Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: Have you seen my bag with the beads and the fur, kind of looks like Stalin’s head?
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), Georgian revolutionary and Soviet leader who governed the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death. He is occasionally depicted wearing a round furry hat, which might be what Lorelai is thinking of. Of course Lorelai has a Communist bag!
PARIS: I went on the web and I found a site called MissPatty.net. It’s in your town … Is it big enough? The site says it’s 720 square feet.
Do not try to go to MissPatty.net – I did, and my anti-virus had to send me about a million warnings in big red letters that it was a hijacked infected site.
We here learn the exact size of Patty’s Place, which is 720 square feet, or around 66 square metres. That’s about the size of a roomy three-car garage, or a small one bedroom apartment.
RORY: So I’m guessing that you’re not any closer to telling your parents about Henry.
LANE: I mean, what are the options if I tell them? They hate him, and it’s over. They love him, and he therefore becomes odious to me and it’s over. Things are working out fine the way they are.
RORY: You mean calling him Rory on the phone in case your mom’s listening?
LANE: I’ve grown fond of my cage, Rory.
Caught in between the choice to either be forced to break up with Henry, or have her parents approve him so that she loses all interest, Lane has made the choice to maintain a tenuous connection with Henry based on phone calls. The little that Rory has been asked to do to help Lane and Henry is already irritating her, most likely because she can’t see any end in sight.
Lane is aware that she has created the situation out of fear – not so much that she’s fond of her cage, as that she’s scared of going outside it. Rory knows Lane’s background and situation, and could be a bit more understanding, but her patience has clearly run out.
RORY: She’s letting you go? That’s amazing. What changed her mind?
LANE: I let her watch the Romeo and Juliet movie with Leo and Claire Danes.
Lane is talking about William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (often shortened to Romeo + Juliet), a 1996 film directed by Baz Luhrman and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the title roles. It is a modernised adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, with the Montagues and Capulets two rival (mafia) business empires in the fictional American city of Verona Beach (inspired by Venice Beach in L.A., but filmed in Mexico).
The film was a commercial success and gained mostly positive reviews, as well as winning several awards internationally. At the BAFTA Film Awards, it won Best Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Music, and Best Production Design. It continues to be a popular choice for high school English teachers to show their students as an introduction to the play.
It wasn’t released on DVD until 2002, so I’m not sure how Lane showed her mother the movie. Perhaps it was conveniently on at the local cinema.
SOOKIE: But we have an ice cream maker, a professional one. See, that means we can make enough ice cream for everyone in the inn, whereas this little guy…
LORELAI: Fernando.
Lorelai may have named her ice cream maker after Fernando, the 1976 song by Swedish pop group ABBA, included on their album Arrival the same year. One of the best-selling singles of all time, it went to #13 in the US, and is still a staple on some American radio stations.
I’m mostly suggesting this because I can’t imagine a woman of Lorelai’s age and background choosing the name Fernando without thinking of the song. The lyrics do fit the circumstances though, because the song is about two old Mexican freedom fighters from a nameless conflict, reminiscing about the battles of their youth.
The stars were bright, Fernando
They were shining there for you and me
For liberty, Fernando
Though I never thought that we could lose
There’s no regret
If I had to do the same again
I would, my friend, Fernando
Lorelai chose liberty over marriage to Max, and in the end she has no regrets about doing so. However, she doesn’t want to keep the ice cream maker, as it’s a constant reminder of a failed relationship.
SOOKIE: Swear. Raise your right hand and say, ‘May Destiny’s Child break up if I count these blueberries.’
MICHEL: Pick another group.
Destiny’s Child, a girl group founded in Texas in 1990 under the name Girl’s Tyme, with a final and best-known line-up of Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams. They signed to Columbia in 1997 under the name Destiny’s Child, and gained mainstream recognition with the release of their hit song, No, No, No, and their 1999 best-selling album, The Writing’s On the Wall. Their most recent album at this stage was Survivor, which came out in April 2001, apart from their Christmas album in October of that year.
The reason Michel might be particularly concerned that Destiny’s Child could break up is because the band announced they were going on hiatus to pursue solo careers in 2001. They reunited in 2004 for their fourth and final album, Destiny Fulfilled. After their 2005 tour, the group did indeed break up.
Somehow Michel is more worried about eating one or two extra blueberries on his pancakes because of the calories than he is with eating actual pancakes! Michel’s relationship with food is even unhealthier that Lorelai and Rory’s, and is certainly weirder.
PARIS: You’re Juliet. You’re the best public speaker here, you’ve definitely got that waif thing down, and you’ll look great dead.
Paris chooses Rory because of her “waif-like” appearance, and because she’s supposedly the best public speaker out of all of them – which is good, if she’s hoping to be a reporter like Christiane Amanpour. Unfortunately, when we subsequently see Rory speaking in public, she doesn’t quite live up to the hype. As Juliet is lying down and either dead or looking dead in this scene, public speaking ability doesn’t seem greatly needed anyway.
LOUISE: So now Brad can be Friar Tuck and I can be Juliet.
PARIS: Wrong … Juliet’s supposed to be chaste.
Paris ditches Louise (who wants the part of Juliet) in favour of Rory (who desperately doesn’t want the part). Her reasoning is that Juliet is meant to be chaste and pure, and Louise isn’t. Which is strange, because when you act, you literally pretend to be someone you’re not.
Perhaps Paris doesn’t believe Louise has enough acting talent to even pretend to be pure, but knowing Paris, she just loves the idea of forcing Rory into a part she doesn’t want where she has to interact with Tristan.
Amusingly, Madeline seems to think the “chastity” issue doesn’t disqualify her from being Juliet, and it’s only when she learns that Juliet has more than three lines that she gives up the idea. My head canon is that Madeline thought Paris said Juliet was supposed to be chased!
PARIS: Hey, I’m the director and I’ll decide who’s born to be what, and Brad is Romeo.
LOUISE: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
A popular misquote from William Congreve’s 1697 play, The Mourning Bride, previously discussed. The quote is often wrongly attributed to Shakespeare, and as they are currently studying Shakespeare, I think this is meant to imply that Louise is one of those people who use the quote without understanding its origin or context. It’s the second time she has used it against Paris.
Louise is correct that Paris is barring Tristan from being Romeo out of pique that he didn’t want to date her more than once. Paris does eventually give in and give the part of Romeo to Tristan, although she clearly doesn’t have much faith that he will stick with the project until the end (her lack of confidence in him turns out to be well-founded).
PARIS: Fine, you have four other acts to choose from. Take your pick.
TRISTIN: Yeah, well Summer’s in Act 1, Beth and Jessica are in Act 2, Kate’s in Act 3, and uh, Claire, Kathy, and Mary are in Act 4. So this is the only one free of ex-girlfriends.
Technically yes, but Tristan has been on a date with Paris and kissed her goodnight, and he kissed Rory at Madeline’s party. Louise and Madeline have expressed plenty of interest, and as they are meant to date a new boy every week, it’s not very believable that Tristan wouldn’t have been their boyfriend at some stage, at least briefly.
Note that this is another example of a Beth as an ex-girlfriend – Dean has an ex-girlfriend of this name back in Chicago, who went on to date his cousin. It seems odd to me that Tristan teased Rory by calling her Mary, when he already had an ex-girlfriend named Mary – unless he went out with her after that.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 