Tag: Did You Notice?

Monticello

LORELAI: Mmm, I’m terrible at coming up with names. When we first bought out house, Rory and I wanted to name it, you know, like Jefferson named his place Monticello, but all we could come up with is The Crap Shack.

Former US President Thomas Jefferson, previously discussed, called his main plantation Monticello, from the Italian for “little mountain”, as it’s situated on a peak of the Southwest Mountains, near Charlottesville, Virginia. The plantation house was first begun in 1768 in a neoclassical style, but extensively remodelled in the 1790s with elements from Parisian homes Jefferson had seen in France and ideas of his own devising, and work continued into the 1820s. Monticello is now a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and features on the US five cent coin.

Notice that Lorelai wears a black blouse with a red cherry print design on it – Monticello is famous for its orchard, including its cherry trees. You can still buy cherry preserves from the Monticello gift shop. I cannot say if the colour of the blouse is significant in light of the slave labour that was used at Monticello, and even to some extent, in the building of the plantation house itself.

This is the first time we learn that Lorelai and Rory supposedly called their house The Crap Shack when they moved in, when Rory was eleven. Presumably the house was in poor condition, and has needed a lot of work to get it to the standard we see. It can’t be a name they use very often – they’ve always just referred to as “home” or “the house” so far. Perhaps that’s because the house is now far less crappy than when Lorelai bought it and the name doesn’t really apply any more.

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.

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.

“Everyone else in your family can pull their face off”

RORY: It’s just so weird that the one table I sit down at is home to the secret society.
LORELAI: I know. It’s like waking up one day and realising that everyone else in your family can pull their face off.

Lorelai references the 1989 horror film Society, directed by Brian Yuzna and starring Billy Warlock. The film is about a teenage boy who lives in a Beverly Hills mansion, but doesn’t trust his high society family. After a series of disturbing and gruesome events, it is revealed that the boy’s family and their high society friends are from a different species. They pull their faces off and begin melding together to begin feeding from a human.

The film was a success in Europe, but wasn’t released in the US until 1992. The film is considered a brilliant satire in the UK, but pretentious and obnoxious in the US. The ending is unforgettable, whichever your opinion, and it is now a cult classic.

Note the tagline of the film, a comment on the theme of this episode.

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?

Neptune and Ancient Greece

LORELAI: Um, guys, hi, there’s a lady up there with a rock the size of Neptune around her neck talking about the debutantes of ancient Greece. It’s a lot easier to fall asleep if you’re sitting down, trust me.

The planet Neptune, the eighth planet from the Sun, was officially discovered in 1846, although it had been previously sighted and thought to be a star. It has a mass of 1.0243×1026 kg, making it 17 times more massive than the Earth. It is named after the Roman god of the sea, who interestingly, carries a trident, which Rory referenced earlier.

Symbolically, Neptune is associated with dreams and fantasy, suggesting that the debutante ball is creating an illusion, and there is little that is solid or genuine behind it. Notice that Emily despairs that the elegant ballroom is not all that it appears, the debutantes are “false” in that they have artificially changed their appearance, and that there is something insubstantial about the proceedings – which we barely manage to see. Not to mention that the ball itself takes a rather surreal turn, as if it is all just a dream. (Is it pure coincidence that Lorelai immediately talks about falling asleep?).

Lorelai’s statement about “the debutantes of ancient Greece” can be taken as nothing more than a joke – as if the MC’s reminiscences about her own debut must be positively ancient. However, the ancient Greeks did hold puberty rites for girls, of which you could say debutante balls are the spiritual successor. It seems very unlikely the MC would really mention ancient puberty rites, but the ball is just bizarre enough for this to be taken at face value.

“You are totally getting married”

LIBBY: Oh my God, is this [Dean] your escort?
RORY: Yeah, it is.
LIBBY: You are totally getting married.

Obviously, idiot characters like Libby cannot be trusted to give accurate predictions. Although Rory and Dean do get symbolically married at the ball itself.

Note that Emily told Lorelai the girls needed elbow-length white kid gloves for the ball, but they are clearly wearing elbow length white satin gloves instead. Honestly, without Emily supervising everything personally, this ball is going to pot. Also, Emily obviously managed to get Rory to put her hair up.

“Lonely seaman, hello sailor”

MISS PATTY: Now remember, one of the most important things in ballroom dancing is to remember to spot, otherwise you’re gonna get dizzy. So, what you wanna do is you wanna pick out something to focus on. I usually like to find a lonely seaman. Then when turning, whip your head around and find your spot again. [spins around] Hello sailor, hello sailor, hello sailor.

One of the show’s more groan-worthy sexual jokes. Note the reference to “hello sailor”, used again.

Dowry

LORELAI: Well, you have a dress. You need a dowry, I guess. There you go.

A dowry is a payment of money or property given by a bride’s family to a groom’s family when the couple get married. It is an ancient custom, with a long history, which probably began with the idea of a dowry helping to give a married woman some level of financial security. It is still practised around the world, but not often in modern western countries.

As Lorelai says this, she passes Rory the pitcher shaped like a cow they have on their kitchen table – in some cultures, and certainly in the past, livestock could be part of a dowry. It’s a joke which is also a reminder that Lorelai doesn’t have much money with which to endow Rory.

The dress that Rory has is the one that Lorelai would have worn to her own debutante ball when she was sixteen, if she hadn’t got pregnant.

(Lorelai and Rory seem to like cow-shaped things – Rory bought Sookie a kitchen timer shaped like a cow which mooed when the time was up for Christmas in 2000).