Year: 2018

Max’s Morning Newspapers

 

Rory explains to Luke that Max likes to read three newspapers each morning.

The Hartford Courant is the largest newspaper in Connecticut, founded in 1764 as The Connecticut Courant – because of this, the newspaper claims to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the US, and its slogan is “Older than the nation”. Once a Republican paper, it is now more likely to endorse Democratic candidates, and has won several journalism awards. It was bought by the Tribune Company in 2000.

The New York Times is based in New York City, with an international readership and reputation. The 17th most popular newspaper in the world by circulation, it has won 125 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. Founded in 1851, it has been owned by the Ochs-Sulzberger family since 1896 (the real life inspiration for the fictional Huntzberger family in Gilmore Girls). Its motto is, “All the news that’s fit to print”).

The Wall Street Journal, previously discussed.

“You’ll get used to it”

RORY: Aren’t you happy?
LORELAI: Yes. I’m happy.
RORY: Well, then it’ll be fine. You’ll get used to it, having Max there.
LORELAI: I know. You’re right. I will. I will get used to it.

Lorelai has a freak out once Max is actually in her bed, in her house, and fears that she will completely lose the life she currently has. More importantly, she fears losing the “me and you secret special clubhouse no boys allowed” relationship she has with Rory.

Rory refuses to participate in Lorelai’s worries about how their life might change, and insists that she likes Max, and Lorelai will be fine about it too once she calms down. It is not clear whether she really has no concerns about adding Max to their household, or she refuses to be used as an excuse by Lorelai to end her relationship with Max.

Lorelai cannot return to bed with Max, and ends up sleeping in Rory’s bed for at least part of the night. This is a callback to how Lorelai and Rory shared a bed for a year or two when Rory was a baby/toddler, showing Lorelai’s need for bodily comfort from Rory, and a return to the complete physical closeness they had at the beginning of their relationship in Stars Hollow.

Them!

LORELAI: Our lives as we know them will be over.
RORY: Mom, we’re not dying.
LORELAI: No, we’re not dying. But the life we had is gonna morph into this, like, mutation that we could never possibly have conceived.
RORY: Like the giant ants in Them!?

Them!, is a 1954 science-fiction monster movie, directed by Gordon Douglas, and made by Warner Bros. In the film, a nest of giant irradiated ants is discovered in the New Mexico desert, and finally culminates in a battle against the ants in the Los Angeles sewers. It was one of the first “nuclear monster” films of the 1950s.

The film was a commercial success, and well-reviewed. It is now regarded as one of the greatest science-fiction films of the 1950s.

“Taking back Poland”

[Rory is sleeping. Lorelai walks in and sits on her bed.]
LORELAI: Hey.
RORY: What? What is it?
LORELAI: Oh nothing. Whatcha doing?
RORY: Taking back Poland.
LORELAI: Oh, good luck with that.

Poland was invaded in September 1939 by Germany and the Soviet Union, marking the beginning of World War II. The campaign ended in October 1939, when Germany and the Soviet Union divided the country between them – Germany annexed the west, and the Soviets the east.

Rory’s sleepily sarcastic reply suggests that she may have been studying World War II in History class the previous semester.

ElectraWoman and DynaGirl

LORELAI: We wore him out.
RORY: We tend to do that.
LORELAI: Well, we are ElectraWoman and DynaGirl.

ElectraWoman and DynaGirl is a live action children’s science fiction television show, a female version and parody of Batman and Robin, with Deirdre Hall playing caped crusader ElectraWoman, and Judy Strangis playing her teenaged sidekick DynaGirl. It aired as part of The Krofft Supershow in 1976-77, when Lorelai was aged 8 to 9. ElectraWoman’s real name was Lori, similar to Lorelai (DynaGirl’s was Judy).

The Gilmore Girls and Max

Lorelai and Rory treat Max abominably while he is a guest in their house. He cooks dinner for them, they force him to watch a movie of their choice, talk all the way through it, and don’t allow him to participate, and he has to answer the phone, even though it’s their home, and they are sitting closer to it (Lorelai explains the coffee table is blocking her path, and Rory that her foot has gone to sleep).

You can see that Lorelai and Rory sit next to each other on the floor, leaving Max alone on the sofa – not exactly a great omen for their future marriage. Also note that they have once again left most of a meal uneaten on their plates, even though they are supposed to be big eaters. Maybe it’s all the vegetables Max put in the dish?

If this weekend is a trial run for their future lives together, Max must surely be having some misgivings about that. It does show that Rory has learned how to treat her boyfriend (horribly) by her mother’s (terrible) example.

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

This novel is on the coffee table when Max, Lorelai and Rory watch a film together.

