Gilmore Girls

Season 1, Episode 11: “Paris is Burning”

Gilmore Girls is a hit television series about a

mother named “Lorelei” who got pregnant with her daughter,

“Rory,” at sixteen years old. It focuses on the close bond

that this mother and daughter share now that Rory is a

teenager. Lorelei struggles being Rory’s mother and best

friend at the same time. In this particular episode,

Lorelei has started dating Rory’s teacher, Max Medina, and

has a hard time deciding if whether or not what she is

doing with Max is in Rory’s best interest. She struggles

with the decision of going to Parents Day at Rory’s school

because she is afraid to see Max since in this particular

setting he will be primarily Rory’s teacher.

In a scene near the beginning of the episode, Lorelei

and Rory have dinner with Lorelei’s difficult mother,

Emily. In this particular scene we see Emily use pathos and

angle of vision to manipulate Lorelei into going to

Parent’s Day when she was trying to avoid it to avoid

seeing Max. Emily brings it up during their Friday night

dinner:

“So Rory, tell me about Parents Day.”

Lorelei questions, “What?”

“Parents Day, next Wednesday when all the parents go

to classes with their children all day long.. Why

haven’t you read your newsletter Lorelei?”

“Mom, not everybody can wait outside the mailbox for the

Chilton newsletter to arrive and instantly memorize the

contents”

You’ve got your priorities far be it for me to question

them?

“Just because I

didn’t read the

newsletter doesn’t

mean I don’t care

about my daughter!”

“So are you going?”

“Why don’t we talk about it next Friday when I have

actually read the newsletter? “

“We could…except for the fact that if we talked about it

next Friday you would have already missed it since it’s on

Wednesday… I guess we could talk about how you missed it

then though…”

“I won’t miss it.”

“You know what… I’ll go for

you!”

“What? I’m not busy. I’m going. I will be there… End of

story.”

“Fine.”

In this scene Emily uses many different rhetorical

concepts to manipulate Lorelai. She appeals to Lorelei

through pathos by trying to make her feel bad for not being

on top of her child’s school and schedule. She tells

Lorelei “you’ve got your priorities far be it for me to

question them?” She acts surprised at Lorelei for not

having read the newsletter yet (even though it only came

out this morning) and in a way ends up bullying her into

going to Parents Day. She appeals to Lorelei’s emotions by

making Lorelei feel guilty, which we can see when Lorelei

feels the need to point out “Just because I didn’t read the

newsletter doesn’t mean I don’t care about my daughter!” We

also see that Lorelei gets frustrated and annoyed with

Emily throughout this conversation because through pathos,

Emily knows just how to get under Lorelei’s skin.

Emily also uses a very smart approach in this

conversation with Lorelei. She uses angle of vision to

manipulate Lorelei. She doesn’t really let Lorelei answer

any of the questions she asks and she is thinking ahead of

Lorelei the entire conversation, which kind of puts Lorelei

down in a way. She answers most of the questions herself,

even if Lorelei is talking and saying she will be there for

sure, she acts like Lorelei isn’t capable of handling her

own schedule to get to her daughter’s Parents Day.

Further in the episode, at school, Rory is witnessing

a bunch of gossip happening about a girl named Paris, whose

parents are getting a nasty divorce. This is first depicted

when we see Paris’ old best

friends, Madeline and

Louise, gossiping about

Paris’ parents and how it

is being written about in

the school newspaper. Paris

always tries to seem to come off as a bully and a tough

person when really Rory has witnessed Paris many times

being a good friend with sensitive feelings. Paris has a

bad attitude about all the gossip that is being talked

about at school and she is worried because “Parent’s Day”

is coming up at their school. She says rude things to her

best friends, Madeline and Louise before walking out of

class, which leads them to start gossiping about Paris’

family situation.

Lorelei is still worried about the situation with Max

and decides the smartest thing to do is to break up with

him to avoid any complications between her and Rory. She

decides she is going to end things with him on Parent’s Day

and that is what she has every intention of doing. When the

day comes and Mr. Medina’s class

is over, Lorelai hangs back to

talk to Max and breakup with

him. The opposite thing happens

and they end up in a very

passionate make out session, in which Paris looks in on.

Less than a minute later, Rory is at lunch and hears the

news that her mother was seen making out with Mr. Medina,

and she is really angry and goes to confront her mom.

Lorelei and Rory get into a big argument and Lorelei feels

terrible about what happened.

