Changing Seasons
There are many reasons I love the show Gilmore Girls, all of which I'm sure I'll get into at some point or another in this newsletter. But for today, I'm just going to focus on one thing: the change of seasons. At its core Gilmore Girls is a cozy hangout show, with many an episode spent following Lorelai and Rory around Stars Hollow, having a movie night or participating in a Friday night dinner. One element that subtly adds to the show's comfort feel is the way the seasons change throughout each television season. A quick note: I'm not addressing the incredibly forced way in which the seasons change in Gilmore Girls: Seasons, because that would just make us all miserable. Throughout the original run of the series, most Gilmore TV seasons span the length of a year. Unlike shows set in California or filmed on-set for in-studio audiences, as the year progresses the decorations, clothing and weather change consistently throughout Gilmore, which is set in the fictional Stars Hollow, Connecticut. Spring is easily the most forgettable season in the series. It just kind of exists, as the girls are discussing movies or wrapping up the school year. A couple moments of note: Miss Patty organizes a dance featuring costume changes that move from bulb to stock to full bloom. Liz and T.J. get married in the town square and Lorelai and Luke share their first dance at the wedding. And Lorelai gets into an argument with Taylor about picking the movie for the town's spring movie festival and we get to see Kirk's first ever short film.
The summer months in Stars Hollow are the perfect time for adventure. In season one and early season two, Lorelai stolls through town handing out yellow daisies and Rory builds houses to try and make her college applications more appealing. At the beginning of season three, Rory is returning from a summer spent in D.C., just in time for the Stars Hollow summer festival. At the start of season five, Luke spends the summer helping his sister at the Renaissance Fair and finally reunites with Lorelai during another Stars Hollow parade. Basically summer means shopping for school supplies, lots of travel and plenty of time for singing the Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer song (feature at the beginning of the third season).
The show's New England setting allows for ample time spent during my two favorite seasons -- fall and winter. As I began to anticipate the crisp autumn weather that's coming now that September has begun, I turned on season two, episode six, Presenting Lorelai Gilmore, to see the fall decorations, the leaf-covered gazebo and the sweaters signaling that chillier weather is coming to the town. In the third season's Let the Games Begin, Rory is in the midst of college applications and Stars Hollow is decorated with pumpkins and hay bales for Halloween. Another charming signal that the calendar is moving along? As Lorelai or Rory walk through town, the camera often pans over to Miss Patty's dance studio, where her students are rehearsing dressed as apples or budding flowers, depending on the time of year.
And now it's time for Gilmore's most important season. Winter is given special moments to shine throughout the series. Despite the fact that the Gilmore girls are forever wearing tiny, thin scarves that would never stand up to New England winters, snow plays a magical role in Lorelai's life, appearing during her first kiss and the birth of her daughter. Lorelai is able to smell when snow is coming, which she always sees as a special event just for her. In addition to Lorelai's special snow moments, Stars Hollow also boasts the infamous winter carnival and an intense snowman making competition that Jess rigs in Rory's favor. To quote Lorelai herself, "Everything is magical when it snows," and I completely agree.
As Seen on Screen
Last summer while at the beach, I read Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians, the first installment in his trilogy about Singapore's mysterious, wealthy elite. The movie version of the 2013 novel debuted in theaters last month and is has made quite the splash at the box office, making a projected $117 million and breaking records to become the top-selling romantic comedy in nine years. What does this tell us? People are showing up to see diversity on the big screen and well-written romantic comedies with smart, female leads (Rachel Chu is an econ professor!) are a worthy investment. Crazy Rich Asians tells the story of Rachel Chu (played by the charming Constance Wu), an NYU professor who is dating Nick Young (played by the dashing Henry Golding). These two have been together for almost a year and Nick wants to bring Rachel home to Singapore to attend his best friend's wedding and meet his family. After some initial nerves, Rachel enthusiastically agrees to go with, but upon reaching the airport, where the two are taken to fancy first-class seats, she learns that Nick's family is very wealthy. As the movie goes on, Rachel realizes the extent of his wealth (some would say he's crazy rich...) and is met with a cold welcome from Nick's mom, who doesn't think an unknown Chinese-American is good enough to marry her son. It's a fun twist on a Cinderella story that follows the romantic comedy formula enough to make it familiar, while also being incredibly unique. In last week's article about To All the Boys I've Loved Before, I talked about how refreshing it was to see a movie where the leading lady doesn't have to transform herself to make a boy like her. The same is true with Crazy Rich Asians. Rachel doesn't change much throughout the movie, especially in Nick's eyes, but she does learn that she has to fight for what she wants to show Nick's mom who she really is. As pointed out on The Bechdel Cast podcast about the movie, the makeover montage in the film isn't about using different outfits to get a boy to notice you at a big event. It was about Rachel making a statement to Nick's mom and to the rest of the world that she could belong with Nick, if that's what she wanted. The makeover scene took place as a Cantonese version of Madonna's Material Girl played, and it was movie perfection. Another excellent use of music was the Mandarin cover of Coldplay's Yellow, used at the end of the film. The director of the movie, Jon M. Chu, wrote a moving letter to Coldplay asking specifically to use this hit song. Another stand-out from the film is Awkwafina (playing best friend Peik Lin), who delivers hilarious one-liner after hilarious one-liner. My only major complaint about the film is that the writers chose to give creepy jokes to Peik Lin's father and brother (jokes about taking pictures of women will never be funny, let's just stop with them) instead of giving all jokes to Awkwafina. Otherwise the writers of the film, Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim, did a great job of trimming down Kevin Kwan's book to bring new focus to the script and still give you a taste of the different people and personalities that make up Nick Young's glamorous life. From his eccentric cousins to his supportive best friend to his closest family member, Astrid, to his complicated mother, it was so exciting to see all of these characters come to life on the big screen. Crazy Rich Asians is only the second Hollywood studio movie ever (the first was 1993's Joy Luck Club) to have an entire Asian-American cast, so I'm going to close out with a couple articles about the film and what it has meant to audiences. You can read the enthusiastic and emotional reactions on social media. You can read thoughts from cast members, who are excited to finally be starring in a big-budget film. And you can read this fascinating Hollywood Reporter article about the decision to turn down a huge Netflix offer in order to get Crazy Rich Asians on the big screen, where it belongs.
Required Reading
Last weekend, I went to the National Book Festival to hear from some amazingly talented authors, including James and Deborah Fallows, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Meg Wolitzer and Celeste Ng. In the final session I attended, Celeste sat down with Rumaan Alam to discuss her latest book, Little Fires Everywhere and her approach to writing. While she spoke, Celeste also talked about the importance of seeing a range of experiences on screen and referenced Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Danger of a Single Story TED Talk. Celeste said we can't keep putting pressure on a sole representative to depict the female experience or the Asian experience; we need to have a many women and many Asian men and women telling stories, so that all experiences are shown and celebrated. It reminded me of an article I just read, where Rebecca Traister sat down with writers from Full Frontal With Samantha Bee to talk about the show and the importance of diversity behind the scenes. It was exciting to see all of these topics intersect at last week's event. And even though Madeleine Albright's session at the Book Festival was too full for me to go to, here's a gif of her and Samantha Bee to close out this week's issue.
