Screwball Television: Critical Perspectives on Gilmore Girls Edited by David Scott Diffrient and David Lavery The Television Series: Syracuse University Press

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Contributors

Introduction: You’re about to be Gilmored

I. Authorship, Genre, Literacy, Televisuality

Chapter 1—“Impossible Girl”: Amy Sherman-Palladino and Television Creativity

David Lavery

Chapter 2—Branding the Family Drama: Genre Formations and Critical Perspectives on Gilmore Girls

Amanda Keeler

Chapter 3—Your Guide to the Girls: Gilmore-isms, Cultural Capital, and a Different Kind of Quality TV

Justin Owen Rawlins

Chapter 4—TV “Dramedy” and the Double-Sided “Liturgy” of Gilmore Girls

Giada DaRos

II. Real and Imagined Communities (in Town and Online)

Chapter 5—The Gift of Gilmore Girls’ Gab: Fan Podcasts and the Task of “Talking Back” to TV

David Scott Diffrien

Chapter 6—“I will try harder to merge the worlds”: Expanding Narrative and Navigating Spaces in Gilmore Girls

Radha O’Meara

Chapter 7—“You’ve always been the Head Pilgrim Girl”: Stars Hollow as the Embodiment of the American Dream

Alyson R. Buckman

Chapter 8—Town Meetings of the Imagination: Northern Exposure and Gilmore Girls

Jane Feuer

III Race, Class, Education, Profession

Chapter 9—Escaping from Korea: Cultural Authenticity and Asian American Identities in Gilmore Girls

Hye Seung Chung

Chapter 10—“The Thing that Reads a Lot”: Bibliophilia, College Life, and Literary Culture in Gilmore Girls

Anna Viola Sborgi

Chapter 11—Stars Hollow, Chilton, and the Politics of Education in Gilmore Girls

Matthew Nelson

Chapter 12—“You Don’t Got It”: What It Takes to Make It as a Journalist in Gilmore Girls

Angel Castaños Martínez, Amor Munoz Bécares, and Sarah Caitlin Lavery

IV Food, Addiction, Gender, Sexuality

Chapter 13—Pass the Pop-Tarts: The Gilmore Girls’ Perpetual Hunger

Susannah B. Mintz and Leah Mintz

Chapter 14—“Nigella’s Deep-Frying a Snickers Bar!”: Addiction as Social Construct in Gilmore Girls

Joyce Goggin

Chapter 15—Java Junkies vs. Balcony Buddies: Gilmore Girls, “Shipping,” and Contemporary Sexuality

A. Rochelle Mabry

Chapter 16—“But Luke and Lorelai Belong Together!” Relationships, Social Control, and Gilmore Girls

Jimmie Manning

Chapter 17—“What a Girl Wants”: Men and Masculinity in Gilmore Girls

Laura Nathan

Appendix: Complete Episode List

Notes

Works Cited

Index