Women in Media Letter: Amy Sherman-Palladino

Dear Amy Sherman-Palladino,

The decision of which woman in media I should write my letter to for this week’s Women in Communication’s meeting is one I assumed would be a hard and long process. First off, there are SO many different kinds of media, and I consume and interact with a lot of it. Journalism, Television, Film, Video Games, Graphic Design, you name it and I can name three women I admire in that field. Equally challenging is choosing only ONE woman to dedicate all your feelings and admiration towards. Nothing could be comprehensive and therefore nothing would satisfy me.

However, the more I tried to narrow down the selection, the more I realized I was looking at the problem the wrong way. Yes, there are a lot of women in media who I could compliment for multiple pages worth of a letter, but there is only one who actually changed my course of thinking about media and its possibilities. And that’s the creator and writer of the show that made me fall in love with television.

Growing up I had trouble with change. Consistency comforted me and made me feel safe through all the nonsense of my childhood. And television, for all that I liked it, never really gave me the comfort that I craved so much. I felt like the television shows I watched treated their characters sadistically, putting them through the worst that life and imagination could offer for sake of growth that I didn’t value as a child. They made me more anxious than I was regularly (which if you know me you understand is saying a lot.)

As I grew up to learn, and continue to learn in my screenwriting classes, television shows are built on the potential for conflict. And I hate it.

Gilmore Girls felt different.

When my mom and I began watching Gilmore Girls in 2004 right before my dad passed away, I knew the show was special to me. It was a world I wanted to return to, live in, and observe every opportunity I got. The show didn’t need convoluted plot twists, sensational character betrayals, or murder to make it interesting or heighten the stakes. The stakes of Gilmore girls were personal and more compelling and impactful because of it. The characters were flawed and made mistakes but forgave each other for them, and were good people despite of them.

Gilmore Girls gave me comfort and entertainment at the same time.

This is not to say Gilmore Girls doesn’t have conflict, or isn’t good because it’s different, but rather to say that the conflict in Gilmore Girls is digestible and better than any other show I’ve seen. The problems the characters go through make you think on a intimate, personal level. It’s not, what would I do with my husband murdered someone? Or what would I do if I could become Queen of a kingdom? It was what would I do if my ex-boyfriend’s new fiance is pregnant and invited me and my daughter to her baby shower and I had to pretend to wanted to be there? It was what if the town mayor wants to build a municipal museum in our town with zero interesting history?

Gilmore Girls changed the way I thought about television and what it could be for me. I suddenly thought I could create something like it someday (if I got better at writing and traded my Warrior Cats fanfiction for a script.) It showed me that people want to see more than worlds with gritty drama or baseless comedy, sometimes they wanted a warm blanket that made them think.

So, what I really want to say here, to you, Amy, who will never read this, is thank you. Thank you for introducing me to my favorite topic of conversation, my pick-me-up when I’ve had a bad day, my inspiration for all I hope I can achieve.

So really the decision should have been very simple.

Sincerely,

Liza