MADELINE: It’s really big in L.A. You just go through the motions, you don’t actually have to strip.
Striptease aerobics has its origins in pole dancing fitness classes, which first began in a studio in Canada in the 1980s, with the classes run by professional strippers. By the early 2000s, striptease aerobics had taken off in New York and Los Angeles, and often involved pole dancing as well. As Madeline says, normal fitness clothing is generally worn, there isn’t any actual stripping off.
LOUISE: You’d think the brain trust behind P.E. could come up with some sport that didn’t give you helmet hair all afternoon.
A brain trust is a group of experts appointed to advise a government, leader, or organisation. The concept comes from President F.D.R. Roosevelt. In the UK, the term brains trust is more common. It is often used sarcastically, to imply the people in charge aren’t very intelligent at all.
Louise makes it sound as if they have no choice about doing fencing for Physical Education, yet in Season 1, Rory said that there were numerous sports to choose from at Chilton. She signed up for golf, but is doing fencing now. A lot of fans find that confusing, yet it doesn’t seem that strange that a different sport might be chosen for each year, or each semester.
It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the James Bond film Die Another Day had come out the previous year, in 2002, directed by Lee Tamahori, and starring Pierce Brosnan as the title character.
It has a notable fencing scene in it [pictured], where James Bond has an unexpectedly aggressive fencing bout with the villain, Gustav Graves, played by Toby Stephens. The fencing instructor in the film is played by Madonna, one of Lorelei’s favourite celebrities (she also sings the film’s theme song). Less than a month after this movie’s release, UK fencing clubs saw an increase in the number of people interested in taking up the activity.
Die Another Day was a box-office smash, and the #6 film of 2002. It received reasonable reviews at the time, but is now considered one of the worst of the films in the series. It was heavily criticised by Pierce Brosnan.
The fencing instructor at Chilton is played by Teigh McDonough, whose background was in the Chicago theatre scene.
FRANCIE: Rory came to me and said she wanted to talk about some things . . . you know, policy, the prom, the senior gift, et cetera. So of course I said, “why don’t we talk about them at the student council meeting with Paris?” And she said she wanted to do this without Paris. She said Paris is just too wrapped up in that boyfriend of hers to care about any of this. I didn’t know what to do, so I went, and then I found these, and I’m just so upset. I mean, I would never intentionally do anything behind your back, Paris. And I promise, the next time Rory tries to get me to, I’m just gonna say, ‘Talk to the hand’, you know what I mean?
Talk to the hand, slang from the 1990s, a sarcastic way of saying the person doesn’t want to listen. More or less telling them to shut up. Often accompanied by holding the hand out with the palm towards the speaker, as if physically stopping the person from continuing.
Francie’s story about Rory is fanciful and accompanied by the most flimsy of evidence. Even if it were true, all she is claiming is that Rory spoke about the prom without involving Paris, which already happened at the supplementary meeting, and Paris wasn’t that bothered.
The fact that Paris falls for this farrago of lies tells us that Rory is more important to her than she has let on, and that she is far more insecure than she likes people to know. Also, plot drama!
Francie comes to talk to Paris while she is washing her hands in the bathroom. Even though there are two containers of handwash at the basin, the viewer can see she is using her own handwash or hand sanitiser. This is meant to indicate how “crazy” and germphobic Paris is, but post-Covid, she now looks pretty sensible and well organised!
LORELAI: And dental floss. And paper towels. And People magazine. We’re really hungry.
People is an American weekly magazine headquartered in New York City that specialises in celebrity news and human-interest stories. It was the brainchild of Time magazine CEO Andrew Heiskell, and the core of the founding editorial team were from Life magazine, which had closed down a little more than a year earlier.
It is one of the most successful and popular magazines in the US, and is perhaps best-known for its annual special issues naming the “World’s Most Beautiful”, “Best and Worst Dressed”, “Sexiest Man Alive”, and “Most Intriguing People”. In 2003, it judged the most beautiful/sexy people that year to be Halle Berry and Johnny Depp.
Lorelai just starts ordering Luke to pick up things she needs from the store! Compare with Rory’s order when Lane agrees to pick her shopping – dental floss and magazines seem to be essentials for Gilmore girls.
The Gilmore girls always have cherry pie for dessert on Wednesday nights, which Luke knows by heart by now. He seems to forget in this episode, either to tease them, or because having to do an emergency shop because Jess forgot to do the ordering has put it out of his mind. Whipped cream is apparently their preferred topping.
The rest of their dinner order is for cheeseburgers and Tater Tots, previously discussed.
LORELAI: Okay. Well, do you remember the rowing scene in Ben-Hur? … I’m sorry, did that reference date me? Should I have gone with the “Express Yourself” video?
“Express Yourself” is a 1989 song by Madonna, a single released from her Like a Prayeralbum, witten and produced by Madonna and Stephen Bray. A tribute to funk band Sly and the Family Stone, it’s an upbeat dance-pop and deep-funk song about female empowerment. The song went to #2 in the US, and # 1 on the US dance charts, becoming the #55 song of 1989. It went to #1 in Canada, Italy, and Switzerland.
The music video, dircted by David Fincher, was inspired by the 1927 Fritz Langer film, Metropolis. With a budget of $5 million, it was the most expensive music video made until then, and remains the third-most expensive to this day.
The video portrayed a city full of tall skyscrapers and railway lines. Madonna played the part of a glamorous lady, with muscular men in chains acting as her workers (slaves?). Madonna is then shown as a masochist in chains. In the end, she picks one of the workers/slaves (played by Iranian-British model Cameron Alborzian) as her lover.
It’s interesting that Lorelai implies with both her references that Emily is gaining some sort of sado-masochistic sexual pleasure from her treatment of staff.
To me, Lorelai’s reference of “Express Yourself” dates her more than Ben-Hur. Ben-Hur is a classic that had been released on DVD only two years before this episode, while Madonna’s music video was 14 years old at the time – a hit song from Lorelai’s youth.
In the film, Ben-Hur is unfairly condemned to be a galley slave for three years, and in the famous galley scene, the slaves are shown working in time to the beat of a drum, and sometimes being whipped to make them work harder. Meanwhile the consul in charge simply sits back and watches them, apparently for sadistic pleasure, since there is no need for him to even be down there in the galley, which is dark and hot.
JOE: So, at the risk of seeming like Joe the drunken chef, I added some more port to the Cumberland sauce.
Cumberland sauce, a savoury sauce of English origin, made with redcurrant jelly, mustard, pepper and salt, blanched orange peel, and port wine. It is thought to be of 19th-century origin. It may be named after a Duke of Cumberland, or have originated in Cumberland county. It is generally used as a sauce for cold meats, and for game. Sookie is pairing it with pheasant.
The amount of port varies from recipe to recipe. Some cooks add only a few tablespoons of port, while a third or a half of a cup is quite usual. Some use as much as a full cup. Joe seems to be at the upper end of the port threshold, and Sookie further down.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 