Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: Wow Kirk, I didn’t know you were into photography.
KIRK: It’s my passion.
We learn here that Kirk is passionate about (and apparently fairly talented at) photography, which will later culminate in his project as a short film director/producer/actor. Lorelai hires Kirk as their wedding photographer for virtually nothing, making this another job for Kirk on Gilmore Girls – although he never actually gets to do it, and wouldn’t have been paid for it.
The cake which Fran brings out, apparently helping Rory to decide that stealing from little old ladies is a good thing.
Mocha is a combination of chocolate and coffee, and this cake is a chocolate one filled with mocha buttercream, and decorated with nuts to give it the necessary “crunch”. No wonder that a caffeine-laden cake filled with coffee is what finally convinces Rory to abandon any thoughts of ethical behaviour when it comes to free cakes.
RORY: Is it right to be sampling wedding cakes when Sookie’s making ours for free?
LORELAI: What is right anyway, you know? Who defines right? And if eating cake is wrong, I don’t want to be right. … So, ethics?
RORY: Highly subjective and completely overrated.
LORELAI: That’s my girl.
Lorelai refers to the 1972 song “(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want to Be Right”, written by Homer Banks, Carl Hampton, and Raymond Jackson. Originally written for The Emotions, it has been performed by several singers, most notably Luther Ingram, whose original recording from his album of the same name went to #3 in the US, and #1 on the R&B charts. It was the #16 song of 1972.
Lorelai and Rory decide that committing fraud to rip off a little old lady is alright because they are Gilmores and therefore special. Note that Rory, “the sweetest kid in the world”, is perfectly okay with this, and has already scarfed down a large amount of cake before even raising the question of whether it might possibly be wrong.
Rory selects three quotes for Lorelai to choose from, one of which will be printed on the wedding invitations.
The first one is: “What is love? It is the morning and the evening star.” – Sinclair Lewis
This is a quote from Sinclair Lewis’ 1927 novel Elmer Gantry, a scathing satire on fundamentalist religion. The title character is a religious hypocrite and a fraud. Lorelai obviously knows very little about Sinclair Lewis, who she describes as “sappy”. In fact the Nobel Prize Winner was known for his biting wit and critical eye on American culture and materialism. The quote itself is from the title character, who is being entirely insincere. Rory may have read Elmer Gantry partly on Richard’s recommendation – Sinclair Lewis was a favourite author of H.L. Mencken, and he attended Yale, Richard’s own alma mater.
The second one is: “And all went merry as a marriage bell. But hush! Hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell!” – Lord Byron
This is from Lord Byron’s 1818 long narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Semi-autobiographical, it describes a world-weary young man, looking for distraction by travelling through foreign lands. It made its author immediately famous. This section of the poem is about a grand party in Brussels, which is brought to a disastrous and sinister end by the Battle of Waterloo.
Lorelai’s comment is, “Byron and Lewis, together again”. She may be referring to Matthew Gregory (“M.G.”) Lewis, the author of the 1796 Gothic romance The Monk. He and Lord Byron were friends, and travelled together. Rory may have read Byron’s poem because it is mentioned in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. It seems like Rory to want to follow up on a literary work that is referenced in another.
The last quote is: “We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty.” – Benito Mussolini
The whole quote is, “The Truth Apparent, apparent to everyone’s eyes who are not blinded by dogmatism, is that men are perhaps weary of liberty. They have a surfeit of it. Liberty is no longer the virgin, chaste and severe, to be fought for … we have buried the putrid corpse of liberty … the Italian people are a race of sheep.” It comes from Writings and Discourses of Mussolini, a twelve-volume work published between 1934 and 1940.
The choice of Mussolini seems to be a callback to Lorelai calling Headmaster Charleston “Il Duce“, the title of Fascist dictator Mussolini. She said this to Max during an argument they were having about Rory’s education in The Deer Hunters. Amazingly, this is the quote which Lorelai chooses, an apparent acknowledgement that her freedom is now at an end.
As you can see, all the quotes are completely inappropriate for wedding invitations. The first one is an insincere summing-up of love by a hypocrite and fraud, the second one is about a celebration which ends in disaster, and the third one equates marriage with the death of Lorelai’s liberty, said by a fascist dictator, and referencing a fight between Lorelai and Max.
What message is Rory trying to send with her choice of these quotes? They suggest a deep cynicism in her about marriage in general, and Lorelai and Max’s wedding in particular.
RORY: Oh, I printed up some sample invitations for you. I made them on my computer.
It’s two weeks until the wedding, and Rory is only just now printing up sample invitations. That doesn’t seem a lot of time for the invitations to be printed, mailed out, and replied to.
It probably doesn’t matter for the Stars Hollow crowd, who know everything without being told, and have no doubt had the date circled on their calendars for weeks – in their case, an invitation is little more than a formality. But it does seem very inconvenient and rather selfish towards Max’s family, some of whom will be travelling a long distance for the wedding.
The sample invitations Rory shows Lorelai are white A4 pages, which look too large and undecorative to be wedding invitations. Perhaps the samples are printed within the A4 pages, and the real invitations will be printed up on coloured and decorated paper.
LORELAI: I’m glad he’s [Max’s] back.
RORY: And he’s on board with the whole smallish wedding thing?
LORELAI: Oh yeah. We want fun, we want simple, we want fast. We’ve been completely in sync, without the slightly gay boy band affiliation.
A reference to the boy band NSYNC, previously discussed. One of its members, Lance Bass [in the middle of the picture], is actually gay, although he didn’t publicly come out until 2006, with speculation about his sexuality becoming common around 2005.
RORY: So how was it seeing Max last night?
This question from Rory suggests that Max has just returned from his summer teaching job at the University of Toronto, which he left for in late June, and that the previous night was Lorelai and Max’s first time seeing each other for several weeks.
FRAN: After all, what’s more important than your wedding day?
LORELAI: Well, it ain’t Guy Fawkes Day.
Guy Fawke’s Day, or Bonfire Night, is an annual commemoration on November 5, observed primarily in Britain. It marks the events of November 5 1605, when Guy Fawkes was arrested guarding explosives beneath the House of Lords that were intended to blow up Parliament.
Beginning as a celebration that the plot to kill King James I had failed, it became an annual event that could at times be violent, and until the mid 19th century had strong anti-Catholic overtones. Today Guy Fawke’s Day is much more fun and peaceful, with public bonfires and fireworks displays. Guy Fawke’s Day was celebrated in colonial America until the American Revolution.
In A Year in the Life, Lorelai and Luke get married on November 5 – Guy Fawke’s Day, as an apparent callback to this scene.
In real life, Helen Pai, the inspiration for Lane Kim, was married on November 5.
FRAN: So, when is the big day again?
LORELAI: Two weeks from tomorrow.
We learn later that it is early August in this scene, so Lorelai and Max’s wedding is planned for around the middle of August. Weddings are usually held on Saturdays, so most likely it is a Friday in this scene.
The episode opens with Rory and Lorelai sampling cakes in Weston Bakery, owned by the elderly Fran Weston (Linda Porter). Although this is the first time we’ve seen inside it, the bakery featured in the Pilot episode; it was the bakery that Rory recommended to Dean when they first met as making “really good cakes” that were “very round”.
Fran tells Rory and Lorelai that her family have been selling baked goods for 112 years, so since 1889.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 