Just Gilmore Girly Things: The Unacknowledged Dirty That Was Done to Lane

Just Gilmore Girly Things is a blog series on my inexplicable obsession with the CW/WB series Gilmore Girls that aired from 2000-2007. This series explores the personal and social connections I’ve made in my repeated watch-throughs over the last 23 years that nobody asked for. 

And we’re back to Gilmore Girls. But thematically, I think this is a great way to follow up on my last post because, like my own storyline, Lane was truly done dirty throughout this entire series. 

Lane (Keiko Agena) is Rory’s (Alexis Bledel) oldest and dearest friend in Stars Hollow—and probably the character I could relate to most as a racialized kid in a predominantly white suburb in the early 2000s. She’s the child of Seventh Day Adventist Korean immigrants. Her father is mostly absent but her mother (Emily Kuroda) is far stricter than Lorelai (Lauren Graham), making the Gilmore house a safe haven for self-exploration.

Sort of. While I do relate to her adolescent, starry-eyed admiration of the Gilmore Girls, I also recognize the deep-seated internalized racism that’s embedded into it. And it’s something that Rory (knowingly or not) reaps the benefits of without ever even noticing or acknowledging it. 

I was very much like Lane growing up. I lived a double-life, one where I tried my best to please my parents and extended family at home, and one where my real personality and interests could emerge and sought acceptance amongst my peers. My parents were adamant that boys were dirty and that I should never trust them, and they were controlling and critical of every move I made that drove me to my friends and then partners to seek refuge and escape. 

I’ll get into Lane’s relationship with her mom more later, but this dynamic created the foundation for Rory, and then Zack (Todd Lowe), to keep their egos well-inflated off of her devotion. 

Rory and Lane met in kindergarten when Lane immediately offered her crayons to Rory and they became instant friends. However, Rory also has a steady habit of taking Lane for granted, and Lane rarely ever expects more from her. Lane is used to the idea of her being locked away in her home while Rory gets fed stories of travelling the world and being anything she wants to be. But Rory never contradicts this to her. 

When Rory is quiet, reserved, nose buried in books, she’s not-like-other-girls. When Lane does it, she’s a good-little-Korean-girl. Rory has her pick of any possible futures she can aspire to if she wants, but she’s always chosen to follow the path that her mother laid out for her, and even when she goes off it, she has her mother’s support and encouragement first. But we don’t even get an idea of what kind of future Lane wants until a music store finally opens up in Stars Hollow and Lane finds her calling as a drummer. 

Rory spends her entire childhood leaning on Lane as a friend. Lane knows all about Rory’s family problems, relationship problems, career aspirations, her problems at Chilton. And while Rory talks about travelling the world and learning multiple languages, at no point does Rory ever talk about Korea, try to learn to speak Korean, or show any interest in Lane’s culture (despite being named an “honorary Korean”), even when she’s planning to spend a summer traipsing around Asia with her rich white boyfriend. But she is more than happy to join in on whatever mockery that Lane engages in out of resentment towards her family.

You see what I’m saying?

The only time we ever see Rory acknowledge any racism that Lane experiences, it’s when Rory’s living with her grandmother (Kelly Bishop) and refers to Lane as Rory’s “Asian friend.” While Rory indignantly repeats Lane’s name to get her to stop, she never actually addresses the racism or sets any real boundaries with her grandmother to respect her “best friend.”

I’ve had these types of friendships in my childhood and adolescence. I’ve been their badge of progressive values—look how tolerant she is, she’s got brown friends—even if they’ve somehow never seen anyone be racist towards you. They love you when you build them up, but when you need them, where are they? 

Fortunately for me, I went to university in downtown Toronto and I started working in an office with predominantly racialized women, which helped me to reconcile the casual and subtle racist experiences I grew up enveloped by and how that impacted me. I stopped making an effort at maintaining those friendships and ended up finding community where it felt like I was finally tasting fresh air after a lifetime held captive in a dank windowless room. 

But for Lane, she doesn’t leave Stars Hollow. Which is why after catching the eyes of boys like Henry Cho (Eddie Shin) and Dave Rygalski (Adam Brody)—intellectual, charming and attentive—Lane ends up married to Zack Van Gerbig, the lead singer of the band she joined with her ex-boyfriend. The guy who everyone in her life before she starts dating him agrees is probably the weakest link in the whole group. And no one ever goes, hey Lane, shouldn’t you raise your standards a little?

Which is a lot like how I ended up in my first domestically abusive relationship. When I began to complain about red flags in my then boyfriend, a lot of white women around me raised their eyebrows and made me feel ungrateful. When I entered that office of predominantly racialized women, they instantly started to ask why I kept putting up with such loser behaviour. When I left that office, it became a lot easier for him to convince me to start accepting it again. 

I’m lucky that I did have friends who saw me and accepted me from the start, or I may never have gotten out of that life at all. Having a best friend stand by me for over 20 years, who I’ve had difficult conversations with and has held me accountable and allowed me to hold them accountable, helped me look for friendships that felt similarly as I got older. It helped me walk away from toxic ones sooner. It helped me realize that I should feel just as loved and accepted in my romantic partnerships. 

Anyways, I think if Rory had been a real friend to Lane, she wouldn’t have let her get stuck in Stars Hollow, she would’ve lifted Lane up and told her to raise the bar. But instead, Lane is there to make Rory feel exciting and adventurous and like she’s better than Lane. So I choose to keep trying to imagine what life would have been like for Lane if she’d grown up with some better friends.