Footnotes to the TV series
RORY: Have you ever thought of doing something other than teaching?
MAX: Well, my father wanted me to be a doctor, and my mother wanted me to be President, and I wanted to be . . . a clown.
This backstory for Max Medina is based on actor Scott Cohen studying to be a professional clown at the State University of New York. After graduating, he worked briefly as a clown, but was fired from the circus for not being “happy” enough.
MAX: We could sit.
RORY: Sit, sure, that’s good. Barbara Walters sits, or walks sometimes if the person she’s talking to has a horse or a ranch or a big backyard sometimes, but usually she just sits.
Barbara Walters (born 1929) is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality, now retired. Known for her interviewing skills and popularity, she was the host of numerous television programs. She began her career on the Today Show in the 1960s, and was co-host by 1974, the first female to take such a role, and continued her pioneering efforts by becoming the first woman to work as a co-anchor on a nightly news broadcast for the ABC.
In 2001, Walters was producer and co-host of 20/20 and The View, and had an annual special on the ABC, Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People, as well as other interview specials.
Barbara was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1989, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2000.
When Rory is interviewing Max, this book is on the desk between them, in a pile of other books that includes Anna Karenina, previously discussed.
The Brothers Karamazov is a 1880 novel by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky about the sons of a buffoon named Fyodor Karamazov; he has three sons from two marriages, and it is rumoured that his servant is actually an illegitimate son. Fyodor takes no interest in his sons, who are raised apart from each other and their father. A passionate philosophical novel, it delves deeply into questions of God, free will, morality, faith doubt, and reason, involving a plot about patricide. It is acclaimed as one of the great works of modern literature, and has influenced many great authors and thinkers. It was Einstein’s favourite novel, Freud considered it the greatest work of literature, while Franz Kafka felt indebted to it as a influence on his own work.
We know that Russian literature is the first component of the English Literature course in the sophomore year at Chilton, and this must be on the curriculum. On Rory’s first day at Chilton, the teacher talked about how they had studied Dostoevsky the week before. We can feel pretty confident that Rory would have read this novel in her efforts to catch up with her schoolmates, and it may have helped give her an interest in the works of Kafka.
RORY: But the coffee is in there. And it’s Danish Day. Are you seriously telling me that you’re gonna let a stupid fight get in the way of Danish Day?
A Danish pastry, often just called a “Danish”, is a layered sweet puff pastry which was brought to Denmark by Austrian bakers, and developed into a Danish speciality. They were brought by Danish immigrants to the United States, and became popular after they featured at the 1915 wedding of President Woodrow Wilson. In the US, Danishes are often given a fruit or cream cheese filling.
In this episode, we learn that Lorelai and Rory have a Danish for breakfast every Wednesday morning, which is one of their traditions. Rory orders cherry Danishes, but it’s unclear whether that is their preferred flavour. I’m also not sure whether it’s significant that cherries are so rich in sexual symbolism!
LORELAI: Rory, this was a bad one, okay? This was not Nick and Nora, this was Sid and Nancy, and I’m not going in there.
Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) are the protagonists of the 1934 comedy-mystery film, The Thin Man, based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. They’re a wealthy married couple who enjoy drinking and flirtatious banter, with plenty of free time to solve mysteries. It was the first time in a Hollywood film a married couple were shown still able to enjoy sex, romance, and adventure together. The film was such a success, it spawned five sequels, and in the 1950s was made into a television series starring Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk.
Sid and Nancy is a 1986 British biographical film, starring Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb in the title roles. The film examines the destructive drug-fuelled relationship between Sid Vicious, the bassist for British punk band The Sex Pistols, and his American girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, which ended in tragedy when Sid stabbed Nancy, either accidentally or deliberately.
Lorelai is saying that she and Luke weren’t just having their usual comic flirting, but actually went for each other with a genuine intention to hurt each other emotionally. She clearly sees herself as the main victim in their interchange, and this is the origin of this episode’s title.
LUKE: Oh, you have a kid, so you know everything, right?
LORELAI: I have a kid, so yeah, I know a little more than you do.
LUKE: You know, you ever think maybe you just got lucky with Rory? I mean, you did get pregnant at sixteen. That doesn’t show the greatest decision making skills, now does it?
