Footnotes to the TV series
RORY: An hour ago you were totally screwing with Dean and now you’re totally nice to me.
JESS: You see, it’s the screwing with Dean – that’s an important step to getting here so that I can be nice to you.
RORY: So it was a plan … The whole bidding on my basket, it was a plan.
Of course it was a plan! Nobody believed it was anything other than deliberate. Just ask Dean.
JESS: Okay, tomorrow I will try again, and you will . . .
RORY: Give the painful Ernest Hemingway another chance. Yes, I promise.
JESS: You know, Ernest only has lovely things to say about you.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), author, journalist, and sportsman. He is famous for his economical and understated style, which had a profound influence on 20th century fiction, while his public image and adventurous lifestyle brought many admirers. He produced most of his work during the 1920s to the 1950s, and was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.
Hemingway’s hard, lean prose style and strongly masculinist ethos (to the point where it sometimes seems misogynistic) seem at odds with the more diffuse, subtle writing that Rory seems to appreciate. The irony is that Hemingway was a journalist, which helped to hone his spare writing style.
I’m not sure exactly what Jess means by “Ernest only has lovely things to say about you”, but in his works, brunettes are usually good, while blondes are bad (hm, rather like Gilmore Girls). Hemingway married four times times, three times to fellow journalists, as Rory plans to be.
RORY: Really? Try it. The Fountainhead is classic.
JESS: Yeah, but Ayn Rand is a political nut.
RORY: Yeah, but nobody could write a forty page monologue the way that she could.
The Fountainhead, 1943 novel by Russian-American author Ayn Rand, and her first literary success. The novel is about a ruggedly individualistic architect named Howard Roark, who battles against conventional standards and refuses to compromise his ideals. Rand said that Roark was the embodiment of her ideal man, and the novel reflects her views that the individual is more valuable than the collective.
Twelve publishers rejected the manuscript before Bobbs-Merrill took a chance on it, and contemporary reviews were mixed. However, it gained a following by word of mouth, and eventually became a bestseller. It has had a lasting influence, especially among architects, business people, conservatives, and libertarians. It was adapted into film in 1949, and turned into a stage play in 2014.
We here learn that Rory attempted to read The Fountainhead when she was ten, without success, but tried again when she was fifteen and liked it. Jess is taken aback by her recommending a text beloved of right-wing libertarians and “political nuts”, but Rory says she enjoys it as a piece of literature. The Fountainhead is absolutely full of characters having lengthy monologues where they clearly explain their philosophies, plans, and ideals.
The character of Howard Roark (allegedly based on architect Frank Lloyd-Wright) is a brooding man of few words, rather like Jess. Could Rory be recommending the book to Jess for that reason, to let him know that she likes a book where the protagonist is like Jess? A literary flirtation, like Jess annotating her copy of Howl?
Jess’ later career has a few things in common with Roark – neither of them graduate because they can’t be fettered by a conventional curriculum, both believe themselves to be misunderstood, both would prefer to take any paying job rather than compromise their creative integrity, and both become successful in their chosen fields.
More eye-raising is the character of Dominique, Roark’s love interest, and said to be his perfect match. Their first sexual encounter is so rough that Dominique describes it as a “rape”, and yet comes back for more, again and again. It’s a risque (or even plain risky) thing for a teenage girl to recommend to a boy she likes, and if this is a flirtation-by-literature, Rory seems to have suggested that Jess make things physical, even without her explicit consent.
LORELAI: Well, last year Roy Wilkins bought it and I got my sprinklers fixed for half price … And this year my rain gutters are completely clogged, and I thought if I could get the Collins kid to bite, I’d get that taken care of.
We learn that the previous year, in 2001, a man named Roy Wilkins bought Lorelai’s basket at the fundraiser, and she was charming enough to him that he fixed her sprinklers and only charged half price for it. This year, she was hoping that “the Collins kid” might buy her and be inveigled into cleaning her gutters for cheap or free.
