Rory’s Worst Moment in ‘Gilmore Girls’ Isn’t the One You’re Thinking Of

The big picture

• Rory Gilmore's character a
  Gilmore Girls
  he's only gotten worse over time, with his worst moment when he body-shams a ballerina in his review for the Yale Daily News.
• Rory's privileged upbringing and lack of criticism contribute to her inability to handle feedback and her mean-girl behavior.
• The moments where Rory and Lorelai make fun of people's appearances, including body shaming, are unnecessary and make their characters unlikable.

With any character on a long-running television series, it's to be expected that they will have their ups and downs. Sometimes they'll be the best character you've ever seen, and sometimes they'll be the worst, like Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) in Gilmore Girls. Although the show may be called Gilmore Girls the titular characters are not without their critics, with seven seasons and a revival of her name, Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory have been through a lot. From relationship problems, arguments between them and simple life dramas that derail their plans. While Lorelai experiences some growth, it's Rory who goes through the biggest changes in the series, and we can agree that it wasn't the best. The Rory we met in season 1 is not the same Rory we meet in season 7, or the revival. Yes, people change, but she changed so drastically that it's honestly kind of hard to fathom. But personal gripes aside, there's a moment when Rory hits an all-time low, and it's not what you're thinking.

There are a lot of moments that could be picked when it comes to Rory Gilmore's worst moment, as unfortunate as it may be. But it's not exactly a secret that as the show progresses, Rory undergoes a major personality change. There are moments that are more minor than others, and there are moments that leave a major stain on Rory's character. For example, when she slept with Dean (Jared Padalecki) even though he was married, and justified it by saying that he was her boyfriend first. This was the real turning point for Rory's character, but there was a moment that happened before that left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Gilmore Girls ventilators

Rory changed for the worse in Season 4

When you think of Rory's worst moment, you probably think of that time she slept with Dean while he was married to Lindsay (Arielle Kebell) at the end of season 4, and that's a completely valid answer. This was by far one of the worst things Rory did during the show's run, and the fact that she tried to justify it later by saying that Dean was her boyfriend first? This isn't working, Rory. But this is obvious, and even the show (and Lorelai for that matter) doesn't shy away from confronting it. There's another horrible Rory moment early in Season 4 (a season that was clearly the beginning of Rory's downfall), which is so painful to look back on.

In the episode “Die, Jerk” Rory is tasked with writing a recital review for the Yale Daily News, but it is not published, and when he asks the newspaper's editor why he is told that his writing it was “a little”. of a yawn.” She rewrites it and is told once again that it's no good and that he can't say what he really thought of the performance. They tell him to write it again and attend the recital again to form his opinion. This time, Lorelai attends with her, and this performance proves to be worse than the last, which both Lorelai and Rory agree on.

So Rory gives him a bad review and this time his piece is accepted and published. No harm, no foul, right? We all have different tastes, and maybe it really wasn't a good performance. His dislike of the recital is not the issue here, his comments towards the dancer are. Instead of just criticizing the performance and the overall recital, Rory takes some serious digs at the dancer's appearance.. He compares the dancer to a hippopotamus, writes that she has the grace of a drunken dock worker, and even adds to Lorelai's comment about a roll of fat around her bra strap. When he (rightly) confronts the dancer, she tries to defend her words as part of her job as a journalist, but nowhere in her job description does she say body shaming is okay..

Rory, shaming a dancer is just plain cruel

When he pouts to his mother about the encounter, even Lorelai says Rory was too tough, something Rory continues to defend as what she was told to do. She even defends her body shaming by saying it's a criticism of the customer, quickly followed by saying the customer should have put her in a bigger leotard. It's such an unnecessarily cruel review. He could have written his honest opinion about the recital without the embarrassing comments. They are not just plain bad, but the appearance of the dancer has nothing to do with the quality of the recital.

Not to mention this was one of Rory's test items. He explains during a Friday night dinner that, to join the staff, you have to write a piece for each section of the paper. Not that this kind of review would be good even for an experienced writer, but it's certainly not a good first impression. And to top it off, the recital was closed early due to Rory's criticism.

Rory's character was destroyed when he went to Yale

Rory's character started going downhill when she left for Yale. Maybe she had been taken out of her humble little town and dropped into a bigger, more privileged environment, or maybe it was always like this and Yale brought out the worst in her. Rory has always been a bit spoiled and unaware of her privilege. She's Lorelai's whole world, and in her eyes, Rory can do no wrong. This creates a complex for her that lends itself to the decay of her character once she is sent out into the world on her own. She's set in her ways and unable to take criticism, a direct result of being coddled by Lorelai and her grandparents, and honestly, the town of Stars Hollow as a whole. Don't get me wrong, Rory is great and worked hard to get where she is, but her attitude along the way soured any enjoyment of celebrating her success.

Sure, she and Lorelai were quite chatty and engaged in some cheeky gossip, but they'd never been cruel to people, especially how they looked. And yet this whole episode exists, and as if that weren't bad enough, there is another example of this in the episode “Summer”. A year in the life. During a scene where Lorelai and Rory are lying by the pool, two older men walk by, and Lorelai and Rory silently tease them, commenting on their bellies. But it doesn't end there. There is a town resident that Rory has nicknamed “Back Fat Pat” and when he welcomes her back to town, she accidentally smacks him in the face when she thanks him. This would be a problematic scene at any time, but with that in mind A year in the life came out in 2016, you'd think a scene like this wouldn't make the cut. What does it bring anyway? Other than making Rory and Lorelai pretty obnoxious and reminding us again that a revival was just unnecessary.

Lorelai and Rory have never been perfect characters, but these moments go way beyond being a little annoying, this is just mean girl behavior, and could have – and should have been cut entirely. There's never an excuse for it, and even though the 2000s when the show aired was a very different era, body shaming has never been in style.

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