“Camelot is truly dead”

LORELAI: Do you know that butt models make $10,000 a day? [Rory chuckles]
EMILY: Camelot is truly dead.

Camelot is the name of King Arthur’s castle and court in Arthurian legend. Americans use the term to refer to the presidency of John F. Kennedy, which was first applied by his widow Jacqueline Kennedy after his assassination in 1963.

Jackie referenced a line from the 1960 stage musical Camelot: “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief, shining moment, that was known as Camelot”. Indicating that this was one of John F. Kennedy’s favourite lyrics from the musical, she added, “There will be great presidents again, but there’ll never be another Camelot again”.

I’m not sure where Lorelai received her information from, but butt models in the movies actually make about $500 a day, double that if they go nude. Outside the movies, it might be as little as $200 a day – they get paid by the hour, and let’s face it, hardly anybody wants to film a single butt all day. These days, a butt model could make as much as $5000 from just one Instagram post, but that isn’t the norm, and the option didn’t exist in 2001.

The Kennedy Clan

EMILY: Well, this is just ridiculous. Three intelligent women sitting here in complete silence. There must be something to talk about. Do you know that every night at dinner, the Kennedy clan would sit around the table having lively debates about everything under the sun? They would quiz each other about current events, historical facts, intellectual trivia. Now the Gilmore clan is just as smart and worldly as the Kennedys, so come on – somebody say something.

The Kennedy family have been prominent in American politics, business, and public life since the 1880s, with many of them elected to political office since the post-war era. Some of their most famous members include Joseph P. Kennedy, ambassador to the UK 1938-1940; John F. Kennedy, president from 1961-1963; Robert Kennedy, senator for New York from 1965-1968, and Ted Kennedy, senator for Massachussets from 1962-2009.

Emily is correct that the Kennedy family would quiz each other at the dinner table, but it was a far more competitive environment than she makes it sound. Joseph Kennedy would set one of his children a topic to study, and all the others would have to study it too so that they could quiz him or her to see how well they had learned and understood the topic. Joseph would sometimes enliven proceedings with dinner time lectures, complete with maps and notes.

Incidentally, one of the Kennedys is named Rory – Rory Kennedy (born 1968) is the daughter of Senator Robert Kennedy, born six months after his assassination; her name was chosen to sound like his (“Bobby”). She is a documentary film maker, and her first film was American Hollow in 1999, about life in an Appalachian valley (it bears little resemblance to Stars Hollow). I don’t know if Kennedy influenced the choice of Rory Gilmore’s name in any way.

“Peace out, Humphrey”

EMILY: Everyone’s awfully quiet tonight.
LORELAI: Sorry Mom, I’m just tired.
RORY: Me too – school.
LORELAI: Work.
RORY: Life.
LORELAI: Dig it, man.
RORY: Peace out, Humphrey.

The audience knows why Lorelai and Rory are so quiet. Rory is depressed about breaking up with her boyfriend Dean, and Lorelai’s relationship with Max has hit an impasse: they reunited and both love each other, but the problems that ended their relationship are still there with no solutions in sight.

Lorelai says, “Dig it, man”, which is hippie slang from the 1960s meaning, “Get it, understand it, know it”. The hippies might have added the “man”, but “dig it” goes back at least to the 1930s as African-American slang, and even in the 19^th century Americans spoke about “digging” in the sense of knowing or studying something.

Rory responds in a similarly counter-culture way by saying “Peace out, Humphrey”. “Peace out” is hippie slang meaning “Goodbye, go in peace”, influenced by the radio sign-off, “Over and out”.

Rory is possibly referring to Hubert Humphrey (1911-1978) who was the Vice President under President Lyndon Johnson from 1965 to 1969. The main author of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he introduced the initiative of the Peace Corps and the National Peace Agency. Sceptical of the war in Vietnam, he was forced to support it in loyalty to Johnson. He was the Democratic nominee in the 1968 presidential election but lost to Richard Nixon – you could say that he “peaced out”.

Divergent Dating Lives

When Lorelai gets back from Hartford and returning Sookie’s car, she finds Rory is already home from the party and is crying on the sofa while eating from two enormous tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Lorelai immediately phones the delivery service and orders a pizza – luckily the pizza place is still taking orders this late at night. (Stars Hollow – where businesses open at 6 am and are still running past midnight; it’s the small town that never sleeps).

It is now Lorelai’s turn to comfort Rory, just as her daughter comforted her when she broke up with Max a couple of months ago. Lorelai cannot tell Rory that she is back with Max, as her daughter is too distraught about her relationship ending.

Lorelai and Rory started out with their dating lives running in parallel, but they are now divergent (although they both got kissed in Hartford on the same night). Rory and Dean have broken up while Lorelai and Max got back together. Just as Lorelai began dating Max once she saw that Rory was happy with Dean, she got back with Max once she saw how miserable Rory was without Dean.

