The embodiment of melodrama, the Gilmore Girls utilizes techniques ... The essential paradox of the genre of melodrama exists in the fact that Melodrama endeavors to work within the confines of patriarchy- it attempts to dismantle the master's house with the use of the master's vocabulary- but it remains to be a "gynocentric genre". Melodrama's are "woman's films". They are "weepies". Thus, they cater to an audience and a demographic which not only expect but demand the subversion of phallocentric conventions, they are preaching to the choir. The Gilmore Girls thus exists as revolutionary- it has exploded the genre of melodrama to reach an audience that is in need of exposure to alterity... It invites the heterosexual male gaze without doing violence to the female subject by compromising feminine subjectivity and autonomy. The self-reflexivity of the genre... offers a world in which a strong female and male can coexist, recoding heterosexuality... the solution is here!

Wheras much of feminist film theory denies the heterosexual male gaze as the ultimate oppressor, where does this leave the options for feminine sexuality? In lesbianism? Harkening back to the traditional term of melodrama is it existed before its containment to a single genre- indulges in a realist voacbulary, seizes upon its context, refuses to be denied the tools of patriarchy and instead embraces them to create an alternative language that is not reliant upon the suppression of the Other