{"id":100025,"date":"2025-10-02T23:15:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T23:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/100025\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T23:15:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T23:15:13","slug":"25-years-of-gilmore-girls-its-utopia-its-idyllic-people-love-to-revisit-because-its-so-comfortable-and-feels-like-a-little-bit-of-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/100025\/","title":{"rendered":"25 years of Gilmore Girls: \u2018It\u2019s utopia, it\u2019s idyllic. People love to revisit, because it\u2019s so comfortable and feels like a little bit of home\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nIt\u2019s autumn, or as some people say, Gilmore Girls season! The fictional town and community of Stars Hollow, and the characters of the Gilmore Girls \u2013 Lorelai, Rory and Emily \u2013 still resonate with viewers, many of whom are drawn to the show and rewatch it at this time of year, every year<\/p>\n

Despite the show\u2019s relative lack of awards recognition, its stars Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel reunited on the Emmys stage last month, complete with a recreation of their characters\u2019 iconic front-porch set, an acknowledgement of Gilmore Girls\u2019 enduring popularity.<\/p>\n

Today marks 25 years since its debut, and the charming family drama has continued to capture the hearts of generations of viewers. Many, like 21-year-old Niamh O’Loughlin, a PR and media student at SETU Carlow, weren\u2019t even born when the pilot aired.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a fan since I was 14, and I always think back to the first time I watched it: coming home, getting cosy in bed and watching Gilmore Girls. It was just the nicest, most comforting thing and it was something I really looked forward to in the evenings all through school,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d say I\u2019ve rewatched it about 10 times. Especially during lockdown, I kind of had it on a loop.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the leaves fall and the evenings draw in, TikTok and Instagram are brimming with fan videos, gearing up for yet another return to the fictional Connecticut town of Stars Hollow. \u201cThis is the time of year that people go, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s Gilmore Girls season\u2019,\u201d observes Dr Jessica Shine, a lecturer in media communications at Munster Technological University. \u201cThere\u2019s a cyclical nature to people\u2019s rewatching.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The three Gilmore Girls – Emily, Lorelai and Rory. Photo: Netflix<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s association with autumn is largely due to each season beginning with Rory\u2019s new school year \u2014 not to mention all of the cosy knitwear, harvest festivals and beautiful foliage. Carolin Maienborn (22), an environmental engineering student at Trinity College, notes that it provides a welcome counterpoint to the end of summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe weather is getting worse, it\u2019s getting darker and college is starting again. [Gilmore Girls is] a little light point in this slightly depressing time of year,\u201d says Maienborn, who hosts regular campus screenings of Gilmore Girls as a Trinity Global Room ambassador.<\/p>\n

When ratings juggernauts like Judging Amy \u2013 first broadcast in 1999 \u2013 have largely faded into obscurity, what has given Gilmore Girls such staying power? For many, it\u2019s the ultimate escapism, with fans emphasising the immersive quality of the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watch it and I just dive into this new world. I don\u2019t know how they do it, they just pull me in and I feel like I\u2019m in Stars Hollow. Maybe it\u2019s the characters, the storylines, the cinematography, but I just forget about everything else in my life,\u201d says Laura Kelly (24), a radio journalist. \u201cThat\u2019s why I always go back to it, because it\u2019s just so comforting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shine raises film theorist Richard Dyer\u2019s writing on entertainment and utopia, and how Gilmore Girls fulfils many of the \u201cutopian solutions\u201d he outlined to various social tensions and inadequacies.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur real life is exhaustion, scarcity, dreariness, isolation, but then utopia is the opposite of that, where you\u2019ve got abundance, energy, intensity, excitement and community. I think if you look at Gilmore Girls, it is utopia, effectively,\u201d she explains. \u201cThey eat take-out every night of the week, they know everything about everything, they\u2019re never short of friends or community, there\u2019s always a festival going on. It becomes this idyllic place to live. I think there\u2019s a lot in it that people love to revisit, because it\u2019s so comfortable and it feels like a little bit of home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kelly<\/p>\n

Kelly Bishop plays Emily Gilmore in Gilmore girls. Photo: Netflix<\/p>\n

Helena Thiel (21), a history student at Trinity College, describes Gilmore Girls as feeling like home. \u201cIt feels almost like you\u2019re part of the town, when you know all the characters and it feels so familiar,\u201d she says. \u201cYou get to be part of a community that maybe you don\u2019t have in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the series is set in America, international viewers still find points of connection \u2014 O’Loughlin notes that it resonates with her own experience living in a small town on the outskirts of Kilkenny. \u201cMy granny actually ran a post office in our local community until 2009, so having that kind of community in the show was something that I was really drawn to,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

