Entrepreneurship in Gilmore Girls

This is a guest post by Mary Frances as a part of The Blog Off marathon. You can support the marathon by donating to The Actors Fund charity. Mary Frances has decided to discuss Entrepreneurship in Gilmore Girls:

There are lots of examples of business owners/entrepreneurs on the show … in fact, when Jess is working for WalMart, it really stands out as an example of corporate America and is representative of Jess taking the "wrong path" by skipping school to work for The Man! Remember Luke’s speech to Jess about his pride in owning his own business?

"I own this business, kid! I built it, this is mine! I’m not at the mercy of some boss waiting and hoping to be chosen employee of the month for a couple extra hundred bucks and a plaque. I’m always employee of the month. I’m employee of the year, of the century, of the universe. You should be so lucky to have a job like mine."

Examples of Entrepreneurship in Gilmore Girls:

• Luke’s Diner (obvious)
• The Dragonfly Inn (we get to see Lorelai and Sookie go through the entire process of starting a business – buying the property, money issues, being stressed and over-extended, staffing problems, not being able to delegate …)
• Doose’s Market & Taylor’s Soda Shoppe and Ice Cream Parlour
• Jackson’s Vegetables
• Miss Patty’s School of Dance
• Star’s Hollow Books (Andrew’s Book store)
• The Gilmore Group (when Richard finds he hates retirement and starts HIS own business; Lorelai gets him organized and helps him hire an assistant; he takes on Jason Stiles as a partner and then get embroiled in dirty business dealings with Floyd Stiles and screws Jason over)
• Antonelli’s Pizza (who make Lorelai’s giant birthday pizza, and is a business that Lorelai and Rory have supported for many years)
• Sophie’s Music Store (we see what an impact that has on Lane, brings music to Star’s Hollow)
• Bootsy’s NewsStand (although at a town meeting, Luke challenges Bootsy’s contention that he’s an "entre-prenewer" because Bootsy inherited the newsstand from his father and didn’t start the business himself)

Arieanna’s thoughts: I believe Kirk was also a big entrepreneur in Gilmore Girls. Perhaps, indeed, one of the biggest. He was constantly starting new businesses!

Can you think of some other entrepreneurs in Gilmore Girls? How did this theme impact the show? Is the presence of so many strong people part of why the show is/was so inspiring to so many people?

If you recall, a series of Kirk’s Town Tour videos came out near the end of the series. Here is the Luke’s Diner segment (you can see the rest here):

Image: Amazon.com ; Tags: gilmore girls, stars hollow, entrepreneur, businesses, gilmore girls discussions