Footnotes to the TV series
LUKE: So you passed the need for an actual person to talk to several minutes ago.
LORELAI: Oh, yeah. Before the gelato stand.
Gelato is Italian ice cream; the word means “frozen” in Italian. It generally has less fat than other ice creams, but greater density and more intense flavours. Legend says the origins of gelato go back to the Roman Empire, but the dessert only became widely commercially available and popular in the 1920s, in the city of Varese in northern Italy.
LORELAI: You’re going to quote Freud to me? ‘Cause I’ll push you in front of a moving car.
After Luke says it’s not surprising that Rory is attracted to a boy who reminds Lorelai of Rory’s dad Christopher, she believes he might be thinking of Freud.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. The Oedipus complex – named after the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles – was a theory he coined in 1910, to describe a child’s unconscious sexual desire for their opposite-sex parent. Some modern psychologists broadly agree with his theory, while others find no evidence it exists. Studies apparently suggest that we are more likely to seek partners with vague physical similarity to our parents.
Luke says that he just meant that Lorelai and Rory are quite alike in their tastes, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise they would be attracted to similar men.
LUKE: OK. We need to get you out of here.
LORELAI: No. That Lothario over there has wormed his way into my daughter’s heart and mouth and for that he must die!
A Lothario is a man who is an unscrupulous seducer of women. It comes from a character of that name in The Impertinent Curious Man, a story-within-a-story in the 1615 novel Don Quixote by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes.
LUKE: I’m not gonna say you look concerned.
LORELAI: I’m not gonna talk about how good you’d look dressed like one of the guys from The Crucible.
The Crucible is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a a dramatised version of the Salem witch trials which took place in Massachusetts in 1692-93, the play serving as an allegory of the McCarthy era, when the US government accused people of subversion or treason based on a suspicion of communist sympathies. It won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1953, and has gone on to become a classic of American drama.
The Crucible was adapted into a film in 1996, with Arthur Miller writing the screenplay. Lorelai could easily have seen the film when it came out, if she had never seen it on stage. The Puritan clothing worn by characters in The Crucible remind Lorelai of Thanksgiving Pilgrim costumes.
LORELAI: Okay, let’s get back to the point. What do you think about the whole Liz/Lucky kissing thing?
RORY: I think they’re actors being paid to play a part so it’s nice that they’re living up to their obligations.
A sly meta-comment – a reminder Alexis Bledel and Jared Padalecki are paid actors, and their kissing scenes in this episode are something they are contractually obliged to do.
RORY: When do you have time to watch General Hospital?
A question we’d all like answered – General Hospital in on weekdays in the afternoons, when Lorelai is at work. Yet somehow she has managed to keep up with the show for at least the last few years. American soap operas are notoriously slow-paced, so that Lorelai could theoretically keep up with the show by only watching it sometimes. Even so, how did she manage to watch even a few episodes while at work?
Note that this is another example of shortness of time being mentioned.
LORELAI: I was watching General Hospital the other day and you know, they have a new Lucky ’cause the old Lucky went to play something where he could have a real name. So the old Lucky had this girlfriend, Liz, who thought that he died in a fire. So then they bring on this new Lucky and you’re all like “OK, I know that’s not the old Lucky because the new Lucky has way more hair gel issues” but still, Liz was so upset about his supposed death that you could not wait to see them kiss, you know?
General Hospital is an American soap opera which has aired since 1963, making it the longest-running soap opera still in production. It was most popular in the 1980s, thanks to the romance between popular characters Luke and Laura (Anthony Geary and Genie Francis), which ended with their wedding.
Lucas “Lucky” Spencer Jr. was a character on General Hospital, the son of the aforementioned Luke and Laura. His birth was announced in 1985, and he first appeared as a ten year old in 1993, played by Jonthan Jackson. Lucky would also be one half of a soap opera power couple, when he got a girlfriend in 1997 named Elizabeth “Liz” Webber, played by Rebecca Herbst.
Jonathan Jackson left the show in 1999, and it was rumoured that he was going to play Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. Although that didn’t pan out, he got other film and television roles.
The character of Lucky was declared to have died in a fire, but they brought him back in February 2000 with Jacob Young playing the “new” Lucky, who had returned brainwashed by another regular character. After months of de-programming, Lucky and Liz made a stab at being a couple again, but decided to be good friends for a while. As Lorelai notes, he just wasn’t the same Lucky.
The episode where Lucky and Liz kiss aired on Friday November 3 2000. As Lorelai says she saw the episode “the other day”, this fits in with the day being Saturday November 4 or Sunday November 5 2000, as autumn festival.
It is interesting how a few of the names in General Hospital seem to have informed those in Gilmore Girls. Luke and Laura is suspiciously similar to Luke and Lorelai, especially since we later learn that Luke’s full name is Lucas, just like Luke Spencer and his son Lucky, and that Luke Danes has a sister named Liz.
LANE: He likes Nick Drake and Liz Phair and The Sugarplastic
Nicholas “Nick”Drake (1948-1974) was an English singer-songwriter known for his acoustic guitar-based folk music. He produced three albums between 1969 and 1972, none of which were a commercial success, partly because Drake was reluctant to perform live or give interviews to promote his work. Suffering from major depression, he committed suicide by overdosing on prescribed antidepressants at the age of 26.
He remained somewhat obscure, although his work was re-released after his death, gathering him new fans as a doomed romantic hero. By the 1980s he was cited as a musical influence by artists such as David Sylvian and Robert Smith, and had gained critical appreciation; a “best of” compilation album was released in the 1990s. His career had a posthumous revival after his song Pink Moon was used in a 1999 Volkwagen Cabrio commercial, aimed at young people. Since then he has sold more than 2 million albums and downloads.
We can assume that Dean was one of the young people who became instant Nick Drake fans after seeing the VW commercial. As we later disover Dean is a car fanatic, it makes sense that he would discover a favourite singer through a car.
Liz Phair (born Elizabeth Phair in 1967) [pictured] is an American indie rock singer-songwriter. Her first album, Exile in Guyville, came out in 1993 to critical acclaim, and was hailed as a landmark in alternative rock. Her 1994 second album, Whip-Smart, brought her mainstream attention, and is her most commercially successful album. In 2000 her most recent album would have been Whitechocolatespaceegg (1998).
Liz Phair was born in New Haven, Connecticut, but grew up in Winnetka, a wealthy village just outside Chicago – it was a favourite film location for director John Hughes, as seen in movies such as Home Alone, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles. Liz Phair may have been chosen as a favourite singer for Dean because she is connected with both Chicago and Connecticut, his birthplace and later home.
The Sugarplastic is an alternative rock band founded in 1989 by Ben Eshbach and Kiara Geller. Their first album came out in 1995, and their third album, Resin, in April 2000. The most genuinely obscure of Dean’s choices, he may have become a fan quite recently. His indie/alternative tastes in music make him seem like a worthy beau for Rory. For now …
Lane gloomily points out that amongst Patrick Cho’s other drawbacks, he wore a Members Only jacket on their date. Members Only is a fashion brand known for their men’s jackets; they were popular in the 1980s, making poor Patrick Cho seem a bit dated in his fashion choices.
The brand is now having a bit of a resurgence, with 1980s Members Only jackets kind of hip and retro. Hopefully Patrick Cho still has his.
Lane’s parents set her up on a date with a theology major named Patrick Cho who drives a Lincoln Continental. The Lincoln Continental is a luxury car produced by Ford and first introduced in 1939. Rory mentions his car, seemingly as a point in his favour since she’s trying to cheer Lane up.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 