7 Up, Salad Water

RORY: Oh, a girl told me once that if your scalp is hurting from bleach, drink a 7 Up. It’s something to do with the bubbles.

LANE: The Kim household does not have soft drinks.

RORY: Well, what do you got?

LANE: Something called Salad Water imported from Korea. Believe me, it’s nothing like 7 Up.

7 Up, a lemon-lime flavoured soft drink owned by Dr Pepper, and distributed by Pepsi. It was created by Charles Leiper Grigg in St Louis in 1929, two weeks before the Wall Street stock market crash of that year. Originally called Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda, it contained lithium citrate, a mood stabiliser used to treat manic states and bipolar disorder. It became 7 Up in 1936, and nobody really knows why that name was chosen – some say that it refers to the seven original ingredients, some that it’s a coded reference to lithium, which has an atomic mass around 7.

7 Up won’t do anything to stop your scalp hurting after bleach (and if it’s the bubbles, wouldn’t any soft drink do the same thing?), but I’ve seen it recommended for stomach ache and the common cold, so there seems to be a lot of belief in it as a folk remedy. I suspect Rory is saying anything to distract Lane, and possibly hoping for a placebo effect.

Salad Water, or Water Salad [pictured], is water flavoured with green salad, produced by Coca-Cola in Japan. I’m not sure why the Kims have imported it from Korea when it’s a Japanese product – perhaps the Korean import-export company imports it from Japan, then exports it to the US.

Vin Diesel

LANE: Thinking about the last movie I saw. Vin Diesel was in it. Thinking about Vin Diesel now. Thinking about where Vin Diesel got the name Vin Diesel. Thinking about Vin Diesel’s mysterious ethnicity.

Vin Diesel, professional name of Mark Sinclair (born 1967), actor and producer. One of the world’s highest-grossing actors, he is best known for his role in the Fast & Furious film franchise, the first one being released in 2001. His professional name is taken from his mother’s maiden name, Vincent, and the fact that he is highly energetic.

His most recent film at this point was XXX, which came out in August 2002. Vin Diesel plays Xander Cage, a thrill-seeking extreme sports enthusiast, stuntman and rebellious athlete, turned reluctant spy for the National Security Agency. Cage is sent on a dangerous mission to infiltrate a group of potential Russian terrorists in Central Europe. It was a commercial success and received mixed reviews. The film’s soundtrack made #9 on the album charts, and #1 on the soundtrack charts, which might have been a reason Lane wanted to see it. She presumably watched it during her summer vacation.

In a 2001 interview, Vin Diesel described himself as being of “ambiguous ethnicity” – Lane seems to be alluding to this statement. He was raised by his white mother and adoptive African-American father, but his biological father’s origins are a mystery, although reported to be part African-American. Vin Diesel has never met him, and says all he knows from his mother is that he “has connections with many cultures”. He added, “Italian, and a whole lot of other stuff”. (Wouldn’t a DNA test provide some answers?).

Diesel considers himself to be a person of colour, and made a film about his ambiguous ethnicity in 1995 called Multi-Facial. On film, he has played characters from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (Italian, Cuban, Jewish etc), and their ethnic background is never essential to the plot.

[Picture shows Vin Diesel in XXX]

Jimmy Buffet

LORELAI: Oh my God … You like Jimmy Buffett? He’s so mellow.

LUKE: I’ve just been to a few shows, that’s all.

LORELAI: A few shows? Oh my God, you’re a Buffett Head.

James “Jimmy” Buffett (1946), singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He began his musical career as a country singer in Nashville in the late 1960s, bringing out his first album, Down to Earth, in 1970.

After busking for tourists in New Orleans, Louisiana, he went on a busking expedition to Key West, Florida, in 1971, he moved there permanently, and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona for which he is known. His style of music is called “tropical rock”.

During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his extensive touring than from albums, and became known as a popular concert draw. He is one of the world’s richest musicians, with a net worth of over $900 million. Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band gave concerts at the Meadows Music Theater in Hartford almost every year in the late 1990s, giving Luke ample opportunities to see him live.

Jimmy Buffett fans are actually called “Parrot Heads”, not “Buffett Heads” – it’s after the parrot hats all his fans seem to wear. Lorelai appears to recall that the the word head is in there, but not the details. She may have misheard or misremembered the term.

At this point, the viewer, like Luke, thinks that Lorelai says, “Oh my God” because of the Jimmy Buffett shirt. In fact, we later learn she says it because she’s seen Jess’ girlfriend Shane in the closet, and quickly covers for it by immediately gabbling about Jimmy Buffett as a distraction. She certainly gives Jess some hard looks, though, as he continues to confirm, or appear to confirm, all her worst fears about him.

Amish School in Nicaragua, Piece de resistance

LANE: Oh, and the piece de resistance! She found an Amish school in Nicaragua.

