When fall rolls around and the leaves start looking like the ones in Stars Hollow, I turn to Gilmore Girls as my comfort show. I have always romanticized Rory’s relationships and academia, longing for the idilic life she lives. However, it was not until I watched the show for the fourth time this fall season that I decided to take my focus away from Rory and notice how her best friend Lane, an Asian woman, is depicted. The show no longer had that same warm and fuzzy feeling it used to give me, as I constantly felt bad for Lane throughout the show.
Lane is no doubt one of my favorite characters on Gilmore Girls. Her upbeat, positive, and spunky attitude make her so likable. We constantly see her by Rory’s side, there as a vessel for advice and support with Rory’s dilemmas. Occasionally, Lane is able to talk about her own problems, but they always circle back to Rory. Don’t get me wrong — I know that Rory is the main character. However, Lane’s character development is on par with Rory’s. Even Rory as the main character could be depicted as a better friend by paying attention to what is going on in Lane’s life. When Lane does have a rare plot line, anything good that happens to her immediately terminates.
For example, in the first season, Lane tells Rory about a crush she has. When Lane sees her crush, she runs her fingers through his hair and runs away, feeling embarrassed and upset. Meanwhile, Rory is in a very successful and happy relationship with Dean, and there are no complications. Rory is blinded by her own happiness that she forgoes her role as Lane’s best friend who should be there while Lane deals with her mother’s pressure and boy problems.
Lane’s relationship with her mother is where we see the most depth to her character. Lane is seen throughout the show constantly rebelling against her strict mother’s rules. While Lane and Rory are both the same age and were raised in the same town, the way their mothers raised them is extremely different. We see how lax and fun Lorelai is when parenting Rory, how she is more of a friend or sister figure rather than a mother. She is always supportive of Rory’s decisions, especially when it comes to her relationships. Lane’s relationship with her mother vastly juxtaposes Lorelai’s and Rory’s relationship as Lane’s mother is seen more as an obstacle in her life rather than as a support system. Lane felt the need to hide her relationships from her mother, for example, when she briefly dated a Korean boy, Henry, who was bound to be a doctor. Ironically, he fit the standards that Mrs. Kim set for Lane, and yet, she still did not feel like she could talk to her mother about him. Lane always craved her mother’s validation and respect, but it seemed that she could never truly live up to her mother’s expectations of her.
There is a small glimmer of hope when we meet Dave Rogowski: the perfect guy. Dave liked Lane so much that was willing to hide their relationship from Lane’s mother, and also read the entire bible in one night to impress her mom. Lane and Dave were a match made in heaven… until he left for college and was never to be seen again. She then dates his certainly less perfect and less romantic bandmate Zack, who she inevitably marries and has twins with at an extremely young age. We are shown how miserable and uncomfortable Lane feels when pregnant, (which also happened to be an accidental pregnancy) while Rory is at Yale meeting new friends.
While it is so easy to get wrapped up in Rory’s fascinating life throughout the show, it is important to acknowledge how women of color are depicted in the series. Lane’s character was created for emotional support to Rory when in reality, her development should have been explored.