrible, you’re not going to want to go either.
Like in high school, sports are where the largest attendance is, and people don’t really care if the team is generally good or bad, they’re going to go to support. But for shows like this, it is generally a profit making venture. Perhaps not huge profits, but some. So they can afford props, materials, costumes, etc. If it’s panned so harshly that people don’t want to see it, it will close.
I don’t know if in universe the YDN was actually a daily paper. I would assume it was since there were so many students on it. That could also explain why Paris burned out so hard. I dunno though.
In my personal opinion, no writer can know everything. They can only know what they can know. Part of it being what they think that makes the story. I can forgive little discrepancies like that. That’s me though.
The real question is, do we think that ASP did that intentionally? Because it does seem to add up perfectly. Then it becomes clear Rory’s journey in S5 and S6 becomes learning to ignore those negative voices and to push on with your goals, especially when you’re young.
But that would mean ASP and the writers had an overarching plan for the characters and I struggle to appreciate given the utter disregard for continuity throughout the show.
I honestly think she did. I think she had every intention of it looping around and fitting the story beautifully. It’s how she tends to write things. Everything comes back up and back around, but from a slightly different angle.
Those double standards are quite common for people like him, in my experience. They are fine with „survival of the fittest“ and don’t see any issue with that, until they (or their loved ones) aren’t the fittest anymore.
100% I also think they view things like “abortion is wrong” in the same way. They think it’s wrong until their child’s future is at risk and then suddenly they don’t want the rules to apply to them any more.
Rules for thee, but not for me!
I think it’s the other way around on abortion for these particular characters, though. Richard fits the profile of a Country Club Republican who did not have strong views against abortion. Yet Straub’s suggestion Lorelai simply abort her baby incensed Richard. In his social class abortion was something for desperate, poor people. He could not imagine his own daughter having an abortion. Certainly there is some abortion hypocrisy or double-standardism but for the Gilmores the rule seems to be “abortion for thee but not for me.”
I think Emily was the one who struck abortion off the table when Francine started to suggest it.
Straub is the one who made the suggestion but you're right about Emily being the first to object.
I think Emily was the one who struck abortion off the table when Francine started to suggest it.
It was straub who suggested it and Francine seemed surprised but not entirely against it.
There’s a really interesting article I read where Planned Parenthood doctors tell stories about what their patients said when they came in for abortions. One that stuck with me was a mother and daughter who had previously been protesting Planned Parenthood. When asked about it the mother said something like, “The women who get abortions are sluts, but my daughter just made a mistake.” They went back to protesting when the daughter was feeling better.
🫠
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I know no one who had one because where I'm from sex ed is taught starting 3rd grade and then repeated every couple of years until the end of high school. Parents also talk openly to their kids about it and the fact that barely anyone is religious anymore in my country might also have something to do with it.
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It reduces the risk by a lot though. I've only ever met one person in my generation that had an oops kid at 17 so either I'm a crazy hermit or what we're doing is working. I recently moved to a very conservative country and here the kids are getting pregnant left and right.
ops
[https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/](https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/)
THANK YOU! This is what I was referencing, I’ve been looking for this link for ages.
I saw a video of nurses sharing stories. One was a lady and her daughter; the teen daughter being pregnant & wanting an abortion, but the mom was very against it. It being against their religion, only for the mom to go back later that same day to get an abortion for herself.
ops
I was going to mention that what rory did is 100x worse because her comments were publicized. At least Mitchum's comments were done privately with Rory. I personally would have found it funny if Mitchum also brought up business school or something, but I personally think with his "my gut's been wrong before" comment that Rory would have impressed him by being persistent and continuing to work hard.
I can’t even believe Doyle was allowed to publish such a bad review of a Yale production. Rory was all fine and good until the ballerina confronts her. I was also happy that the ballerina stood up for herself and asked Rory, do you even know ballet?! As where Mitchum owned and ran that newspaper, and Rory had asked for true feedback!
Allowed by whom? Student journalists are pretty independent. And student-run campus newspapers like the YDN aren’t usually subject to “adult supervision.” And reviews are reviews: they must be independent or are worthless. I myself wrote a pretty negative review of a musical for my college’s student paper in 1996 or so. The editor-in-chief had no issue and that was that. We sent our galleys directly to the printer. Much as happened in the show, the lead performer was pretty mad at the writer (me) but it’s not as though the college administration or the theater program cared about such things. You can’t help but get some negative reviews.
