Season One, Episode Eleven: “Paris Is Burning”

Season 1, episode 11: “Paris Is Burning”
Original air date: 11 January 2001
Directed by: David Petrarca
Written by: Joan Binder Weiss

Summary: Lorelai begins to panic as her involvement with Max grows more serious. Paris witnesses a private moment between them during Parents’ Day, leading to unintended consequences for Rory.

On this page: All References in Chronological Order | References Sorted by Category | Frequent References | Image Credits | Indigenous Land Acknowledgment

All References in Chronological Order

00:00 – 🎥 reference
Episode title: “Paris Is Burning”

• Paris Is Burning (1990, dir. Jennie Livingston) is a US documentary film about the 1980s “ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it. … The title takes its name from the Paris Is Burning ball held annually by artist Paris Dupree who appears in the film” (Wikipedia). The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 2016.
• Ball culture (also known as drag ball culture or ballroom culture) refers to an underground Black and Latino LGBTQ+ subculture in which attendees “‘walk’ in a variety of categories for trophies and cash prizes” (Wikipedia), incorporating elements of performance, competition, and community. Though drag balls have a long history, ball culture can be traced specifically to the clandestine balls held by William Dorsey Swann, a formerly enslaved man, in the late 19th century. RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009-present), hosted by RuPaul Charles, represents a continuation of ball culture.

00:25 – 🏷️ feature
Lorelai and Rory stop at an outdoor pet adoption fair. A banner in the background promotes the event’s sponsor, Petfinder.

• “Petfinder is an internet company that operates the largest online pet adoption website serving all of North America” (Wikipedia). In 2013, the company reported that it had facilitated more than 22 million adoptions since it was founded in 1996.

00:35 – 🗺️ mention
LORELAI: “Buttercup was found cold and wet hovering under a hydrangea bush along highway 26.” It’s a sad highway!

• US Route 26 is an east-west highway that runs from Ogallala, Nebraska (in the Midwest) to a point south of Seaside, Oregon (in the Northwest), where it intersects with the north-south US Route 101.

01:40 – 🏷️ mention
RORY: She stopped cleaning its cage. Instead, every day, she would stuff some Kleenex in there.
LUKE: You didn’t.
LORELAI: It was the quilted kind.

• Kleenex is a brand of paper products, the name being most associated with facial tissue. Like the brand names Post-it and Scotch Tape, “Kleenex” has become a genericized trademark, or proprietary eponym, in US English. The name is owned by US corporation Kimberly-Clark, but it is often used to refer to any facial tissue, regardless of brand.

02:05 – 🎥 reference
LORELAI: Look, I know it was bad, but this was a vicious hamster. This was like a Damien hamster with little beady eyes and a big forked tail, and a cape with a hood, and…

• The Omen is a 1976 US-British supernatural horror film directed by Richard Donner. In the film, a US diplomat agrees to replace his own child, who died shortly after birth, with another baby. He agrees, without informing his wife, and the couple names the baby Damien. Mysterious and violent events follow the family as the child grows, gradually revealing him to be the Antichrist.
• Lorelai invokes a stereotypical picture of Satan, cobbled together from Medieval imagery and pop culture representations.

04:05 – 🎥 reference
LORELAI: What can I say? Watching someone work makes me hungry. If I hadn’t stopped watching This Old House, I’d be 500 pounds right now.

• This Old House is a US home-improvement media brand best known for its long-running television series of the same name. The series documents the renovation and restoration of historic houses, and was hosted by Bob Vila when it premiered on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1979. In 1989, Vila was fired for appearing in commercials for Rickels Home Centers, a competitor of the show’s underwriter, The Home Depot. Steve Thomas took over following Vila’s departure and hosted the program until 2003.

05:35 – 📖 mention
LORELAI: I never read Proust. I always wanted to. Every now and then, I’m seized with an overwhelming urge to say something like, “As Marcel Proust would say…” But of course I have no idea what Marcel Proust would say! So I don’t even go there. I could do, “As Michael Crichton would say,” but it’s not exactly the same, you know?
26:30
MAX: The novelist Edna O’Brien has been quoted as saying that every writer should read some Proust every day.
28:10
MAX: Is there something going on here that I don’t know about?
LORELAI: Yeah. I hate Proust.

• Marcel Proust (born Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust, 1871-1922) was a French novelist “considered by critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century” (Wikipedia). His monumental novel, In Search of Lost Time, is discussed below.
• Michael Crichton (born John Michael Crichton, 1942-2008) was a US author and filmmaker. He held an MD from Harvard Medical School, and many of his novels “feature medical or scientific underpinnings, reflective of his own medical training and scientific background” (Wikipedia). Perhaps most famous of these is Jurassic Park (1990), which was the basis for the 1993 film of the same name. He also wrote and directed the film Westworld (1973), the first film to use 2D computer-generated imagery, and created the television show ER (1994-2009).

07:00 – 📖 feature
LORELAI: Hey, he loaned me a book.
RORY: What book?
LORELAI: Swann’s Way.
RORY: Aren’t we ambitious?
23:25
RORY: So, how’s Swann’s Way coming?
LORELAI: Oh, finished.
RORY: You’re kidding. It took me forever to read that. I had to renew it 10 times.
LORELAI: The first sentence. I finished the first sentence. … Yeah, it’s just, I’m so swamped right now, you know. It’s the totally wrong time to start reading the longest book known to man.
26:40
MAX: Now, at this point, normally, I would impress the parents by pulling out a copy of Proust’s Swann’s Way and reading a particularly difficult passage.