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ is a 1991 novel by Portuguese author José Saramago. The original title is O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo, and it was first published in English in 1994. It’s a fictional re-telling of the life of Jesus Christ, presenting him as a flawed, very human character filled with physical passions and spiritual doubts. Although controversial for its criticisms of God and Christianity, it was praised by critics.

It is interesting to speculate whose book this actually is. It doesn’t seem like the type of book Rory usually reads, and neither she nor Lorelai appear to have much interest in religion. It feels like Lorelai’s book, and a comment on her slowly discovering that Max is likewise only human, and not all that her personal mythology made him.

“Billy Jack” Movie

This is the movie that Lorelai and Rory watch with Max. It is one of their favourites: they have it on home video, and have watched it more than ten times; Rory says you cannot watch a Billy Jack movie too many times.

The movie they are watching is The Born Losers, the first of the “Billy Jack” films. It is a 1967 action film which was directed and produced by Tom Laughlin, who also stars in the title role. The film introduces the character of Billy Jack, a mysterious Green Beret Vietnam veteran who is of partial Navajo Indian descent.

The plot involves Billy Jack coming down from his peaceful abode in the Californian mountains to a small town, where he gets into several violent confrontations with the Born Losers motorcycle gang, and must protect others. It is loosely based on a real incident in 1964, when members of the Hells Angels were arrested for raping five teenage girls in Monterey, California.

(Incidentally, this was also the impetus for Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs by Hunter S. Thomson, his first book, published in 1966. Could this have been the book that the motorcycle-loving Dean lent to Rory?)

Made on a shoestring budget, the film was a commercial success, and led to several Billy Jack sequels being made. It received generally negative reviews, mostly because of the violence, of which the show gives us a little taste.

The way that Lorelai and Rory watch The Born Losers with Max is a callback to them watching The Donna Reed Show with Dean.

In both cases, the male guest had to provide the food (Max cooked, Dean brought pizza), doesn’t get any choice in what show or movie is watched, and isn’t allowed to comment or voice an opinion on it. He can’t even hear it properly because the Gilmore girls talk all the way through it, which drowns out what they are watching. Any attempt by the male guest to assert his opinions, or even ask what is happening onscreen, is roundly attacked by Lorelai and Rory.

Just as watching The Donna Reed Show led to Rory and Dean having a major argument, watching The Born Losers prefaces a fight between Lorelai and Max.

It demonstrates to us how Lorelai and Rory watch their favourite movies and TV shows – they have a love-hate relationship with the medium, are celebratory and critical at the same time, and both focused on what they are watching, and easily distracted from it. Their viewing style is deeply ironic, taking a pleasure in bad taste which is considered “camp”. They are also highly participatory, giving a running commentatory on the show while adding their own dialogue to it.

You can tell that Lorelai and Rory are used to watching things together, and their viewing habits seem to have been formed as a way to exclude others. They both seem to take a malicious pleasure in forcing Dean and Max into the role of clueless outsider.

Max in the Kitchen with the Gilmores

We are treated to a scene where Max cooks dinner for the Gilmores in Stars Hollow; he has already been shown to be an excellent cook earlier in the show. There are comic bits to demonstrate how quirkily undomesticated the Gilmore girls are – Lorelai cuts Max with a knife any time she tries to help cook, and neither Lorelai nor Rory can identify their own broiler (grill), even being alarmed to find it is “on fire”. Rory finds the smell of food cooking to be “weird”, in a good way.

Incidentally, we seem to have somehow skipped a day, Gilmore Girls style. Rory and Dean planned to watch The Holy Grail together that night, but instead she is having dinner and a movie with Lorelai and Max. We know it is the same day, because Rory is still wearing the exact same clothes.

We might also wonder what happened to Friday Night Dinner with the elder Gilmores, as it’s a Friday. The same thing happened in Christopher Returns (also written by Daniel Palladino) – when Christopher stayed over with Lorelai and Rory, Friday Night Dinner just disappeared without comment.

At least this time there’s a possible explanation: it’s summer, and Richard and Emily may be spending their vacation in the house they rented on Martha’s Vineyard.

“A double date, with adults?”

DEAN: So a double date, with adults?
RORY: No, just with Mom and Max.
DEAN: What’ll it be, like dinner and dancing?
RORY: Yes, and then we’ll enjoy brandy and cigars. No, we’ll probably just grab a bite.

We can see from their exchange that Rory and Dean see adults differently. For Dean, the idea of going on a double date with two adults is strange, and not particularly appealing. For Rory, a double date with her mother and her teacher is normal and potentially enjoyable – she doesn’t see them as “adults”, but as friends, with similar tastes and interests to herself.

Rory often socialises with her mother and other adult friends, so this is what she is used to. It helps to explain why adults seem to adore Rory, and why Rory often behaves more like an adult than a teenager.