Gilmore Girls : Everyone talks about Emily’s issues with Lorelai, but they miss this bigger problem

Gilmore Girls starts with a powerful setup: a fiercely independent single mother, her bright daughter, and wealthy grandparents who seem more antagonists than allies.

From the very first 'Friday-Night Dinner', Gilmore Girls paints Emily Gilmore as a tightly wound symbol of high society - all pearls, power, and passive aggression. But after revisiting the show - countless times, I've realized there's an even more troubling pattern in Emily's character, one that has aged far worse than her battles with Lorelai.

Author's Disclaimer: The following piece reflects my personal view of a beloved TV character centred around character dynamics and class issues shaped by years of re-watching Gilmore Girls.

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Emily Gilmore’s real failing isn’t about Lorelai—it’s how she treats people without power

Emily Gilmore isn't just difficult with Lorelai; she's downright dehumanizing towards the working-class people in her orbit. In Gilmore Girls, there's a running joke about how many maids Emily has fired over the years. Lorelai once says that her mother;

"Goes through maids like Kleenex..."

And this right here is not far from the truth at all. The show hardly ever gives these women their names, voices, or stories - they exist solely to be dehumanized and dismissed for minor infractions, like setting a dinner plate or opening the door and taking down the coats of the guests while at the same time being constantly yelled, and being ridiculed by Emily.

What makes this trait even worse is how casually the show goes about it. Emily's constant firings aren't played as the red flags that they are, but as a humorous character quirk.

This isn't a woman who occasionally lets her high standards up - its a pattern of using her wealth and power to punish people of a lower strata, people who never meet her expectations.

One fan points on rightly;

"Remember when she fired a maid because Rory spoke to her in Spanish?....Let's not justify Emily's...classist ideology and behavior..."

The show might not go above and beyond to justify Emily's behaviors, but it sure does encourage it time and time again with the maids constantly being changed over petty reasons and them within a jiffy being constantly fired.

These are working class people, who have a life outside of being a maid to the upper class. These are people who have ends to meet with their families, but somehow, Emily never seems to grasp the concept of lower class people actually existing outside the realm of her bubble.

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A legacy of pettiness and power in Gilmore Girls via. Emily Gilmore

The 'Gilmore' name in Gilmore Girls comes with a level of societal unrighteousness and Emily revels in being a Gilmore. Her obsession with appearances, perfection, and control manifests in dismissing those who serve her and those who she deems to be below her.

In Season 6, when she shames a Huntzberger for mistreating Rory, it's one of her most powerful scenes on the show;

“If I ever catch wind of you treating her poorly again, you’ll meet a side of me you won't soon forget.”

That righteous fire was invigorating. But it also begs the question; Where is the same decency for all of the women who have ever worked as maids in her house?

In a surprising turn of events, the spin-off (which everybody seems to ignore as canon) A Year in the Life, we finally get to see Emily hold on to a maid named Berta, regardless of her quirks. Quirks that the actual show Emily would've not wanted to deal with for more than 5 seconds.

Eventually, Berta is still a character on the show who is played just for a few gags.

Emily's treatment of her staff has always been one of the worst parts of Gilmore Girls for me. Her sharp wit, elegance, and loyalty to her family are what make her fascinating, but they don't excuse ther cruelty.

Hundreds of maids can't all together be bad at doing their jobs. At some point, the problem stops being these poor lower class women and it starts to become this woman who thrives in the upper class of the society.

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Gilmore Girls gave a a rich story of human flaws and emotional messiness, but Emily Gilmore's callous treatment of working-class people is not just a flaw - it's a failure of decency.

And it's the one thing that even her charm can't redeem.

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