The following day at school people are still talking

about the lip action going on in Mr. Medina’s classroom.

Below is a scene, in which ethos, pathos, and logos can be

seen. It begins when Paris passes Rory and says,

“I wish my mom would sleep with my teacher, it’d sure

make midterms much easier.” This appeals to Rory’s emotions

through pathos, because it makes her mad and she stands up

to confront her:

“What is wrong with you? “

“Nothing I’m great.”

“You’ve walked around for

weeks with all of your

family’s personal

problems in the newspaper

for everyone to read and

talk about… I saw how

you walked around here, I saw how much you hated it… and

then you turn around and pull something like this? Doesn’t

that seem crazy to you? Do you have any idea how many

people you’ve hurt? Forget me and my mom, what about Mr.

Medina? He likes you, he encourages you. He holds up your

papers and tells the class how great you are and then you

turn around and spread stories about him.”

“I do like Mr. Medina… I probably shouldn’t have told

people what I saw.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

“I’m sorry, things have been not good lately. I just didn’t

want them talking about me anymore that’s all”

In this scene pathos can be perceived when Rory tries

to appeal to Paris’ emotional side. Rory compares what

Paris did to her, her mom, and Mr. Medina to what the

school’s newspaper had done to Paris when they flaunted her

parent’s divorce all over the school. Rory makes Paris

feel bad through pathos by making Paris remember how she

felt when people were all gossiping about her. It quickly

worked and Paris realized that what she did was wrong.

Pathos is what made Paris apologize in this scene and it

helped give her a clear understanding of how she hurt

innocent people for the sole purpose of making people stop

talking about her.

Rory is a very smart and mature young woman in which

many teenagers can relate. She appeals to the audience

through ethos as well mainly because she is such a

respected and well-known character. Paris might not respect

Rory at first in this scene, but the audience is on Rory’s

side in this conflict because she is a character that can

be trusted to do the right thing. In other words, Rory is

persuading the audience without even trying to through

ethos. She is primarily trying to persuade Paris to see

what she did wrong, but through ethos she appeals to the

audience as well because we know that the words coming out

of her mouth are credible and admirable. Another thing to

think about is what about Paris makes people believe that

the rumors that she is spreading are true. She appeals to

the audience through pathos because the audience already

knows Paris and the true character she is because of the

past episodes when the audience has gotten to know her.

Logos is portrayed in this scene when Rory uses

factual and logical evidence to support her disagreement

with Paris. She re-tells history, which is fact, by saying

that Paris walked around for weeks with all of her family’s

personal information in the newspaper for everybody to read

and talk about. This is a logical reason that makes Paris

think, come around and realize what she did because that is

not something that Paris can deny, it happened. Rory uses

logos before she uses pathos to really make Paris realize

the damage she had caused in spreading these stories and

gossiping about her and Lorelei throughout the whole

school.

Rory’s purpose of this confrontation is to make Paris

realize what she had done wrong and justify her reasons for

being upset with her in the first place. She doesn’t do it

out of spite. She does it because she feels Paris has

treated her wrongly for no apparent reason. Rory doesn’t

even let the gossip going around the school about her

really bother her at all. She just goes straight to the

source and nips it in the bud very effectively. Rory is a

teenager trying to get through high school. She deals with

issues of gossip and drama day in and day out because that

is what happens during your teenage years and especially

throughout middle and high school. Rory is a favorite

character of many in the Gilmore Girls series because she

is a main character but also because she is a good person

with a good heart trying to make it through high school.

The audience can relate to Rory through pathos because

they’ve all been there. It is unlikely to find a teenage

girl that has not witnessed, started, confronted, or

somehow been involved in gossip and drama.

Throughout this entire episode of Gilmore Girls many

dramatic things happened. The scene where Emily manipulates

Lorelei into going to Parent’s Day portrays pathos and

angle of vision. In the second scene when Rory confronts

Paris about the gossip she spread about her pathos, ethos,

logos, and pathos in conjunction with the audience are seen

very clearly. All of these rhetorical concepts and

functions help add more to the dramatic scenes and guide

the plot in the right direction towards the end of the

story. All of theses rhetorical concepts ultimately

function to teach a lesson about gossip. This episode is

based solely around gossip in that we learn about the

repercussions of spreading rumors and the kinds of things

that come from gossip in a relatable high school setting.

(1754 words)

http://www.tubeplus.me/movie/954725/Gilmore_Girls/season_1/

episode_11/Paris_Is_Burning/%22