LORELAI: Thanks for the invite, I’m sure it’s gonna be great. Uh, so, uh, you guys have a good rehearsal. I’m gonna go on inside and write to Tipper. Great gal. See you guys later.
Mary “Tipper” Gore (born Mary Aitcheson in 1948), social issues advocate, activist, photographer and author who was the second lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. She was married to Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, although they separated in 2010.
In 1985, Gore co-founded the Parents Music Resource Center, which advocated for labelling of record covers of releases featuring profane language, especially in the heavy metal, punk, and hip hop genres of music.
Lorelai pretends she supports Tipper Gore to try to put Zack off being attracted to her. It doesn’t seem to work. Perhaps he didn’t listen.
PARIS: Well, if there’s nothing really to talk about, what’s the point, right?
LOUISE: You said that one student council meeting a week was not enough.
MADELINE: Yeah, you said that was no way to govern, that meeting once a week was lazy, ineffectual, and if we were going to do it like that, we might as well just buy ourselves a ranch in Texas.
Paris referred in her comment to Prairie Chapel Ranch near the town of Crawford in Texas. It was acquired by former president George W. Bush in 1999, and was known as the Western White House. It was used both as a vacation house, a meeting place, and as a place to host visiting dignitaries.
George W. Bush was considered a lazy president, with some wits remarking that he worked “24/7 – 24 hours a week, 7 months a year”.
LORELAI: I can’t believe [the Beales] were related to Jackie.
RORY: Well, the Kennedys kind of hid them in the background for many years.
LORELAI: Well, when you’re a Kennedy, how do you even choose who in the family to hide?
I’m not sure that there’s much evidence that the Kennedy family “hid” Jackie’s relatives away. Jackie and her sister Lee Radziwill certainly didn’t seem to pay them much attention until they began to be featured in the tabloid press as eccentric upper-class hoarders.
However, it’s said Jackie and Lee paid for Grey Gardens to be cleaned up to some extent – the house in the documentary is actually much less of a hovel than it had been previously. And it was Jackie and Lee who approached the filmmakers about the documentary, hoping it could be a way for the Beales to make some money, so they actually helped give them publicity, rather than hid them away.
Lorelai’s snarky comment reflects the number of scandals the Kennedy family have had over the years. She may be specifically thinking of Rose Marie “Rosemary” Kennedy (1918-2005) [pictured], the sister of President John F. Kennedy. Due to a difficult birth, she was developmentally delayed, although it is unknown to what extent, as the Kennedy family kept her life private.
When Rosemary was in the early twenties, she became increasingly irritable, and went into convulsions, as well as attacks of rage in which she would hit other people. At the age of 23, her father, Joseph Kennedy, agreed to her being lobotomised to help control her violent mood swings – he did not tell his wife until the procedure had taken place.
The lobotomy had a devastating effect on Rosemary, whose mental capacity became that of a two year old. She couldn’t walk or speak intelligibly, and was incontinent. She was immediately institutionalised, and separated from her family for over 20 years – her siblings did not know where she was, and the press was told she was “reclusive”. After her father’s death in 1969, she gradually became part of the family again. By that time, she had learned to walk, although with a limp.
Some say that Rosemary was one of the inspirations for Eunice Kennedy Shriver to later found the Special Olympics, although Eunice said that the Games were never about one individual.
RORY: Think about something else … Something disgusting that will take your appetite away.
LORELAI: Ari Fleischer?
RICHARD: Ari Fleischer is our nation’s mouthpiece, young lady.
Lawrence Ari Fleischer (born 1960), media consultant and political aide who served as the press secretary for President George W. Bush from 2000 to 2003. He was a prominent advocate for the Iraq War.
JAMIE: I flunked a pop quiz in poli-sci because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.
Poli-Sci, short for Political Science. A social science discipline dealing with governance and power, constitution and law, and the analysis of political thought, power, and behaviour.
It’s possible that Jamie is doing a Political Science major at Princeton, with plans to work in government and politics when he graduates.
JESS: My own good? Can we be a little more Totalitarian here?
Totalitarianism, a form of government that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state, and exercises an extremely high degree of control and regulation over public and private life. In totalitarian states, power is often held by dictators
Like Lorelai, Jess likes to criticise anyone who tries to cramp his style in over the top political terms. Lorelai calls them Nazis and Fascists, Jess calls them Totalitarian.
LUKE: And he paid cash? … Did you make sure Andrew Jackson was on the bills, not Alfred E. Neuman or someone?
Andrew Jackson, previously discussed. Former president Andrew Jackson is on the US $20 bill.
Alfred E. Neuman, the fictitious mascot and cover boy of the humour magazine Mad. The image had been used since the 19th century in advertising, and for Roosevelt’s political campaign in the 1930s. Mad magazine claimed the image in 1954, and named him “Alfred E. Neuman” in 1956. Since his debut, he has appeared on all but a handful of the magazine’s covers.
In 1967, the magazine published pictures of joke coins and a three dollar bill with Alfred E. Neuman’s face on it. Despite being an obvious satire on coin collecting, some readers cut the notes out of the magazine and were able to use them in Las Vegas money-changing machines, leading to federal authorities moving to stamp out this counterfeit operation.
Mad magazine went on to publish fake Monopoly money, and smaller versions of the three dollar bill which were given out as novelties at trade shows and conventions.
LORELAI: An invitation to what? Oh, is it the White House again? Those boys never give up.
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the US. It is in Washington DC, and has been the residence of every US president since John Adams in 1800. The term “White House” is often used to refer to the president and his advisers.
RORY: Well, our president said exercise and I am very patriotic.
In June 2002, George W. Bush made an appearance to launch a federal campaign called The President’s Challenge that urged Americans to stay fit, eat healthier and kick bad habits, such as smoking. He issued twelve pages of recommendations on how Americans could improve their lifestyles, and urged people to walk for at least 30 minutes a day. The president was himself very fitness conscious, running and lifting weights every day.
LANE: Quaker College was a delightful surprise, with its special appeal to Richard Nixon, who’s dead but still deeply involved in campus recruiting.
Richard Nixon, former US president, previously and frequently mentioned. He was born into a evangelical Quaker family in California in 1913, and brought up in Quaker ways of the time, such as abstaining from dancing, alcohol, and swearing. He largely left his religion behind in his pursuit of political power, and doesn’t seem to have attended Quaker meetings or events in adulthood.
Nixon was offered a scholarship to Harvard, but chose to remain close to home instead and attended Whittier College in Whittier, California from 1930 to 1934, graduating with a BA in History. Although named after the Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier, the college hasn’t been officially affiliated with the Society of Friends since the 1940s. A liberal arts college, Latino students make up half the population, and 75% of the students are people of colour. If Richard Nixon is recruiting students from beyond the grave, his policy is perhaps slightly unexpected.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 