I first encountered Gilmore Girls the summer I turned eleven. My parents had work and left my sister and I at home with a babysitter. It was on during that summer that you could usually find me sitting in front of the tv watching Gilmore Girls in its entirety at 11 in the morning.
Throughout the years I kept watching miscellaneous episodes sporadically. Never fully sitting down to watch them in order, but always vaguely remembering where exactly in the plot the episode fell.
Deciding to re-watch the series after the revival was announced was a no-brainer for me. Thus leading to growing fond of the character and Stars Hollow once more.
Finally, Thanksgiving Week arrived and my excitement grew even more. I cleared my afternoon and sat down in front of the tv, notifying my family members that I should not be interrupted until after I finished the four episodes.
Finally, with popcorn in hand and drinks nearby, I sat down ready to be amazed.
Imagine my surprise when after the first episode, I couldn’t even find the motivation to play the next.
The first scene was cute enough. It starts with some of the oh-so-typical Lorelai/Rory banter that I had grown to love. My first doubts started to creep in shortly when they reach the house and we find out that Rory has had a two year boring boyfriend whom she can never even remember, is now homeless, and possibly without a stable job.
Where was the organized almost kid prodigy bookworm I had grown to love?
However, I powered through. Deciding to give the episode the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Sherman-Palladino was trying to get one message across: no one is perfect.
However, it only took half an hour into the episode for me to completely lose hope.
We find Lorelai and Rory at Emily’s house for the typical friday night dinner. Enter Berta, a middle aged Hispanic woman who opens the door and speaks in short, rapid Spanish sentences, leaving Lorelai confused.
I shrugged the first encounter off thinking it wouldn’t be relevant soon enough. Surely, this would only be a one time weak attempt at a joke to reference a dumb stereotype.
Oh, but the horror grew.
In a matter of minutes, we find that not only does Berta work for Emily, but her husband and children have moved into the house as well. Granted, Emily doesn’t even know if these are Berta’s children because she can’t even communicate properly with her to ask.
Speaking of Emily’s communication skills, she’s resorted to vaguely signing and pointing at objects to try and express what she needs Berta and her husband to do.
I found my patience and hopes wearing thin. In just one short conversation, Sherman-Palladino portrays an outdated racist stereotype that the Latinx community has fought to eliminate for so long. Sherman-Palladino basically says “Hispanics are still impossible to understand, and too lazy to learn English.” Not only that, but she paints Berta as a somewhat ditzy woman who only smiles, nods, and speaks in short sentences. As if she couldn’t tell that she’s not being understood.
It’s not like Hispanic immigrants come to the United States ready to work tooth and nail for everything. It’s not like most struggle and sacrifice almost everything they have to learn an entirely new, confusing, and complicated language that even native speakers sometimes struggle with just to be able to obtain some job opportunities.
In just one conversation, Sherman-Palladino basically looked at all of that, went “nope, not relevant” and erased it all, subtly implementing what I can only guess she thought would be a funny bit.
Tired already, I decided to power through the episode regardless. I was only halfway through. Maybe, it would get better. Surely, they wouldn’t have spent so much time promoting and talking about this wonderful revival only to leave me so disappointed.
I was wrong.
It took about twenty more minutes for what little hopes I had left to completely fly out the window.
Lorelai goes back to Emily’s house only to find utter chaos inside. It seems as if twenty or more Hispanics are helping move everything outside.
I tried keeping my cool. Everyone hires people to help with big moves. It’s logical.
I lost my cool quickly with just one terrible attempt at a joke.
Lorelai enters the house to find around thirty or more people whom she doesn’t know. They’re all moving boxes and objects from one room to another. Logically, she asks who they are only to have Emily point at a yet again smiling and nodding Berta, a man whom she mistakes for Berta’s husband and then shrugs the rest away with “and I think those are someone’s parents”.
But wait, there’s more!
To top it all off, Emily goes on to explain to Lorelai that she’s tried to find a way to communicate other than miming. She says she brought a friend who works at the UN over and that they couldn’t figure out what language was being spoken either.
This would be a completely valid excuse. If it wasn’t Spanish.
As if Spanish wasn’t one of the six official UN languages. As if the United States didn’t have one of the highest Spanish speaking populations second only to Mexico. In fact, the Spanish speaking population is growing so fast in the US, that the United States could possibly hold the largest Spanish speaking population by 2050.
So, no. I refuse to accept that this bit could have possibly been intended as a harmless joke. Because regardless of the good or bad intentions that Sherman-Palladino had when writing it, the truth lies in the fact that it only perpetuates an outdated, racist, dumb stereotype.
Granted, Gilmore Girls was never known for its vast character diversity. This show only showed the Kims and Michel as frequent POC characters in the entirety of its seven seasons, but it’s this same fact that leads me to pose the question: Where is the progress?
I get it, Sherman-Palladino wanted to stick with the old characters. She wanted to make it nostalgic and emotional. However, the show would have been the same without Berta and her family.
