Memoirs of A Dutiful Daughter

This is the book Rory is reading on the couch when Lorelai gets home from the fashion show.

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter is a 1958 memoir by French author, existentialist philosopher, and feminist, Simone de Beauvoir, previously mentioned. It’s a beautifully-written, intimate portrait of her life growing up in a privileged, sheltered, upper middle class French family, rebelling as an adolescent against their conventions, and striking out on her own with intellectual ambition and a ceaselessly questioning, philosophical mind.

Rory often reads Lorelai’s books (they both have an interest in female biography and memoir), and this feels like one Lorelai would have been drawn to. She and de Beauvoir both had the same urge to escape a wealthy, claustrophobic background (Lorelai had Rory as part of her escape, while de Beauvoir had Sartre), and Lorelai spoke of always wishing she could use the word existentialist in a sentence.

The title of the memoir is ironic, but Rory really is a very dutiful daughter to Lorelai. Later on, she too will rebel against her mother.

“Funny, isn’t it?”

EMILY: Funny isn’t it?
LORELAI: What’s funny?
EMILY: How nicely you seem to be fitting into the world that you ran away from. Well, goodnight Lorelai. Congratulations.

Emily is given a glimpse into the type of life Lorelai might have had, if she hadn’t had Rory at such a young age. She was a popular teenager, and is capable of making herself popular in the world of Hartford society as a grown woman. Emily’s efforts to make Lorelai and Rory fit in with her own world are often surprisingly successful, which makes it harder for her to comprehend why they don’t really want that life for themselves.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

This is the song which plays while Lorelai and Emily do their turn on the catwalk.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun was written and first recorded by Robert Hazard in 1979, but is best known for the version performed by Cyndi Lauper, released as the lead single from her 1983 debut album, She’s So Unusual. It became her breakthrough hit, signature song, and a feminist anthem, reaching #2 on the charts, and promoted by a quirky, Grammy-winning music video.

The song describes a girl or young woman telling her parents that she needs to have some fun in her life in order to express herself. It’s something that Lorelai would have wanted to say to Emily and Richard when she was growing up, so the song must have resonated with her. Lorelai later says she chose all the music for the fashion show, and the chances are very high that this song is in her personal music collection.

(Note that Cyndi Lauper wears a red dress on the record cover and in the music video, just like Lorelai and Emily!).

Lorelai and Emily Model Together

Even though Lorelai only asked her mother to join her as revenge for nagging her to get more involved at Chilton (and perhaps even as a callback to the imaginary mother-daughter talent show at Chilton Emily teased Lorelai with in Paris is Burning), Emily actually ends up having a good time (and dare I say it, so does Lorelai? Notice how she begins smiling and having fun once she sees Luke enjoying her performance).

Lorelai and Rory so seldom allow Emily to join them in social activities, but when they do, she often enjoys being part of the fun. There’s a playful side to Emily that is rarely given the chance to come out, and that Lorelai and Rory could have really helped with if they had bothered.

Sideshow

AVA: Oh, he’s adorable. And he [Luke] looks strong, is he strong?
LORELAI: Oh I don’t know. I don’t think he’s gonna be in a sideshow anytime soon, but he can get the lid off a pickle jar.

The Strongman, a man performing amazing feats of strength, was a circus sideshow attraction in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Yep, another circus reference! These days, Strongman events have become athletic competitions.

Ava’s later comment about hoping Luke is unattached is a sign that she is a single mother, like Lorelai. It seems as if Lorelai might have more in common with some of the Chilton moms than she thought. However, Ava’s interest in Luke has doomed her chances of becoming Lorelai’s friend, which is a shame as they seemed like they could have got on well together, and been allies in the Chilton world. Romantic and sexual attraction pretty much ruins everything in Gilmore Girls.

“My stepdaughter Kimberly …”

AUBREY: How about something more young and fun? You know, my stepdaughter Kimberly…
AVA: Sarah.
AUBREY: Right, Sarah.

