The Rory Effect

Rory Gilmore. One half of the fast-talking, caffeine-guzzling, sarcastic duo that was CW’s Gilmore Girls. A fictional character.

From the beginning, Rory was an over-achiever who you couldn’t bring yourself to hate. She was kind, sweet, extremely smart, and beautiful. You probably would have tried damn hard to dig up some dirt on her during high school. And Rory was a journalist, perhaps one of the only young figures in pop culture to go the journalism route.

And so it was in their perfect little world of Stars Hollow. Small mini-dramas, Rory went to Yale (of course), became Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Daily News (how convenient), and graduated with a nice little reporting job all lined up. In the end she got to meet Christiane Amanpour too, who just so happened to be hanging out in the idyllic town’s Inn.

I’m one to be jealous of fictional characters. I love Bridget Jones and her snarky ways. I’d rather be touring with famous rock stars like Penny Lane. My first real role-model came when I was 10 years old after I read Little Women and decided to become Jo…

But I’m torn with Rory Gilmore. She had everything laid out for her journalism career, and she didn’t even have to go to J-School. Covering the Obama campaign for a website? Perfect. Yes, in the end, she didn’t get the Reston Fellowship at the New York Times like she dreamed. It was nice of the writers to finally make Rory a bit more believable and *gasp* deny her something.

All this thought over a fictional character, you ask? The only explanation must be my impending tip of the graduation cap. So sue me for being sceptical and jealous of Rory Gilmore, but she’s the only fictional character I had to look at in the journalism field (Ray Romano from Everybody Loves Raymond aside…). And as much as I loved the show, I’m disappointed in their portrayal of Rory’s career.

Most journalism grads will tell you that the going is tough. There are way too many of us coming out with journalism degrees and way too many papers with dying budgets and readerships. After four years of working my ass off at school, on the campus paper, and with three internships under my belt, I shouldn’t expect any more than months of job searching to maybe settle for a small circulation daily where I’ll cover the County Fair.

Yes my friends, it’s peanuts for us. Of course, everyone should pay their dues, and there will always be SOME sort of job. I just wish that Gilmore Girls writers would have portrayed a more accurate media market. Its fiction, but millions of youngsters watched Rory and are probably thinking that a glamorous journalism career is just that easy. I’m hoping it will be that easy for me, but I’m too disillusioned to hold on.