Footnotes to the TV series
RORY: That’s not slow.
PARIS: It’s Jimmy Bob slow.
Jimmy Bob, a stereotypical “Southern” name, based on the perception that people in the American South tend to talk slower than in the northern states. In fact, they speak at the same rate, but they tend to make their vowels longer on stressed syllables.
LORELAI: But my question is, how did that happen? How was it that suddenly everyone in the world was saying ‘music has charms to soothe the savage beast’ when it was written breast?
“Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast” is a famous quote from William Congreve’s 1697 play, The Mourning Bride, previously mentioned. It means that listening to music can help calm angry and upset emotions.
For some unknown reason, it became popularly misquoted as “Music has charms to soothe a savage beast”. It doesn’t even make sense – if you’re being attacked by a wild tiger, whistling show tunes won’t help in the slightest.
PARIS: And your servers are wearing nylon blend shirts, and nylon was invented by a scientist at Dupont in the 1920s. It shattered the illusion.
Paris isn’t quite correct. While the DuPont Experimental Station began their research into polymers in 1927, the first example of nylon was synthesised in 1935, by their leading chemist, Wallace Hume Carothers [pictured]. Sadly, Carothers, who suffered from depression and had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital in 1936, committed suicide in 1937 by ingesting chemicals.
LORELAI: For the Bracebridge Dinner.
JACKSON: Geez, you guys are going crazy with this dinner.
SOOKIE: Jackson, I told you, this dinner is not just about food. We are recreating an authentic 19th century meal.
LORELAI: The servers are all gonna be in period clothing, they’re gonna speak period English. Here, look at the costumes.
The Bracebridge Dinner is an annual tradition which has been held at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, California since 1927, when the hotel opened. The interior of the Ahwahnee was an inspiration for the hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s film, The Shining – a hint as to how Lorelai may have become interested in holding her own Bracebridge Dinner.
The Bracebridge Dinner is a seven-course formal gathering held in the Grand Dining Room and presented as a feast given by a Renaissance-era lord. It was inspired by the fictional Squire Bracebridge’s Yule celebration in a story from the 1820 work, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., by American author Washington Irving. Music and theatrical performances based on Irving’s story accompany the introduction of each course.
Tickets to the Bracebridge Dinner cost around $400 and are generally difficult to obtain, sometimes being awarded in a lottery system. In 1992, there were 60 000 applicants for the 1650 seats available. This could be the reason why the Trelling Paper Company from Chicago have decided to hold their own Bracebridge Dinner at the Independence Inn.
Sookie says they will be serving an authentic 19th century meal, but in fact it is a Renaissance-themed meal. There’s not that much authentic about the dinner really, however I’m pretty sure the 19th century one wasn’t either. It’s a bit of fun and frolic, not a history lesson.
PARIS: Hey, I’m the director and I’ll decide who’s born to be what, and Brad is Romeo.
LOUISE: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
A popular misquote from William Congreve’s 1697 play, The Mourning Bride, previously discussed. The quote is often wrongly attributed to Shakespeare, and as they are currently studying Shakespeare, I think this is meant to imply that Louise is one of those people who use the quote without understanding its origin or context. It’s the second time she has used it against Paris.
Louise is correct that Paris is barring Tristan from being Romeo out of pique that he didn’t want to date her more than once. Paris does eventually give in and give the part of Romeo to Tristan, although she clearly doesn’t have much faith that he will stick with the project until the end (her lack of confidence in him turns out to be well-founded).
SOOKIE: You know ham was originally made out of rice?
It definitely wasn’t – ham is, and always was, made out of pig. It is hard to know how ham even could be made from rice.
As a professional chef, Sookie must surely know this. I’d like to think that Sookie is making a “look how dumb I am” joke, in protest at Lorelai and Jackson putting her intelligence down. If not, perhaps she’s taken it to heart that Jackson prefers his women dumb, and is trying to give him what he wants.
LORELAI: Where’s his dad?
LUKE: Oh well, the great prize that my sister picked up at a Der Wienerschnitzel left her about two years ago, whereabouts unknown.
Wienerschnitzel is an American fast food chain specialising in hot dogs (even though the name refers to crumbed veal, which the restaurant has only served a few times). It was founded in 1961 as Der Weinerschitzel (which is grammatically incorrect as a German phrase). Although the name was changed in 1977, many older customers still use the original name.
Wienerschnitzel is predominantly located in California, which suggests that Luke’s sister Liz met her son’s father there, and that she and her son have been on their own for two years. It is worth noting that this back story changed during the course of the show.
LUKE: It’s not biologically natural for people to mate for life. Animals don’t mate for life. Well, ducks do, but who the hell cares what ducks do?
In fact ducks don’t mate for life – most duck species, such as mallards, are monogamous, but for only for a single breeding season (a possible foreshadowing of the length of Max and Lorelai’s bond).