Thiel, meanwhile, grew up in a small town in Sweden, and says of Stars Hollow: \u201cIt\u2019s something that I long for, and that other people long for, where it\u2019s a walkable community, everyone knows everyone in the town and there\u2019s a very strong community feel. You can see how Rory, especially, was raised by a village, and she knows everyone, so it starts to feel very familiar for the viewer as well. Even through her work [as a hotel manager], Lorelai is connected to her own community in a way that people aren\u2019t really nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diane Negra, professor of film studies and screen culture at UCD, has written about how the series tapped into the trope of female \u201cretreatism\u201d, alongside contemporary films like Sweet Home Alabama and Hope Floats, where the heroine abandons the pressures of modern life for an idealised \u201chometown\u201d \u2014 or an adopted one, in Lorelai\u2019s case. Today, we\u2019re seeing that retreatist impulse emerge again in response to turbulent economic and social conditions; think of the romanticisation of small town life and domesticity in popular culture and online, from hit TV series like Virgin River to social media \u201caesthetics\u201d like cottagecore.<\/p>\n

\u201cGilmore Girls\u2019 depiction of Stars Hollow as a familiar and supportive community seems key to its appeal,\u201d Negra observes. \u201cThe series\u2019 picturesque aesthetics and tendency to simplify class and wealth differences position it as antidotal to a society that is being remade by the kleptocratic transfer of wealth to elites and the precarisation of the middle class.<\/p>\n

\u201cConnecticut is a state with a high cost of living, and dramatic class and wealth polarisation between post-industrial cities like Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven on the one hand and pockets of extraordinary wealth as in Greenwich which is now a centre for hedge funds \u2014 but Gilmore Girls knows nothing of this. Here, working-class and middle-class jobs provide seemingly secure and sufficient incomes for everyone in town.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series offers an idyllic vision of local politics, too: Negra raises Stars Hollow\u2019s weekly \u2018town meetings\u2019, where residents discuss and vote on community issues. \u201cThe series\u2019 sense of democracy fostered through \u2018town meetings\u2019 may be one of its most important nostalgic features in a time when stark political differences mark the American landscape,\u201d she points out.<\/p>\n

Originally from the suburbs of New York, Zoe Patterson (27) is a PhD candidate in English at Trinity College, and says she sometimes finds the show\u2019s politics puzzling. \u201c[Stars Hollow] definitely feels like something that, in my experience, doesn\u2019t exist in the US,\u201d she says. \u201cI can\u2019t speak for the entirety of the US, but it\u2019s hard to believe that there would be this level of co-operation and unity in a town. Differences aren\u2019t acknowledged in the same way that they are in real life. The politics of [Gilmore Girls] have always been weird for me, because it does seem like a very nice way to live, but it also feels like sometimes the show is ignoring the politics of the real world as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The notion of the \u2018small town\u2019 is a potent one in American politics. \u201cIt\u2019s been a thing for at least a few decades now that all of America\u2019s political tension is focused on small towns and rural America \u2014 you know, those are the people the politicians care about,\u201d Patterson says. \u201cI\u2019m always very mindful that this is mostly a Bush-era show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Alexis<\/p>\n

Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham on screen as Rory and her mother Lorelai. Photo: Netflix<\/p>\n

Throughout the show\u2019s entire run, President George W Bush is only mentioned a couple of times, as a punchline.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s really apolitical, which is really interesting,\u201d Shine adds. \u201cIt is set in the Noughties in lots of ways \u2014 there are flip phones and digital cameras \u2014 but on the whole, it\u2019s really timeless. Teenagers fall in love, teenagers go to school, teenagers feel under pressure to go to college; all of those things are timeless, and I think that attracts people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilmore Girls concluded a month before the first iPhone was even released, and fans note that the absence of always-on technology adds to its timeless quality. \u201cA lot of it does resonate with me today, but it feels inherently different as well, because it\u2019s pre-iPhones, social media, all that,\u201d Patterson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a nice kind of escapism to watch something that is modern enough to feel relatable, but not modern enough to remind you of all the overstimulation of 2025. I think it\u2019s that sort of sweet spot before things got really crazy in terms of the internet and stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven within the town, they almost resist certain technological advancements that happened around that time, like the fact that Luke doesn\u2019t want any mobile phones in his diner, or that Lorelai prefers a slower internet connection,\u201d Thiel points out. \u201cThe show moves at a slower pace, and because it is so slow-moving, I think it kind of forces you to slow down a bit [when watching].\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilmore Girls is often described as a \u201ccomfort watch\u201d, with fans returning to the series over and over. \u201cI think I binge it at least once a year,\u201d Kelly agrees. \u201cIt\u2019s my comfort show. It\u2019s such easy watching \u2014you can pick it up whenever you want to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Vincent McDarby, clinical psychologist from Access Psychology, explains: \u201cThere\u2019s a cognitive ease aspect in comfort watching: familiar shows require less mental effort, so they\u2019re shows you can half-watch when you\u2019re making dinner or scrolling on the phone. You can go in and out without having to follow a complete plot.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a new phenomenon, but it exploded during the lockdowns, with Gilmore Girls ranking among the top 10 most-watched shows on Netflix from 2021-2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing we had with the pandemic was a huge amount of uncertainty, so comfort watching gave people a sense of stability and familiarity, and it was at a time when digital access really started to take off, so it was much easier to dip into our favourites,\u201d he says, noting that familiar narratives can also help with emotional regulation. \u201cJust like children want the same bedtime story over and over again \u2014 predictable characters and outcomes mimic secure relationships, so it\u2019s often a way to regulate emotions.<\/p>\n

