A classic comfort show, and one I rewatch often (mostly during this time of the year), it includes references up the wazoo. The show gets more fun and interesting the more you go back and rewatch it as you will catch references you didn’t before.
Having first seen it at the age of 12 or 13, a lot of references and jokes went over my head, but that never tainted my love for the show. Endlessly fascinated -- particularly by the matriarch Lorelai’s quick-fire responses and pop culture deep cuts she pulls out in seemingly every conversation -- every time I rewatch the show, I catch some I neglected before, thus making me connect with the show on a deeper level and feeling a sense of accomplishment for having learned about something that I hadn't recognized before.
There’s a familiarity in the main characters of the show, Lorelai and her daughter, Rory, because of their lack of nonchalance, which allows them to be quirky, loud, and expressive about their likes and dislikes. Considering the many pop culture references involved, when you understand them in the context in which they bring them up, it makes you feel a part of a larger conversation, one in direct communication with the world around you. However, if you don’t, you can still enjoy the show and laugh along with whatever their opinion on it was.
Averaging around 10 pop culture references per episode and totaling well over a thousand and a half in the span of the 153-episode show, it is only human to not understand or even notice some of them. However, I believe this should be something that changes over time as one grows up and comes to be more cultured. An issue arises when the thirst for knowledge is halted in younger generations/people that no longer care to learn about old books, movies, or even "fun" old celebrity conflicts/gossip. This dying culture of being cultured represents a bigger societal issue that has been brought up by the oversaturation of short-form content.
Mainly gaining an understanding of the world around us through social media and short videos, a lot of pop (and non-pop) history gets erased and overpowered by micro-trends we end up forgetting about anyway. As a culture and media student, it’s no surprise that I have a strong belief that references to events/films/music from a different point in time is one of the major ways we communicate with each other. I, therefore, want to highlight the beauty that exists in learning and understanding what people before us thought about and watched and conversed about, with art being a direct reflection of their time.
The more I learn about the world, the more I read, the more films I watch, the more pop history I become acquainted with, the more I enjoy the show and become able to recognize the greatness in the humor, structure, and writing of the show. Through the simple act of staying curious and learning about the world around you and the people that came before us, you can enrich your life with common knowledge and connect with older generations who lived through said references/events. And in this case, it can embellish your rewatching experience of the classic show "Gilmore Girls".
