Oscar Wilde

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.

“Someone who complements you”

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!

Sunny von Bülow

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.

Hives

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.

“I love you”

DEAN: See you Friday. I love you …

RORY: Gotta go. [hangs up]

Dean phones Rory, arranging to see her Friday evening when they both get home from their respective vacations. Rory’s plane gets in at 3 pm, while Dean won’t be getting in until 6 pm. Lorelai has lied to Emily, saying Rory won’t be home until Saturday, in order to allow Rory and Dean some couple time.

How blissful that the reunion will be is in some doubt already, because while Dean says goodbye by saying “I love you”, Rory just says she has to go, and hangs up on him. Are we back to the start, where Rory can’t tell Dean that she loves him? Or is this the end, where Rory realises that she no longer loves Dean?

Hay There

KIRK: One day it occurred to me, cows never wrinkle … So I decided to do a little research. I studied cows, I studied humans, and finally I discovered the secret – the secret of the cows. Hay, it’s hay – cows eat hay. And after some experimentation and a great deal of research, I developed what I believe to be the next great skin care product to sweep the nation.

LORELAI: [reads the label] Hay There.

KIRK: A complete line of creams, balms, toning lotions, and cleansing liquids.

This is the first (?) of Kirk’s attempts to start a business, in this case, selling his own line of beauty products (in huge bottles!). It fails almost immediately when the products he creates turn out to be dangerous.

Jamie

JAMIE: So, where’s Paris?

RORY: Hm, not quite sure. Last time I saw her, she was beating the will to live out of our nation’s representatives.

JAMIE: She is a hammer, isn’t she?

RORY: Actually, she’s the entire toolbox.

In this episode we meet Jamie, who becomes Paris’ boyfriend. Paris thinks of herself as unappealing to the opposite sex, and her crush on former classmate Tristan was not reciprocated. But it is Jamie who pursues Paris, and on paper at least, he looks like her dream man. Attractive, intelligent, ambitious, and sharing her passion for aggressive debating techniques, Jamie isn’t scared off by Paris’ strength and outspokenness – in fact, that’s what draws him to her.

Paris is so unused to anyone being interested to her that she gets asked on her first date by Jamie (a victory dinner after their debate together) and accepts before realising what’s happened when Rory explains it to her. Paris predictably has a meltdown before the date, just like the one she had before her date with Tristan, and becomes so insecure that she makes Rory hide in the closet just in case a glimpse of Rory will make Jamie change his mind. Rory points out that Jamie has already seen her, and isn’t interested, but Paris is in no mood for logic.

Even though Paris only asks Rory to step into the closet for a moment while Jamie is there to pick Paris up, Rory gets in with a flashlight and a book, as if she’s planning to spend the whole evening there!

Jamie is at Princeton, meaning that the Young Leaders program is for college students as well as high school students (something which probably wouldn’t happen in real life). He is presumably two or three years older than Paris, because if he was one year older, he wouldn’t have started at Princeton yet.

Jamie is played by Brandon Barash, in his first television role. He has gone on to have roles in The West Wing, 24, NCIS, Bones, General Hospital, and Days of Our Lives.

Archie Bunker’s Chair at the Smithsonian Museum

JAMIE: So, in your opinion, how was our nation’s capital?

RORY: Well, I got to see Archie Bunker’s chair at the Smithsonian Museum, so it was a big thumbs up for me.

Archie Bunker, played by Carroll O’Connor, from the popular sitcom All in the Family, previously discussed.

The Smithsonian Institution, a group of museums and education and research centres, the largest such complex in the world. It was founded in 1846 by the US government, named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. Known as “the nation’s attic”, it has 19 museums, 21 libraries, nine research centers, and a zoo, mostly located in the Washington DC area. It receives 30 million visitors each year, and entry is free.

Archie Bunker’s chair really is on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington DC, donated by the makers of the television show in 1978. It was originally bought by the show from a Goodwill thrift store in southern California for $8.