The Puffs break into the Headmaster’s Office as part of their initiation ceremony into the Puffs, and also seems to serve as a hazing ritual at the same time, as it’s the sort of harmless prank that inductees to a secret society might have to go through to prove their sincerity. It’s very mild compared some of the things real sororities get up to, but has the same cult-like feel.
The Puffs seem to have been doing this ritual for at least fifty years without ever being caught or reprimanded, so it makes you wonder how Rory got so unlucky that Headmaster Charleston will very soon come in and bust them. Presumably it was common practice to turn a blind eye to the Puffs and their activities. The only thing that could explain it is if Headmaster Charleston is relatively new to the job, and has decided to crack down on sororities at school.
RORY: You know, Paris, while yes, a little intense, is also very smart. FRANCIE: So I drop a box of matches on the floor, she can tell me how many there are?
Francie refers to the 1988 drama film Rain Man, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. It’s about a selfish, unscrupulous dealer named Charlie who discovers he has a brother Raymond who is an autistic savant. Charlie removes Raymond from the institution where he has lived most of his life, and they travel across country together.
In one scene of the film, a waitress accidentally spills a packet of toothpicks on the floor, and Raymond instantly calculates that there are 246 toothpicks.
The character of Raymond was partially based on Kim Peek, a real life savant, and partly on Bill Sackter, a man with intellectual disabilities who was a friend of one of the screenwriters. In real life, neither of them were able to perform this feat, although some savants can.
Rain Man was a critical and commercial success, becoming the #1 film of 1988, and won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Hoffman), and Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards. As of this moment, it was the last drama that both topped the box office and won the Oscar for Best Picture.
LORELAI: Oh, yeah, sure, I’ll be there all day. So, a fashion show, huh? Are we gonna get any famous models? AVA: Excuse me? LORELAI: You know, to model the clothes. Any chance I’m finally gonna get to see Kate Moss eat something?
Katherine “Kate” Moss (born 1974) is a British supermodel and businesswoman. She rose to fame in the mid 1990s as part of the grungy heroin chic fashion trend, where models were not only emaciated to the point of androgyny, but also had pale skin, stringy greasy hair, and dark circles under their eyes, as if actually physically ill or drug-ravaged. It was a reaction against the 1980s supermodel trend of models looking healthy and vibrant, like Elle MacPherson.
Kate Moss became a fashion icon through her collaboration with Calvin Klein, famous for her waif-like size zero figure and connections with the British music scene, dating famous musicians and appearing in several music videos. She had allegations of drug use against her which she never denied, although she was later cleared of all charges due to lack of evidence.
She became known for her quote, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, which she later regretted. Despite Lorelai wondering if Kate Moss will ever eat anything, one of the reasons she became so popular with the media is that she was very thin, yet was often photographed eating junk food, which she claimed to live on. I can’t help wondering if she was one of the inspirations for Lorelai and Rory’s diet!
Although fans sometimes get frustrated with Lorelai and Rory looking so slim despite their supposed huge appetites and junk food diet, in fact they were refreshingly energetic, fit and healthy looking compared to many of the girls and women in the media and on television shows in the 1990s (eg Paris Hilton, Ally McBeal). This was a time when actresses like Alicia Silverstone and Drew Barrymore were considered “fat”. Lorelai and Rory may have been slender, but at least they didn’t starve themselves, or look sick and scrawny.
AVA: Aubrey here works at Saks. AUBREY: Uh, used to work at Saks.
Saks Fifth Avenue is a luxury department store chain which originated in Washington DC in 1827, and is now headquartered in New York. The closest store to Hartford is in Greenwich, Connecticut, about 90 minutes drive away [pictured].
Aubrey is quick to correct the assumption that she is still working after being married for a month, which would imply her husband couldn’t support her financially. Unlike Lorelai, the Booster Club mothers don’t have to work, underlining that it is much more of a sacrifice for Lorelai to participate.
PARIS: And the connection you make with the Puffs, they last the rest of your life. My cousin Maddie got her internship at the Supreme Court because of Sandra Day O’Connor. RORY: Sandra Day O’Connor was a Puff? PARIS: Yes. She was Puffed in 1946, became the president in ’47, and in ’48 she actually moved the group to the very table you sat at today.
Sandra Day O’Connor (born 1930) is a retired attorney and politician who served as the first female associate judge in the US Supreme Court from 1981 to 2006. Prior to that, she was a judge and elected Republican leader in the Arizona Senate, the first female majority leader in a state senate.
O’Connor most often voted with the conservative bloc of the Supreme Court, and was sometimes named as the most powerful woman in the world. She retired in 2005, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in 2009.
In real life, Sandra Day O’Connor could not have gone to Chilton or been a Puff. She was born in Texas and lived on a cattle ranch, attending a private girl’s school in El Paso. For her final year of schooling, she took a 32-mile bus trip every day to attend Stephen F. Austin High School in El Paso (rather like Rory going to Hartford).
In 1946, aged 16, she enrolled at Stanford University, where she gained a BA in Economics in 1950, so she was far beyond the world of high school sororities by that stage. And even at university, she didn’t join a sorority, as they didn’t exist at Stanford at that time.
I think she was just too tough and sensible to ever bother about table allocation in the dining hall, or gossiping about Homecoming. I presume the ludicrousness of the idea is what gave it appeal as a joke.
We also learn that Paris has an older cousin named Maddie who interned at the Supreme Court with the assistance of Sandra Day O’Connor. Maddie must have been a Puff as well, and possibly has a career in law. In real life, membership of sororities and fraternities can gain you coveted positions, although I doubt a high school one would actually be that influential.
PARIS: No, they’re the Puffs, the most influential sorority at Chilton. RORY: Chilton has sororities?
