Tag: Religion

Billy Graham

LORELAI: The Bible said all that, huh? Did it, did it mention me by name? I’m just . . . okay, I’m just kidding. So, um, judging by your Billy Graham impression, I am guessing that you didn’t send me an ice cream maker, so maybe you could just give me Aunt Clarissa’s phone number?

William “Billy” Graham (1918-2018) was a prominent American evangelist and ordained Southern Baptist who became well-known internationally in the 1940s. He held large outdoor rallies and his sermons were broadcast on television from 1947 to 2005, with an entire lifetime audience of over two billion, meaning he preached the Gospel to more people than anyone in history. He repudiated racial segregation, and invited Martin Luther King Jr to preach alongside him at a joint rally in 1957. He became the spiritual adviser for every US president from Harry S. Truman to Barack Obama.

Saint Peter

LORELAI: Okay, clearly this is shaping up to be one of those moments that Saint Peter’s gonna show on the big video screen when I die, and I for one do not wanna see the three of us staggering around with cider ice cream slathered all over our faces while my soul hangs in the balance, so until I can find out who sent this, no one goes near it.

Saint Peter was one of the Twelve Apostles, and a major leader of the early Christian church – by tradition, the first bishop of Rome, or first pope. The Gospel of Matthew speaks of Jesus giving Peter the keys to the kingdom of Heaven. In modern depictions, particularly cartoons and jokes, he is literally the keeper of the gates of Heaven, and responsible for deciding who is allowed in and who isn’t.

“Like mother like daughter”

HEADMASTER: Like mother, like daughter.
LORELAI: Okay, hold on.
HEADMASTER: Ms. Gilmore, active participation in Chilton activities for a parent is vitally important.

The phrase “like mother like daughter” can be found in the Bible, in Ezekiel 16:44. There, it specifically refers to the city and people of Jerusalem, who are said to have the Hittites as their “mother”. It isn’t complimentary, meaning that Jerusalem has taken on the same disgusting practices as earlier cultures, despite the love and protection of God. The proverb seems to have been well-known even in Old Testament times.

You can see Headmaster Charleston in the role of disappointed God, having offered the love and protection of Chilton to Rory, only to find that she has inherited her mother’s appalling habits!

This is where this episode’s title comes from.

Luke’s Approved Social Activities

Kabbalah Studies

Kabbalah is an esoteric discipline in Jewish mysticism, containing a set of teachings explaining the relationship between God and the universe. It dates to around the 12th century and originated in Spain and southern France. There are different traditions and streams of thought within it, that might focus on theosophy, meditative practices, or (more controversially) white magic. It has been a strong influence on Jewish philosophy and mysticism.

Since the 1960s, universalist schools have opened up which teach Kabbalah to people of all faiths and ways of life, one of the contributors to New Age spirituality. You can also sign up for six week courses in introductory Kabbalah, making it very accessible. Possibly such courses are held in Stars Hollow, although it is slightly surprising Luke knows about them and approves, as he doesn’t seem the most mystical person. The show did seem to just give random Jewishness to characters whenever it felt like it.

Freeway (a mistake for highway????) beautification projects

Community groups often sponsor a section of highway in the US in order to maintain it, and provide volunteers to work on it. Such projects might include planting trees, shrubs and ground cover plants, mowing grass, weeding, mulching, and removing roadside litter. It seems like something Taylor would almost certainly organise for a highway near Stars Hollow.

Color Me Mine pottery painting

A chain of studios, founded in 1996, where people can paint their own pottery and ceramics. In real life, there aren’t any Color Me Mine studios in Connecticut (but plenty in California, where the writers live).

Humorously, Luke’s suggestions of social activities he might approve don’t sound like anything most teenage boys would be interested in.

Chuppah

LORELAI: What is that?
LUKE: Oh, it’s a chuppah.
LORELAI: A what?
LUKE: A chuppah. You stand under it, you and Max. It’s for your wedding.

A chuppah is a canopy which a Jewish couple stand under when they are married. It’s usually a cloth or sheet (sometimes a prayer cloth) held up by four wooden poles. In Orthodox Judaism, there is meant to be open sky above the chuppah, just as is planned for Max and Lorelai’s garden wedding. The chuppah represents the home the couple are making together, which will always be open to guests.

Lorelai wonders whether it would be inappropriate for she and Max to have a chuppah, and gains reassurance from Luke on that point. Luke is actually correct: there is nothing specifically Jewish about getting married under a canopy (other religions do it too), and it doesn’t necessarily have to be religious in nature. These days there’s a bit of a trend for non-Jewish canopy weddings, and as long as it isn’t actually called a chuppah it doesn’t usually cause offence.

The chuppah is a gift from Luke to apologise for his behaviour towards Max. He knows he has been bit of a jerk about Lorelai’s wedding, and wants her to know he is still there for her as a friend. At the end of the scene, Luke and Lorelai are shown standing together under the chuppah as a sign that they will be married one day (when it happens in A Year in the Life, it will take place under a “canopy” beneath the sky, but not the chuppah).

It isn’t all that believable that the Luke we have got to know so far would actually make a chuppah for a non-Jewish wedding after getting the idea from a book (how did he know how to pronounce the word from reading it in a book?), and it seems awfully contrived.

Church of the Poison Mind

This 1983 pop song by British new wave band Culture Club plays at the drag club after True finishes. It is the song that Michel dances to, after saying that he had to “shake his thing”.

Church of the Poison Mind was the lead single from Culture Club’s most successful album, Colour by Numbers. It was a hit around the world, and went to #10 in the US, and #2 in the UK and Ireland.

The lead singer of Culture Club, Boy George, is gay, and cross-dressed as part of his 1980s stage persona, and Church of the Poison Mind is about Christianity’s attitude to homosexuality.

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

This novel is on the coffee table when Max, Lorelai and Rory watch a film together.

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ is a 1991 novel by Portuguese author José Saramago. The original title is O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo, and it was first published in English in 1994. It’s a fictional re-telling of the life of Jesus Christ, presenting him as a flawed, very human character filled with physical passions and spiritual doubts. Although controversial for its criticisms of God and Christianity, it was praised by critics.

It is interesting to speculate whose book this actually is. It doesn’t seem like the type of book Rory usually reads, and neither she nor Lorelai appear to have much interest in religion. It feels like Lorelai’s book, and a comment on her slowly discovering that Max is likewise only human, and not all that her personal mythology made him.

Mother Teresa

RORY: I’m like ten years behind on my extracurriculars.
DEAN: What are you talking about?
RORY: Paris has been accumulating these things since she could walk. I mean, she has a list of good deeds that could bump Mother Teresa off the Harvard list.

Mother Teresa, born Anjezë Bojaxhiu (1910-1997) was an Albanian-born Roman Catholic nun and missionary who lived most of her life in India, caring for the poor. In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity, which cares for the sick, and manages soup kitchens, orphanages, and schools.

Mother Teresa won numerous awards during her life, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Sh was canonised as a saint in 2016, and in 2017 named one of the patrons of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calcutta.

“Keeps your halo shiny”

RORY: I will be assisting, I will be helping out those less fortunate than myself, I will be getting college credit and this is the end of this particular conversation.
LORELAI: You’re right. It’s a good thing. Nice, keeps your halo shiny.

As becomes increasingly clear during this episode, Rory is volunteering purely for college credit, and doesn’t really care about the less fortunate. She’s not quite as angelic as Lorelai thinks.