Tristan and Rory Kiss

TRISTAN: You are very odd, you know that?
RORY: Thank you.
TRISTAN: You’re welcome. [he kisses her. Rory pulls away crying] I’m sorry, what did I do? Did I bite your lip or something?
RORY: No, it’s not you. It’s just – I have to go. [runs out crying.]

It’s notable that Rory said “thank you” to Dean after he first kissed her, and now she says “thank you” just before Tristan kisses her. It is being kissed by Tristan which reminds Rory of her feelings for Dean, and this is what opens the floodgates so that she is ready to cry and mourn for their relationship.

The Crystal Lake

This 2000 song by indie rock band Grandaddy plays in the background while Rory and Tristan talk in the piano room, and eventually kiss. The song was a single from their album The Sophtware Slump, previously discussed, and went to #38 in the UK.

The Crystal Lake is about someone who leaves a small town full of hopes for the future, but is disillusioned by city life. In the same way, Rory thought that by getting out of Stars Hollow for the night she could run away from her problems, only to discover that the party in Hartford only brought her problems into sharper relief. The song makes specific reference to the emptiness of parties, and this one has left Rory feeling worse than ever.

The Art of Eating

This is the book that Rory reads at Madeline’s party; she mentions to Tristan that the party gave her a chance to catch up on her reading.

The Art of Eating is a book of essays by M.F.K. Fisher, first published in 1954. Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was one of America’s greatest food writers, and wrote 37 books on food in her lifetime, which combine food literature, travel, and memoir.

The Art of Eating collects five of her most famous books into one volume: How to Cook a Wolf (1942), Consider the Oyster (1941), Serve it Forth (1937), The Gastronomical Me (1943), and Alphabet for Gourmets (1949). The books includes portraits of quirky family and friends, travel notes from Fisher’s time in France, and tips on surviving World War II, interspersed with recipes.

Although it might seem strange that the junk food loving Rory would read a book on gourmet food, M.F.K. Fisher has a wonderful and witty prose style that any aspiring writer could admire. Her life of travel and adventure is something Rory would love to have, and throughout the series both Rory and Lorelai showed a great interest in biography and memoir of all kinds. It is also reminiscent of Lorelai’s fascination with the Food Network after breaking up with Max.

(Another odd link between Rory and the author is that Fisher and her first husband celebrated their three-month wedding anniversary by going out to a good restaurant. It strangely seems to fit with Rory’s situation, as she and Dean just celebrated their three-month anniversary at a bistro. Perhaps the fact that it was Fisher’s first husband is also relevant – Dean is just her first boyfriend).

“Fifteen years”

HENRY: Sorry I’ve been monopolising Lane all night.
RORY: Oh no, that’s okay. I’ve had her for fifteen years. I’m actually a little sick of her.

That would mean that Rory and Lane have known each other since they were one year old, but Rory didn’t move to Stars Hollow until she was nearly two. This might show again that the original intention was for Lorelai and Rory to move to Stars Hollow in 1985, when Rory was only a few months old.

Henry

LANE: I have a major problem … Henry, the guy I’ve been dancing with? … Okay so he’s really good in school, he’s going to be a doctor – pediatrician to be exact – his parents are extremely involved in their local church. He himself helps out with Sunday school. He speaks Korean fluently, he respects his parents, and he’s also really cute, very funny, and surprisingly interesting.
RORY: Lane I’m sorry, but I’m totally failing to see the problem here.
LANE: I’m falling for a guy my parents would approve of! They’d love him, they’d go crazy! There’d be dancing in the Kim house! Dancing!

When Lane meets Henry Cho (Eddie Shin) and is genuinely attracted to him, she is horrified to discover that a smart Korean-American future doctor really isn’t such a bad proposition after all. We see now that Lane would never have been happy with any boy her parents set her up with, as what she really wants is someone her parents wouldn’t approve of. Who knows how many nice boys Lane has rejected simply because they were foisted on her by her parents?

By the way, this exchange shows that the Kims are not complete religious bigots: Henry isn’t a Seventh Day Adventist as he assists at Sunday school, but Lane’s parents would still approve of him. They obviously don’t insist that their daughter marry someone of the same religion, and just being a Christian is enough.

Henry has, for some reason, the same name as the actor Henry Cho, who had been in films such as McHale’s Navy, and Say It Isn’t So, later alluded to as one of the possible “disgusting cow” movies of 2001. He was also a guest on An Evening at the Improv, later discussed.

From Red to Blue

This 1996 song by English alternative folk singer Billy Bragg plays in the background while Henry and Lane slow dance, and Rory sits in another room to read, where she witnesses Tristan and Summer have another fight.

From Red to Blue is the first track from Bragg’s album William Bloke. It’s another song about a relationship break up, but this time between two friends. Although the “red” and “blue” in the song describe British political parties, they might indicate on the show that Rory’s focus from sublimated anger is turning to sadness.