Some sea ducks are thought to return to the same partner when they make their way to the breeding grounds, but this is hardly the same as what a human marriage is generally like. In a few species of stiff-tailed duck, polygamy is the norm, with one male mating with several females.
Furthermore, even within pair-bonded duck couples, promiscuity is reasonably common – they are socially monogamous, not necessarily sexually monogamous.
Rory selects three quotes for Lorelai to choose from, one of which will be printed on the wedding invitations.
The first one is: “What is love? It is the morning and the evening star.” – Sinclair Lewis
This is a quote from Sinclair Lewis’ 1927 novel Elmer Gantry, a scathing satire on fundamentalist religion. The title character is a religious hypocrite and a fraud. Lorelai obviously knows very little about Sinclair Lewis, who she describes as “sappy”. In fact the Nobel Prize Winner was known for his biting wit and critical eye on American culture and materialism. The quote itself is from the title character, who is being entirely insincere. Rory may have read Elmer Gantry partly on Richard’s recommendation – Sinclair Lewis was a favourite author of H.L. Mencken, and he attended Yale, Richard’s own alma mater.
The second one is: “And all went merry as a marriage bell. But hush! Hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell!” – Lord Byron
This is from Lord Byron’s 1818 long narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Semi-autobiographical, it describes a world-weary young man, looking for distraction by travelling through foreign lands. It made its author immediately famous. This section of the poem is about a grand party in Brussels, which is brought to a disastrous and sinister end by the Battle of Waterloo.
Lorelai’s comment is, “Byron and Lewis, together again”. She may be referring to Matthew Gregory (“M.G.”) Lewis, the author of the 1796 Gothic romance The Monk. He and Lord Byron were friends, and travelled together. Rory may have read Byron’s poem because it is mentioned in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. It seems like Rory to want to follow up on a literary work that is referenced in another.
The last quote is: “We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty.” – Benito Mussolini
The whole quote is, “The Truth Apparent, apparent to everyone’s eyes who are not blinded by dogmatism, is that men are perhaps weary of liberty. They have a surfeit of it. Liberty is no longer the virgin, chaste and severe, to be fought for … we have buried the putrid corpse of liberty … the Italian people are a race of sheep.” It comes from Writings and Discourses of Mussolini, a twelve-volume work published between 1934 and 1940.
The choice of Mussolini seems to be a callback to Lorelai calling Headmaster Charleston “Il Duce“, the title of Fascist dictator Mussolini. She said this to Max during an argument they were having about Rory’s education in The Deer Hunters. Amazingly, this is the quote which Lorelai chooses, an apparent acknowledgement that her freedom is now at an end.
As you can see, all the quotes are completely inappropriate for wedding invitations. The first one is an insincere summing-up of love by a hypocrite and fraud, the second one is about a celebration which ends in disaster, and the third one equates marriage with the death of Lorelai’s liberty, said by a fascist dictator, and referencing a fight between Lorelai and Max.
What message is Rory trying to send with her choice of these quotes? They suggest a deep cynicism in her about marriage in general, and Lorelai and Max’s wedding in particular.
LORELAI: Hey Mom. I was in the neighborhood, ’cause there’s that wedding dress place on Willow. Elizabeth Taylor bought one of her dresses there.
Dame Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) was a British-American actress, businesswoman, and humanitarian. Beginning her career as a child actress in the 1940s, including a part in Lassie Come Home, previously mentioned, she became one of the most popular movie stars of the 1950s. She successfully continued her career in the 1960s, including as the female lead in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, previously discussed, for which she won the Best Actress Academy Award. She remained a well-known public figure for the rest of her life, and is regarded as one of the great screen legends.
Elizabeth Taylor was famous for her many marriages, marrying eight times to seven men. Her marriages were to hotel heir Conrad “Nicky” Hilton in 1950, British actor Michael Wilding in 1952, producer Mike Todd in 1957, singer Eddie Fisher in 1959, Welsh actor Richard Burton in 1964, and then again in 1975, Republican politician John Warner in 1976, and construction worker Larry Fortensky in 1991 (ending in 1996). None of her marriages lasted a long time (she was widowed about a year after marrying Mike Todd), and this is another hint to us of the probable fate of any marriage between Lorelai and Max.
Elizabeth Taylor did not buy any of her wedding dresses in Hartford, and only had a traditional white wedding dress for her first wedding to Nicky Hilton [pictured]. It was made by MGM costume designer Helen Rose (who also made Grace Kelly’s wedding dress), and was a gift to Taylor by the studio. Her other wedding dresses were stylish gowns, with the most “wedding like” of them being for her last wedding, to Larry Fortensky. It was a pale yellow floor-length lace gown by the designer Valentino, and given to her by him as a gift.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 