Emily once had a cook named Sarah, who she kept calling Mira. Sarah and Mira at least sound somewhat alike – the connection between Sarah and Kimberly is less comprehensible. Sarah seems to be a name nobody can remember in Gilmore Girls.

Aubrey is a conventionally attractive blonde, so in the Gilmore world, that means she is too dim and self-centered to remember her own step-daughter’s name! She also goes on to make a ridiculous suggestion that they hold the fall fundraiser in a hip club for kidults which is in a sandpit.

Emily’s Barbecue

[Emily walks out onto the patio]
EMILY: What is this, a refugee camp? Come inside and eat at the table.
LORELAI: Mom, the whole point of barbecuing is to eat outside.
EMILY: Animals eat outside. Human beings eat inside with napkins and utensils. If you want to eat outside, go hunt down a gazelle. Make your decision, I’ll be inside.

More of Emily’s repressed, WASPY-y attitudes to eating, where pizza is something you only eat in a Turkish prison, and eating outside is something for animals or people in refugee camps. I can only think this attitude comes from country club barbecues, where the food would be cooked outside by the catering staff, but served indoors at tables like any other meal.

You can see how a lot of Lorelai’s poor dietary choices come out of a rebellion against her mother’s strict views on what foods are acceptable. Note that Lorelai and Rory immediately begin gnawing on corn cobs while hunched over in a corner, exactly like wild beasts, or starving people, comically fulfilling Emily’s expectations of what eating outside does to someone.

“My mother was a Puff”

PARIS: My mother was a Puff, my aunt was a Puff.

As with the ten generations of Gellers who went to Harvard, Paris also comes from a family of Puffs, and thus feels she “needs” to join them to continue a family tradition. There’s a sense of panic from Paris that Rory is “stealing” her rightful place in the world, or that Paris cannot really succeed unless Rory fails.

Busy Diner

LORELAI: Wow, busy today. Has Luke been advertising or something?
RORY: He gets good word-of-mouth.
LORELAI: Well, we have to start spreading bad word-of-mouth so we can always have a table.
RORY: Well, that would be wrong, but sure.

The show opens with Lorelai and Rory having a weekend breakfast at Luke’s and finding it disturbingly busier than they anticipated. (It actually doesn’t look busier than any other time they’ve shown Luke’s diner on a weekend at breakfast time).

Even though there’s a free table right inside the door, they still joke about ruining Luke’s business to make sure they never, never, ever, run the risk of missing out on a table. Then they end up ordering coffee and muffins, which they … didn’t really need a table for, anyway? They could have taken those to go. But from the goofy way Lorelai gazes at Luke, it seems she’s here for more than food …

Lorelai is surprised to see Luke being polite and friendly to a customer, saying he’s usually so gruff. Luke is chatting to a middle-aged woman sitting alone – probably trying to make her feel welcome, as single, older women quite often get short shrift in cafes and restaurants. It’s not only a kind gesture, but good business sense (and quite believable behaviour for someone who lost their mother young and was brought up with traditional values). No wonder he gets good word-of-mouth!

Lorelai Reaches Out to Emily

LORELAI: You know, I’m really lucky.
RORY: Yeah, why?
LORELAI: I have someone to complain to when life sucks or work sucks or just everything sucks. I have someone I can talk to.

Lorelai realises that she is lucky that she can confide in Rory, but that Emily does not have a daughter she can talk to when life goes wrong for her. She has a moment of insight of how lonely Emily must be without that daughterly support that she takes for granted, and for once doesn’t immediately blame Emily for not fostering their relationship, the way she has with Rory. She’s willing to acknowledge how much Emily has missed out on.

At the end of the episode, she goes to her parents’ house before her business class, and finds Emily gardening on the patio. She lets Emily know that if she ever needs someone to talk to, Lorelai will be there for her. Although Emily does not avail herself of this offer, Lorelai remains to keep her mother company. Ironically, she has ignored her own advice to never go out on the patio!

Note the bright yellow lilies in this shot, as a hint of what happiness would be possible, and a slight callback to Lorelai’s thousand yellow daisies. Do Emily and Lorelai share a love of yellow flowers?