This is completely fictional. There are no Amish colleges or universities, as their education only goes up to eighth grade. There is an Amish community in Nicaragua, but it isn’t as strict as others – they use electricity and drive cars.

Pièce de résistance – French phrase commonly used in English. It means, “the most important or remarkable feature”.

Seventh Day Adventist Schools

RORY: Out of twenty-three schools, there wasn’t one that you might want to go to?

LANE: It depends on what I’m looking for. Of course, all the great Seventh Day Adventist schools were represented, with their ban on dancing, gum chewing and bowling.

There are twelve Seventh Day Adventist colleges and universities in the US, and one in Canada. The closest one to Connecticut is probably Washington Adventist University, in the suburbs of Washington DC. If Lane had to apply to all of them, that leaves at least ten more she applied to that weren’t Seventh Day Adventist.

Seventh Day Adventists really do disapprove of secular dancing, seeing it as worldly and immoral. Chewing gum isn’t forbidden, but it isn’t seen as part of a healthy diet, and some older Seventh Day Adventists prefer that gum not be chewed in public.

Back in the day, I think bowling was considered an unsuitable entertainment, along with anything else that was a competitive pastime, but these days it can seen as a wholesome activity, and there are even Seventh Day Adventist bowling teams.

Party Schools

MRS. KIM: They’re all good religious programs, and I’ve already thrown out the ones that let boys and girls sit in the cafeteria together, the party schools.

Party school, a college or university with a reputation for heavy drinking and drug use, or a general culture of licentiousness at the expense of educational credibility and integrity. It’s a term mostly used in the US, and The Princeton Review publishes a list of “party schools”. The University of Connecticut is on it.

Mrs Kim considers any college where boys and girls are permitted to sit together to eat a “party school”. In real life, Seventh Day Adventist colleges and universities often do have restrictions on contact between male and female students, but nothing so extreme as not letting them eat together, that I have heard about.

Reverend Melmin

MRS. KIM: College applications … Every one in this pile approved by me and Reverend Melmin.

Last season Lane mentioned “the reverend” who takes them for Bible study class on Saturday morning plays handball. Now we discover his name is Reverend Melmin, who must be the pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist congregation in Stars Hollow. In real life, Seventh Day Adventist pastors aren’t actually addressed as “Reverend”, I think he would be “Pastor Melmin”.

“Waving a crucifix”

LANE: No, you’re thinking your mom, here, Rory. If I said that to mine, she’d start waving a crucifix at me.

A crucifix is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a plain cross. The word comes from the Latin for “fixed to a cross”. It’s a principal symbol in Christianity, particularly for those in the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox faiths.

Seventh Day Adventists, like many Protestant religions, don’t actually use crucifixes, or wear crosses on chains, and often Seventh Day Adventist churches don’t even have a plain cross. Gilmore Girls seems to use Mrs Kim as a sort of grab-bag of extreme religious tropes and clichés, even when it doesn’t make any logical sense.

Johnny Yune

LANE: We practice for two hours, I’m home in time to watch reruns of Johnny Yune’s talk show on Korean television with my mom, who thinks I hooked up with you guys – which I did, so I’m not even lying.

Johnny Yune, born Yoon Jong-seung (1936-2020), Korean-American actor, singer, and comedian. He began performing stand up in 1964, and got his big break appearing on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson in 1979. He was one of the show’s most frequent comedy guests. He is best known for playing the lead role in the 1980s comedy films, They Call Me Bruce, and They Still Call Me Bruce.

From 1989-90, he hosted The Johnny Yune Show, the first Americanised talk show in Korea The show was a hit, but after only a year, Yune decided to leave due to limited freedom of the media.

Mrs Kim is watching reruns of his talk show on KBS America, the local platform for Korean Broadcasting System, South Korea’s national broadcaster.

“Pack your bags”

DARREN: [on answering machine] I just wanted to let you know that I just finished going over Rory’s records here, and no shock, they’re perfect. Rory, you are tailor-made for Harvard. They’re lucky to have you. As far as I’m concerned, you should pack your bags. I’m gonna tell all this to the people in admissions and I’ll give your headmaster a call as well, so take care and we’ll talk again.

There is no way that the alumnus who interviewed a prospective student would tell them to “pack their bags” – there are many, many excellent students who aren’t accepted into Harvard, nobody can guarantee anyone a spot, unless something very corrupt is going on. This goes right up there with Headmaster Charleston telling Rory she deserves to go to Harvard, just after she’s discovered breaking into his office, no less.

However, this is a way to neatly tie up the episode and let the viewers know that Rory will almost certainly be accepted into Harvard, and all her application anxieties are at an end. Although Rory has work for the newspaper to complete, and Lorelai needs to do tasks for the inn, they elect to spend their Sunday hanging out together instead, as if aware that their time together is running short, and therefore more precious.