Tag: Reality Check

“Make way for Rory”

BOUNCER: It’s twelve bucks. And it’s eighteen and over.
SOOKIE: Oh, she’s eighteen.
RORY: That’s right. Last week. So it’s a new eighteen, but it’s eighteen, yup.
BOUNCER: You got some ID?
LORELAI: Hey, uh, sir, make way for Rory. That’s her name. And her only name. Rory. Single name, she’s that important. Internationally known international supermodel and sometimes spokesperson for international products.

An in-joke – Alexis Bledel, who plays Rory, was a model before she began acting on Gilmore Girls. She first modelled for Seventeen magazine, and did have to travel as a model.

In real life, it is extremely unlikely that a bouncer would allow a 16-year-old girl without any identification into a nightclub that is 18+, even when accompanied by her parent; the penalties for doing so in the US can be quite strict. Lorelai’s way of getting people to make new rules for Gilmores is really getting quite unbelievable.

Alexis Bledel was almost 20 in this scene, so in real life actually would have been old enough to get into an eighteen and over nightclub.

“Tomorrow’s our anniversary”

RORY: Max is staying over.
DEAN: Really?
RORY: First time. And to kind of celebrate, he and my mom wanted to go on a double date.
DEAN: But tomorrow’s our anniversary.
RORY: No it’s not, it’s on the twenty-fourth.
DEAN: No, that was our old anniversary. We broke up, and got back together on the sixth. So using the twenty-fourth wouldn’t be an accurate account of how long we’ve been together.

This is the point where we learn Rory’s birth date, as Rory and Dean date their relationship from the day after her birthday, when Dean gave her a bracelet in Rory’s Birthday Parties. According to this scene, that happened on October 24, so Rory’s birthday is October 23.

(That means their anniversary dinner should have been on the 24th day of a month too, January 24, but although it actually happened in March, it doesn’t fit the timeline of events to be March 24.)

In real life, October 23 2000 was a Monday, not a Friday as in Gilmore Girls (so October 24 2000 was a Tuesday, not a Saturday).

We also learn that Rory and Dean were reunited on Friday May 6 2001 – we know it was a Friday, because Rory was at school, and the next day was a weekend. In real life, May 6 2001 was a Sunday. May 6 doesn’t fit the timeline we are given in the show, where Rory and Dean are shown getting back together around mid-May.

As Dean is preparing to celebrate their monthly anniversary on August 6, the next day, it must be August 5 in this scene. It is the same day as the previous scene Rory had with Lorelai (she is wearing the same clothes) which seemed to be a Friday. As Max is coming for the weekend, Friday seems to be correct. In real life, August 5 2001 was a Sunday.

Rory and Dean’s conversation tells us that Max and Lorelai’s wedding is planned for Saturday 20 August 2001 – two weeks and one day away.

(Rory and Dean decide they will celebrate their “anniversary” twice a month, on both the 6th and the 24th.)

VJ Day, New York, 1945

MAX: Wait a minute. I recognize this.
KIRK: Nice photo, huh?
MAX: This is VJ Day, New York, 1945.
KIRK: Right. I include it as an example of the excellence that I aspire to.

The photo is V-J Day in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstaedt, showing an American sailor kissing a woman in a white dress on Victory over Japan Day in New York’s Times Square on August 14, 1945. The photo was published in Life magazine, and is very famous.

Nikon

KIRK: Actually, this would be my first official wedding gig. Or photography gig, for that matter. But believe me, I’ve got the eye. And my Nikon is state of the art.
MAX: Oh, I’ve got a Nikon too. It’s an N65 with 3D matrix metering, 35 to 210 zoom. What have you got?
KIRK: It’s a Nikon.

Nikon is a Japanese corporation which makes products including cameras and photography equipment. It was founded in 1917, and changed its name to Nikon in 1988, after its cameras. It is a member of the Mitsubishi group.

The N65 was a 35 mm film SLR autofocus camera which came out in 2001, and was aimed at the lower end of the amateur photography market. In other words, it’s an entry level camera for the average consumer, but Max gives its specifications as if it is something out of the ordinary.

“Completely in sync”

LORELAI: I’m glad he’s [Max’s] back.
RORY: And he’s on board with the whole smallish wedding thing?
LORELAI: Oh yeah. We want fun, we want simple, we want fast. We’ve been completely in sync, without the slightly gay boy band affiliation.

A reference to the boy band NSYNC, previously discussed. One of its members, Lance Bass [in the middle of the picture], is actually gay, although he didn’t publicly come out until 2006, with speculation about his sexuality becoming common around 2005.

Elizabeth Taylor

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.

“Wedding dress place on Willow”

LORELAI: Hey Mom. I was in the neighbourhood, ’cause there’s that wedding dress place on Willow.

There are a few streets named Willow in the Hartford area, but none of them are in the sort of upmarket shopping district you’d expect a bridal store to be. I think for now we have to accept it as a fictional place – and it’s not impossible that Lorelai has invented it to explain her presence at her mother’s house.

At the beginning of the episode, Rory took Lorelai wedding dress shopping, but we never saw the results of that expedition. It’s still not clear if Lorelai’s bought her dress yet, or has bought the dress but is still to choose a wedding veil for it. It provides bookends for the episode, with Lorelai’s daughter helping her with her wedding outfit at the beginning, and her mother helping her at the end, so that all three generations of “Gilmore girls” take part in Lorelai’s planned wedding.

University of Toronto

LANE: Just don’t let her [Lorelai] change the date [of her wedding].
RORY: Not going to happen. Max is teaching a summer course at the University of Toronto, so if you’re back by the end of the summer, it’ll be fine.

The University of Toronto is a public university in the city of Toronto, Ontario. It is one of the oldest universities in Canada, and is the highest ranked university in the country, named among the best in the world. First founded by royal charter in 1827 and controlled by the Church of England, it changed its name in 1850 after becoming a secular instiution.

The university’s summer programs take place over 3-6 weeks, which fits in with Max being away until early August (so in fact the wedding could be moved up, causing Lane to miss it). Presumably Max is teaching classes in English Literature.

Gilmore Girls was first filmed in Unionville, on the outskirts of Toronto, so this seems like a gesture towards the show’s beginnings (at one time, they considered filming the show in Toronto permanently).

“What time do you leave?”

LANE: What time is it?
RORY: It’s eight. What time do you leave?
LANE: I have a ten o’clock flight.

If it’s 8 pm and Lane’s flight is at 10 pm, shouldn’t she be at the airport already, or at least on her way there? Most airlines recommend you arrive 2-3 hours before an international flight. This was shortly before 9/11, when travel security was less of an issue, but even before then, 90 minutes prior to the flight was the minimum, and Hartford is half an hour’s drive away.