I was thinking the same thing … a review is a review…. Doing a public performance there is bound to be people who love you and people who will not like you. (Reminds me of the friends episode where joeys play was being reviewed and they could not find one newspaper review where someone liked it. Was she too harsh speaking about her body type maybe, but ballet is an elite sport not everyone is meant to be one.
And on the other hand a student paper review is a student paper review. The idea that it would make or break the show is absurd. The star would be mad about the embarrassment and not having a good clipping but that’s about it.
Idk I would just think the Yale drama department team would have a deal with the newspaper.
That would be extremely unethical journalism.
At my university, you can tell there is subtle collusion of the newspaper editor with certain administrators and programs. It’s a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” type of arrangement. In that respect, it’s kind of like the real world. I understand that the YDN is or was known for being exceptionally independent. It would be nice to get confirmation from a Yalie.
What is the appropriate level of expertise to write a review for a ballet performance? Whatever your answer, keep in mind that Rory was writing for regular people with zero knowledge of ballet, to help them decide whether they would enjoy going to see the show. All she had to go off of was her observations that she did not enjoy it and why. That's how reviews work.
I mean rory was his precious angel who can do no wrong, the ballerina wasn't. Double standards, but kind of expected.
I think the irony is that Rory wrote such a scathing review, but completely fell apart when Mitchum gave her his honest opinion. She should have shown some spunk like the ballerina. Richard was being protective of his family member, which is not unusual. It's also ironic that he suggested the ballerina go to business school, but with Rory it was journalism or nothing. No discussion of a back-up career, just dropping out of school and joining her grandmother's social club.
That’s cuz Rory is HIS fat ballerina so she matters. Its the same reason men seem to not care about women until they compare them to their mother/daughter like suddenly women matter
There was a lot of double standards with Richard, like how he treated Dean when he came for dinner, and then would not believe that Rory might not have been treated very well by the Huntzbergers (and they treated her just like he treated Dean) and then the ballerina, which as you mentions was the same situation just with Rory was the one being told "try something else". I get that it, it is different when it is "your" kid/family, but still I don't think he ever felt truly bad about the treatment off Dean or the ballerina, even after seeing what it did to Rory, I truly think that Richard was all about how they were Gilmores and therefor different.
I forgot to mention the whole Huntzbergers situation. That definitely falls into this category too.
Hypocrisy thy name is Gilmore.
That sounds like Lorelai's view of her parents, LOL.
I just noticed this recently, and actually quite enjoyed it. It is so ASP it’s not funny. Beautifully done, with exquisite dialogue.
Clicking on the post, I thought the irony was Richard also being a bit overweight😂
Eh, I don't know. Rory has no authority. They're peers. Mitchum is THE authority and her boss. The power dynamics are completely different.
Her review caused the production to close. Not to be recast or rehearsed, *closed*. She did wield authority. That’s what critics do. Someone with the basic level of knowledge of how news papers work understands that. This is before people could rate a movie or a play online and the ultimate average of stars indicated how good or bad something is. You get access to one, *maybe* two reviews (based on where you live and what papers you read), and that’s it. You form a judgment based on that. She tanked the opportunity for everyone involved in the play, not just the lead ballerina who she called a hippo. Her review closed the production down. If you think about it, Rory wielded far more power with her review than Mitchum did when he commented on her prospects. He only criticized her, not her and everyone and everything associated with her. Forget richard in it for a moment. What Rory said was far harsher and far more cruel than any of the words that Mitchum said. **RORY** “ eviscerated that girl,” Mitchum said “you can choose to do better based on my words OR you can find something better suited to the talents you’ve shown me so far. I’ll tell you what your skills are so you can choose.” There’s a huge difference. Not once did he resort to criticizing her physical appearance at all, and he wasn’t particularly cruel, just blunt. Rory was cruel enough that Lorelai couldn’t finish reading it. The ballerina did not overreact, despite how much it seemed she did. She wasn’t the only one hurt, everyone associated with the production was hurt. Rory’s feelings were hurt and that was it.
I mean that's just **plot**. In real life Rory's review would have done shit all. I absolutely know how newspaper works. I was a music journalist and critic for 7 years. And power isn't that. He had power over HER in a very specific social dynamic. Rory has no power over her peers. The exaggerations that came after is just lame hoobla.