\u201c[With Gilmore Girls], it\u2019s the 25th anniversary, so there\u2019s going to be nostalgia there. When you return to shows, it evokes autobiographical memories and a positive effect. We know that nostalgia has been shown to buffer stress and increase feelings of social connectedness. So for a lot of people, it\u2019s not rewatching a show, it\u2019s revisiting old friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many fans, the rewatch ends with the finale of the original series; they prefer to pretend A Year in the Life, the four-part follow-on miniseries released in 2016, never happened. On its release, the revival became the fastest binged show on Netflix, but it presented an uncomfortable, unflattering vision of its leads. The 32-year-old Rory was an aimless, out-of-work journalist sleeping with her engaged ex-boyfriend, and forced to move back home with Lorelai, who was herself feeling stuck in her relationship and career.<\/p>\n

The mood was markedly less warm and cheery, and the final cliffhanger, revealing Rory\u2019s unexpected pregnancy, proved enormously divisive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt did some interesting things, notably depicting Rory and some of her Stars Hollow generational peers as unfocused and opportunity-deprived,\u201d Negra observes. \u201cIn the sequel, Stars Hollow is less a launch pad and more of a flypaper town whose young people don\u2019t or can\u2019t leave. Rory\u2019s poor life choices \u2014 especially her ongoing relationship with [ex-boyfriend] Logan \u2014 struck me as narratively courageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tone, Shine says, was the biggest problem for devoted fans: \u201cIt\u2019s a bit grim, and that\u2019s not what people wanted. They want joy and they want utopia when they\u2019re watching Gilmore Girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly adds: \u201cI always try A Year in the Life [during rewatches], but then I give up halfway through, because the ending really frustrates me so much.\u201d That being said, she would \u201c100pc\u201d be on board with another reboot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to see [Rory\u2019s] life go in a better direction \u2014 we don\u2019t want to see her couch-surfing and barely making it. We followed her since she was a child and thought she was gonna do great things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilmore Girls was initially funded by the Family Friendly Programming Forum, an initiative by America\u2019s leading advertisers to create television \u201cappropriate in theme, content and language for a broad family audience\u201d. With characters ranging in age from 16-year-old Rory and her friends Lane and Paris, to Lorelai and her business partner Sookie, to grandmother Emily Gilmore, it had the effect of appealing to multiple generations, something Shine notes was built into the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s three generations of women to identify with, and they kind of embedded that into the show so that mothers and their daughters could watch it,\u201d she explains. \u201cYou identify with the characters in different ages of your life. I was a little bit younger than Rory when I [watched it] growing up, and then when you rewatch it, you\u2019re Lorelai\u2019s age, or you\u2019re now Emily\u2019s age, which gives it that longevity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has really strong female characters of all ages, and also of all different types, like Melissa McCarthy\u2019s Sookie, a chef, or Lane, the music nerd, and Rory, who\u2019s just the nerd nerd. But then you\u2019ve got Paris, who\u2019s this intense, overbearing character, so there\u2019s something for a lot of different personality types to relate to.\u201d<\/p>\n

O’Loughlin agrees: \u201cI picked up on different things each time that I watched it, and it was the kind of show that really grew with me. The first few times I was watching it, it was the whole [school love triangle], and then when I was starting to get older, the college years became one of my favourite parts of the show. Now I\u2019m in college myself, seeing Rory fail at things and seeing things not go her way, I\u2019m able to liken that to my own life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say, in the next few years of my rewatches, it\u2019ll be Lorelai who I\u2019ll be watching the show for. I think that\u2019s so lovely about it, how you can grow with the show.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s autumn, or as some people say, Gilmore Girls season! The fictional town and community of Stars Hollow,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17,4746,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-100025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-life-magazine","13":"tag-netflix"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}