Luke is furious to discover that Lorelai has taken it upon herself to start lecturing Jess without him being present, and thus doesn’t take on board the serious information that Lorelai is giving him – that Jess stole beer from her fridge. Maybe Luke should have listened to her, but on the other hand, Lorelai is too angry and upset to handle it very tactfully.
I think Lorelai is correct that Luke could avail himself of what parenting advice she has to offer – she has raised a fairly well-behaved, academically successful child, after all. She must know something about children and teenagers. (And she got pregnant at fifteen, not sixteen).
However, I think Luke has a point that she has got a bit lucky with Rory, who’s a fairly easygoing, compliant child (she takes after Christopher and his mother in that regard, rather than Lorelai). If Lorelai had had a kid more like herself, rebellious and oppositional, particularly a boy, she might have found being a young single mother rather more challenging.
This is the beginning of Jess putting a strain on the relationship between Luke and Lorelai, and serves as yet another obstacle to them getting together (Jess sharing a one-bedroom apartment with Luke would surely make that a bit problematic, even if there were no other issues).
LUKE: Where’s Jess?
LORELAI: Outside, working on his Breakfast Club audition.
The Breakfast Club is a 1985 American coming of age teen comedy, written and directed by John Hughes, in his directorial debut. The story involves five teenagers from different high school cliques who spend a Saturday together in all-day detention, writing on essay on “who you think you are”. In the process, the students share secrets, bond, and learn more about themselves and each other.
The Breakfast Club was a box-office success. It is considered to be a quintessential 80s film, one of Hughes’ most memorable works, and one of the best teen films of all time.
When Lorelai is talking about Jess, she is probably specifically thinking of the character John Bender (Judd Nelson), a rebellious punk known as “The Criminal”. He is the only one of the students to stand up to the harsh Vince-Principal. During the course of the film, John becomes close to a pretty, popular girl called Claire Standish known as “The Princess” (Molly Ringwald), and they share a kiss. Jess has only spoken to Rory for a few minutes, but already the genre-savvy Lorelai is worried they will have a natural good girl/bad boy attraction.
JESS: You know, you don’t know anything about me, or my life, or my mom, or Luke, so why don’t you Doctor Laura someone else?
American talk show host and author Laura Schlessinger (born 1947), best known for her radio show, The Dr Laura Program. With a background as a marriage and family counsellor, Schlessinger typically answers callers’ requests for advice, and gives short monologues on social and political topics.
Her show was highly popular, but around the early 2000s began losing listeners because Schlessinger was giving less relationship advice and more lectures on morality and conservative politics, in particular, her opposition to homosexuality. No doubt this comparison would have infuriated Lorelai, as it was intended to.
LORELAI: Ugh. There have been very few moments in my life where I have actually wished I had one of those enormous cream pies you can just smash in someone’s face, but this is definitely one of them.
Cream pie attacks and fights have been a staple of slapstick comedy since the days of the English music hall. English comedian Fred Karno (1866-1941) is credited with popularising the pie-in-the-face gag, and they were often used in films by his proteges, Charlie Chaplin, and Laurel and Hardy. A cream pie in the face is a staple of traditional clowning. The cream pies are, these days, usually canned whipped cream or shaving cream in an aluminium pie plate.
LORELAI: Yes, I have. I’ve also done the ‘chip on my shoulder’ bit. Ooh, and the surly, sarcastic, ‘the world can bite my ass’ bit, and let me tell you, I mastered them all, in heels yet.
Lorelai is referencing a famous saying about Ginger Rogers, who was Fred Astaire’s dancing partner in many musical films: “Sure [Fred Astaire] was great, but dont forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did … backwards and in high heels”. If it did not originate with him, it was at least popularised by Bob Thaves in a 1982 Frank & Ernest cartoon.
The quote is used to imply that women often have to work harder than men to gain a similar recognition, or have to do so while maintaining a “feminine” image which requires a lot of discipline and upkeep.
In this context, it doesn’t quite make sense, unless Lorelai thinks that being a snotty ungrateful teenager counts as some sort of “work” that gets you somewhere in life, and which is made harder for girls than boys.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 