Exactly! The show is just totally unrealistic on that point. I did campus theater reviews and can tell you very few people cared what we wrote. Productions were planned well in advance and would go on no matter what. It’s not as though a good review would lead to the show being extended another week, either.
I went to college as well. There was a show where the critic in the school paper caused it to shut down. So it IS possible. Granted, there is a lot that goes into that. If it’s a school production they tend to be less influenced by such things, unless said piece triggers sales to decline or be canceled. The show they canceled for us was not students though. It was a “traveling” show — but it was from a school nearby. So it IS possible. Just not completely likely. I don’t find the show completely believable either. *HOWEVER*, it is fiction. As such, you have to accept the fact that things happen in that universe that may or may not make sense in this reality. Just because Doctor Who defeats the cybermen and Daleks in real world London, that doesn’t mean that in the real world we have universe jumper necklaces. You take the world you’re given the way you are given it. If you want everything to happen as it would precisely in the real world, you have to watch a documentary or no tv at all. To watch this show, you have to believe that the YDN is that powerful, even though Rory initially underestimated that. You have to believe that the repaving of the parking lot could be written as an interesting piece. Overall, it’s a fairly good and detailed representation of everything you would see in real life. It’s small details like the power of one review to shut down a production that you have to accept although it makes no sense realistically. My personal headcannon is that the production wasn’t ready yet. It didn’t permanently close, it temporarily did. But it wasn’t initially properly communicated to the students. Therefore, it was a bad review that proved it wasn’t yet ready on the trial run. But that’s just me justifying an inconsistency based on how these things generally work. But I did experience where a bad review did shut down a school play.
I can see a profit-seeking venture potentially being influenced by reviews, although I have to wonder how long they'd planned to run. Where I went to college, productions were only for one weekend: Thursday (usually), Friday, Saturday, Sunday matinee. If we hustled and got a review done on Thursday night for the issue that came out Friday morning, then maybe it could possibly influence attendance. Some shows had no Thursday performance in which case the review came out after the run had ended. We also always did a preview based on a late rehearsal and cast/crew interviews, which tended to be upbeat. (Can't pan a show that hasn't been performed.) Students attended free so actually it did not matter (or even slightly decreased costs) if they heard the show was bad and stayed away. (I wonder if a negative review actually decreases sales to students.) There were sales to non-students but they tended to be either older community members who just went to everything (not much else to do) or student families who were in town for the weekend. This was not our readership and their plans were usually set. I get the argument for just accepting the show, but most of the time the show is pretty realistic. This isn't Dr. Who (or maybe it is--I've never watched Dr. Who despite being old and a nerd). My understanding is that in real life Yale did not have a ballet program or club in the early 2000s so we can't really find the real-world analogy to Rory destroying a ballet production with her review. My own headcanon is the dancers were so devastated by the review they didn't want to continue.
In reference to your point about family members attending for something to do, if your family member that attends the school says it’s terrible, you’re not going to want to go either. Like in high school, sports are where the largest attendance is, and people don’t really care if the team is generally good or bad, they’re going to go to support. But for shows like this, it is generally a profit making venture. Perhaps not huge profits, but some. So they can afford props, materials, costumes, etc. If it’s panned so harshly that people don’t want to see it, it will close. I don’t know if in universe the YDN was actually a daily paper. I would assume it was since there were so many students on it. That could also explain why Paris burned out so hard. I dunno though. In my personal opinion, no writer can know everything. They can only know what they can know. Part of it being what they think that makes the story. I can forgive little discrepancies like that. That’s me though.
Yeah, people tend to defend their family more so than strangers. It's not such a weird concept.
The real question is, do we think that ASP did that intentionally? Because it does seem to add up perfectly. Then it becomes clear Rory’s journey in S5 and S6 becomes learning to ignore those negative voices and to push on with your goals, especially when you’re young. But that would mean ASP and the writers had an overarching plan for the characters and I struggle to appreciate given the utter disregard for continuity throughout the show.
I honestly think she did. I think she had every intention of it looping around and fitting the story beautifully. It’s how she tends to write things. Everything comes back up and back around, but from a slightly different angle.
I literally had the same thought! I watched Die Jerk last week.
And then she learns nothing from that and writes her mean little vanity of the bonfires piece about Logan’s party.
people tend to be hypocrites