Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: Oh, but I got here early and there was nothing to do except feed gummy bears to the bomb dogs which, apparently, the United States government frowns upon.
Gummy bears are small fruit gum candy, like a jelly baby, but in the shape of a bear. The candy originated in Germany, when Hans Riegel Sr, a confectioner from Bonn who founded the Haribo candy company, invented the candy in 1922. They have always been extremely popular in Germany, and are sold in the US.
LORELAI: Sookie, Jackson loves you. You’re not seriously telling me the future of your marriage depends on Leon Troutsky over there.
Lorelai makes a pun on the name Leon Trotsky (born Lev Bronstein,1879-1940), Russian-Ukrainian Marxist revolutionary, political theorist and politician. Ideologically a communist, he developed a variant of Marxism which has become known as Trotskyism. After the death of Lenin and the rise of Joseph Stalin, Trotsky gradually lost favour, and he was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1929. He spent the rest of his life in exile and was assassinated in Mexico City in 1940 by an agent of the Soviets.
SOOKIE: It’s an antique stuffed and mounted trout, and I think it’s manly … It is! It’s very Ralph Lauren.
Ralph Lauren, fashion brand founded in 1967 by designer Ralph Lauren (born Ralph Lifshitz in 1939). The company has headquarters in New York City, and makes products from the mid-range to the luxury, originally selling men’s fashions. The label’s logo is a man playing polo, and their first full line of menswear was named Polo in 1968.
SOOKIE: So how are you planning on telling [your parents about Christopher]?
LORELAI: I thought I’d do it like Nell. You know, chicka chicka chickabee.
Lorelai refers to the 1994 drama film Nell, directed by British director Michael Apted, and starring Jodie Foster as Nell Kellty, a young woman who has to face people for the first time after being raised by her mother in an isolated cabin. It is based on the play Idioglossia by Mark Handler, inspired by his experiences living in the Cascade Mountains in the Pacific Northwest, and by identical twins Grace and Virginia Kennedy (born 1970), who invented their own language. Their story is told in the 1980 documentary Poto and Cabengo (the twins’ own names for themselves).
In the film, Nell likewise speaks her own language in a strange and unique accent. She says “Chicka chicka chickabee”, which is her way of saying “dear one, beloved” (a variation on chickadee and chickabiddy, both used as endearments in some regions of the US).
Nell was a commercial success and received mixed reviews, with Foster’s performance being warmly praised.
MRS. KIM: This was Sherman’s shaving table … General Sherman, famous man, burned Atlanta, liked a close shave.
General William Tecumseh Sherman, previously mentioned. A general in the Union Army during the Civil War, he invaded Georgia with three armies in the spring of 1864. His campaign against Atlanta ended successfully in September of that year with the capturing of the city, and he gave orders that all civilians were to evacuate the city before giving instructions that all military and government buildings were to be burned, although many private homes and businesses were too. This victory made him a household name, and ensured the re-election of President Abraham Lincoln in November that year.
In fact General Sherman had a slightly scruffy beard, rather than being close-shaven. This seems to be another hint that Mrs Kim is not always honest about her antiques.
SOOKIE: What do you think, manly [holding up statue]?
LORELAI: In an Oscar Wilde sort of way, absolutely.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish poet and playwright, and one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. Best remembered for his sparkling comedies, witty epigrams, and his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).
At the height of his fame and success, while his play The Importance of Being Ernest (1895) was still being performed in London, Wilde prosecuted the Marquess of Queensberry (the father of Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas) for libel, but the trial unearthed evidence that led to Wilde’s arrest for indecency with men and boys. He was convicted and sentenced to two years’ hard labour, and imprisoned from 1895 to 1897. On his release, he left for France, and never returned to Ireland or Britain.
The statue that Sookie holds up appears to be a cherub or some other sort of nude small boy. It certainly doesn’t look butch, but Lorelai seems to be saying, not so much that the statue seems “gay”, as slightly paedophilic, because of the subject matter.
Oscar Wilde did take teenagers as young as fourteen as his lover, although to my knowledge, not small children like the statue seems to be (Wilde’s trial was based on his activities with males because of their gender, not specifically with their ages). The full details of Wilde’s case had been published in 2001, with many people shocked, or at least uncomfortable, with how extensive Wilde’s interest in much younger males had been – something which would have seen Wilde imprisoned in our time as well. This may be what Amy Sherman-Palladino had in mind when she wrote this scene.
RORY: And then, probably when you’re not looking, you’ll find someone who complements you … Someone who likes what you like, someone who reads the same books or listens to the same music or likes to trash the same movies. Someone compatible … But not so compatible that they’re boring … I mean, you respect each other’s opinions and you can laugh at the same jokes, but I don’t know – there’s just something about not quite knowing what the other person’s gonna do at all times that’s just really exciting.
Rory (with her vast experience of dating one boy she doesn’t even love any more) tells Paris how to know when she has found the right person. Except that Rory’s description of the perfect partner – reads the same books, laughs at the same jokes, respects your opinions, is unpredictable and exciting – sounds a lot like Jess, and not at all like Dean, who doesn’t read or joke, doesn’t respect Rory’s opinions, and is predictable and boring. Hmm!
PARIS: I mean, women fall for men who are wrong for them all of the time, and then they get sidetracked from their goals. They give up careers and become alcoholics and, if you’re Sunny von Bülow, wind up in a coma completely incapable of stopping Glenn Close from playing you in a movie.
Martha “Sunny” von Bülow (born Martha Crawford, 1932-2008), heiress and socialite. Her second husband, Claus von Bülow (1926−2019), was convicted in 1982 of attempting to murder her by insulin overdose, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. A second trial found him not guilty, after experts testified that there was no insulin injection and that her symptoms were attributable to overuse of prescription drugs, combined with alcohol and diabetes. Sunny von Bülow lived almost 28 years in a persistent vegetative state from 1980 until her death.
The story was dramatised in the 1990 film Reversal of Fortune, directed by Barbet Schroeder, and based on the 1985 book of the same name by Claus’ lawyer, Alan Dershowitz. The role of Sunny is played by Glenn Close in the film. Reversal of Fortune received mostly positive reviews, and still has a very good reputation as a tantalising mystery and satire on the rich.
PARIS: I can’t date. I’m not genetically set up for it … I get no pleasure out of the prospect or the preparation. I’m covered in hives, I’ve showered four times, and for what? Some guy who doesn’t even have the brains to buy a Zagat so we don’t wind up in a restaurant that’s really just a front for a cocaine laundering ring?
Hives, also known as urticaria, is a skin rash with raised, itchy bumps that may burn or sting. It may be due to an infection or to an allergic reaction. Stress can also be a trigger, as seems to be the case with Paris. About 20% of people will have hives at least once, so it’s not rare, and treatment is usually antihistamines or cortisone.
PARIS: He’s almost here, I’m not dressed, my makeup’s not done, and I haven’t gone through the Zagat yet to pick out a restaurant.
Zagat, the restaurant guide, previously discussed.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 