PARIS: Only ten worth mentioning, and the Puffs, they have been number one for at least the last fifty years.
A sorority is a women’s social organisation at a college or university, the female equivalent of a fraternity. They were once common in US high schools as well, but these days many schools ban them. However, they are still in existence, and some schools are willing to turn a blind eye to them while not recognising them officially.
We learn here that Chilton is the sort of school which tolerates this practice, and that it has at least ten major sororities! The Puffs have been the most powerful and exclusive of them since at least 1951.
The current Puffs seem to consist of Francine “Francie” Jarvis (President), Ivy, Dijur, Lily, Celine, Lana, Asia, Anna, and Lemon. The name Puffs could have been chosen in-universe because of powder puffs, suggesting a fashionable femininity, or even that they are delicious little morsels, as puffs are such a favourite food in Gilmore Girls. However, it suggests being filled with their own importance (“puffed up”, “puff piece”) and full of hot air.
There’s something insubstantial about the Puffs, as if a puff of wind could blow them away – remember that Rory even pretended a draft of air is what drove her to their table, taking her on a trip to another world just as weird and bizarre as Oz.
Indignant that the school has dared to suggest her daughter is less than perfect, Lorelai marches into the headmaster’s office in high dudgeon to put him straight on the Gilmore Girl philosophy of not doing anything you don’t feel like.
Headmaster Charleston pulls the wind from her sails by immediately getting out her file (really? Schools keep files on parents? What kind of school is this?). The file is worryingly thin, denoting a lack of parental involvement. Lorelai has only been to one bake sale a year ago, and was observed to not stay afterwards to talk to other parents. Seriously, how does he know all this stuff? Why does he care?
Perhaps tactfully, Headmaster Charleston does not bring up the fact that Lorelai got rather too involved in the school by having a serious relationship with Rory’s teacher. That’s all forgiven and forgotten, but failing to hang out after a bake sale? That’s on your permanent record, Missy!
Now, usually when Lorelai is told to do something, she gets stroppy and calls everyone a Fascist, but this is Rory’s future, so after a few futile attempts to explain she’s too busy, she meekly leaves with a list of organisations at Chilton she might join.
Just as the school wouldn’t listen when Rory was slightly late to a test because she lives out of town and got hit by a deer, there is no attempt to understand that Lorelai is a single mother who works and studies, and is also doing about a million volunteer jobs in Stars Hollow already. Do fathers have to do any of this volunteer stuff for Chilton, or are their lives considered far too busy and worthwhile to be called upon in this way? If so, one of the more realistic things in the show!
Lorelai gets revenge by mentioning some of Rory’s musical guilty pleasures.
Bryan Adams
Born 1959, Canadian singer, composer, and guitarist who has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. Joining his first band at 15, he released his debut album, Bryan Adams, at 20, and rose to fame with his 1983 album, Cuts Like a Knife. His 1984 album Reckless made him a star, with hits such as Run to You and Summer of ’69. His 1991 song Everything I Do (I Do It For You) went to #1 around the world, and is one of the best-selling singles of all time. He did a 1996 duet with Barbra Streisand, one of Lorelai’s favourites. Rory had a poster of him on her bedroom wall for two years; this doesn’t seem quite believable, as he reached his peak when she was seven, a bit younger than the usual age kids start putting posters of pop stars on their wall. Another case of Rory being a precocious child, or perhaps, like Lorelai, she is fond of the music that was big when she was a small child?
The Spice Girls [pictured]
A British pop group formed in 1994, with a mantra of “girl power”, they are one of the most recognisable acts of the British pop music resurgence of the 1990s. Their 1996 debut single Wannabe went to #1 around the world, the start of their global success as the face of a marketing juggernaut aimed at girls and young women. They went on hiatus in 2000, but have reunited for two concert tours since. The group has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making them the best-selling girl group of all time, and the biggest British pop success since The Beatles. They became big when Rory was twelve – bang on time for an interest in pop music. Her being a fan of a girl group seems suspiciously like Lorelai’s obsession with girl group The Bangles.
Dido
Born Florian Armstrong in 1971, English singer and songwriter with a distinctive voice. She attained international success with her 1999 debut album, No Angel, which had hit singles such as Here With Me and Thank You. It sold over 21 million copies and won several awards. This seems to be quite a recent guilty pleasure, dating to when Rory was about fifteen.
LORELAI: Poor girl’s named after a Journey song, that’s gotta be rough.
Lorelai refers to the 1984 song, Oh Sherrie. It’s technically a Steve Perry song rather than one by his band, Journey, taken from his solo album, Street Talk. However, it’s often regarded as an “honorary” Journey song, being credited to the band on compilations of their hits, and played by the band on their 1986 Raised on Radio tour.
Oh Sherrie was Steve Perry’s biggest hit as a solo artist, going to #3 in the charts. It was written about his girlfriend at the time, Sherrie Swafford, who also appeared in the music video. Steve and Sherrie broke up around 1986, after several years of dating, but reportedly remain good friends.
Christopher’s girlfriend can’t really be named after the song – if that was the case, she would be Rory’s age or younger!
LORELAI: You know, um, I happened to be looking through some old maps this afternoon and I couldn’t help but notice that Boston is not that far away. CHRISTOPHER: Aw, you needed a map to tell you that? LORELAI: I also noticed that that, um, I-84 is a very good road. Solid, paved.
The Interstate 84, or I-84, is a highway which travels from Dunmore in Pennsylvania to Sturbridge in Massachusetts. The Connecticut section of it passes through Danbury, Waterbury, and Hartford, making it the most obvious choice when driving from Hartford to Boston, and suggesting Stars Hollow is just off this highway.
(Slightly confusingly, there is another I-84 in Oregon. For this reason, the I-84 in Connecticut is often identified as the I-84 East).
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 