“The Collins kid” could be in his early twenties, I don’t suppose Lorelai would picnic with a literal child? Although considering how the town laughed at her for going on one date with someone in his early-to-mid twenties, you’d think she’d be wary of that now.
It sounds as if since becoming a homeowner, Lorelai has been using the Bid-on-a-Basket Fundraiser as a way to get free or cheap home repairs or home maintenance done. Hmm, you know who is really good at handyman stuff? Luke! And now she’s having a picnic with him.
LUKE: I mean, before you knew Patty was gonna put you on The Dating Game, you did pack this disgusting lunch and bring it out here, so who did you want to get it?
The Dating Game, television dating game show which began broadcasting in 1965 and is still on the air. The classic format had a bachelorette who would choose from three bachelors, who were hidden from her view, by asking them questions. The bachelorette and her bachelor would then go on a date together, with expenses paid by the show. The current season, beginning in 2021, is The Celebrity Dating Game.
Miss Patty did find three men for Lorelai to choose from, as she was making a private Dating Game for her.
LUKE: You’re Miss Flexibility over here?
LORELAI: Hey, I can be flexible.
LUKE: Please.
LORELAI: I can. As long as everything is exactly the way I want it, I’m totally flexible.
A keen piece of self-insight from Lorelai.
Lorelai and Luke eat their picnic in the gazebo, because Luke can’t stand sitting on the ground to eat (he enjoys hiking and camping – does he sit around the campfire on a deck chair???). He seems to have picked the most romantic spot possible, because it is still decorated with wreaths of flowers.
JACKSON: I think we should get married … Soon.
SOOKIE: Are you pregnant?
JACKSON: What do you say? Sookie?
SOOKIE: Yes! I say yes. Oh my God, we’re getting married!
In typical Gilmore Girls fashion, a marriage proposal comes out of a fight, and the wedding is scheduled to happen as soon as possible.
Sookie seems to have packed the basket expecting or hoping for a proposal, because there’s a vase of roses, candles, champagne, and even what looks like a tiny wedding cake with white icing. She may not have been quite so surprised by the proposal as she acts. Is it possible that Sookie deliberately ignored Jackson’s hints about moving in together because she was holding out for marriage?
A bit of trivia – this scene was filmed in the dark, and then the light turned up in editing until it appears to be a sunny afternoon.
JESS: And Dean would’ve eaten this? [holds up a container]
RORY: Yes, he would have.
[Jess tastes a forkful of the food and makes a face]
JESS: Dean is an idiot.
RORY: Dean never would’ve fallen for that.
Dean is often depicted as less intellectual or less quick-witted than Jess, so it’s satisfying to see Rory gleefully point out that Jess has made a naïve error that the savvier Dean wouldn’t have. It’s a reminder to Jess that Dean actually knows Rory, and that they have a shared history of which Jess is ignorant.
A small plastic container of disgusting-looking, potentially very old leftovers
A can of Hansen’s soda (Rory’s favourite brand, she’s always shown drinking it)
Can you believe this went for $90, and Sookie’s was snapped up for $35? There’s no justice. Could it also be saying that Jess is overestimating Rory’s value, or that he’s going to pay too high a price for her?
It’s almost as if Lorelai and Rory’s baskets are trolling the town, because they could have bought something nice from a restaurant, like Lane did, and Sookie would have happily given them something decent to take.
They’re saying, “Sure, you can enjoy our wonderful company. But we won’t cater to your needs in any way, or give you false expectations that providing edible food is something that will ever happen”.
RORY: It wasn’t funny.
JESS: Well, if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t intend to do it. Does that make you feel any better?
Oh right. You just coincidentally brought lots of money to a town event you had no interest in and that nobody made you go to, and then you accidentally bid it all on Rory’s basket against her boyfriend?
Nobody is buying this, Jess. You’re full of it.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 