• Marcel Proust’s best-known work is In Search of Lost Time (French: À la recherche du temps perdu), a novel in seven volumes, the first of which is titled Swann’s Way (French: Du côté de chez Swann). The seven volumes were published between 1913 and 1927, and the novel as a whole is “known both for its length and its theme of involuntary memory” (Wikipedia).

07:55 – 📖 feature
MAX: “There’s a certain Slant of light, / Winter afternoons – / That oppresses, like the Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes.” That, my friends, is the first verse of a poem by Emily Dickinson. Now, read some of those tonight. And as you do, consider the fact that Emily Dickinson writes convincingly about passion and about the world in spite of the fact that she lived as a virtual recluse. It’ll help you appreciate her mind.

• US poet Emily Dickinson was mentioned previously in episode eight; that episode also alluded to her reclusiveness. “Evidence suggests that Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a penchant for white clothing and was known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even to leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most of her friendships were based entirely upon correspondence” (Wikipedia).
• The poem Max quotes was discovered among Dickinson’s unpublished writings by her sister following Dickinson’s death. It was first published in 1890 in Poems by Emily Dickinson: Series 1. It is available in its entirety online.

08:45 – ⭐ reference
LOUISE: Dumb girls crave smart men. It’s the whole Marilyn Monroe-Arthur Miller syndrome.

• Louise is referring to the marriage of US actor, model, and singer Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jean Mortenson, 1926-1962) and US playwright Arthur Miller (1915-2005). The couple wed in 1956. “Due to Monroe’s status as a sex symbol and Miller’s image as an intellectual, the media saw the union as a mismatch, as evidenced by Variety‘s headline, ‘Egghead Weds Hourglass'” (Wikipedia). Monroe’s screen persona typified the stereotypical “dumb blonde”: a ditzy, fun-loving, sexually attractive woman, sometimes included as a foil to her brainier, more serious brunette counterpart. Unfortunately, her performances have bled into perceptions of her as an actual person.
• Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible was mentioned in episode seven.

15:00 – 🎥 reference
MAX: When we’re not in school, I’ll call you Rebecca.
RORY: Rebecca.
MAX: And you’ll call me?
RORY: Norman?
MAX: Norman? I look like a Norman to you?
RORY: I’m sorry. Psycho was on earlier, and it was just the first name that came to mind. I’ll think of something else. How about Alfred?

• Psycho is a 1960 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Anthony Perkins as the titular psychotic killer, a man named Norman Bates. “Often ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films, and has been considered to be one of the earliest examples of the slasher film genre” (Wikipedia). It was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry in 1992.
• Though Rory only brought up Hitchcock after Max had made his suggestion, Hitchcock also directed Rebecca (1940), an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel of the same name. It was his first Hollywood film after beginning his career in his native England. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 2018.

15:35 – 🏷️ feature
Rory is carrying a Mead notebook when she turns to Max to quip, “Have her home by 10.”

• The Mead Corporation was a US producer of paper, office supplies, and school supplies. While the Mead Corporation no longer exists, the Mead brand is still an active subsidiary of ACCO Brands Corporation. The Mead family of products includes the Pee-Chee folder, mentioned in episode four.

16:45 – ⭐ reference
LORELAI: Rory and I have a skating date.
RORY: I’m Nancy Kerrigan.
LORELAI: And I’m Tonya Harding. I’m gonna do the whole shoelace-coming-untied, nervous breakdown, “let me start again” act and everything.

• Tonya Harding (born 1970) is a US former figure skater, two-time Olympian, and two-time Skate America Champion. “In 1991, she became the first American woman and the second woman in history (after Midori Ito) to successfully land a triple Axel in an international competition” (Wikipedia). Her name is now Tonya Price, following her marriage to Joseph Price in 2010.
• Nancy Kerrigan (born 1969) is a US former figure skater who “won bronze medals at the 1991 World Championships and the 1992 Winter Olympics, silver medals at the 1992 World Championships and the 1994 Winter Olympics, as well as the 1993 US National Figure Skating Championship. [She] was inducted into the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2004” (Wikipedia).
• The incident to which Lorelai refers occurred in Lillehammer, Norway during the 1994 Winter Olympics. Harding had an issue with a broken skate lace and was granted a re-skate by the judges. She finished in eighth place, behind Kerrigan, who won the silver medal. Incidentally, Harding’s performance was set to music from the film Jurassic Park (1993), based on the book by Michael Crichton (who was mentioned earlier).
• Kerrigan’s and Harding’s names will be forever associated due to a separate incident that occurred in 1994. In January of that year, Harding’s “ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, orchestrated an attack” (Wikipedia) on Kerrigan, injuring her. Gillooly received a two-year prison sentence, and the United States Figure Skating Association banned Harding for life for her role in covering up the attack.

19:45 – 🎧 reference
SOOKIE: (singing) Livin’ la vida loca.
LORELAI: Sookie!
SOOKIE: (singing) Shake your bon-bon, shake your bon-bon.
LORELAI: Hey. You will not stand there singing Ricky Martin songs to me.
20:40
LORELAI: Do you want to sing some more Ricky Martin to me?
SOOKIE: No.
LORELAI: You can, you know. I deserve it.
SOOKIE: (singing) She’s into superstitions / Black cats and voodoo dolls / I’ve got a premonition / That girl’s gonna make me fall.

• Sookie is singing bits and pieces of the songs “Livin’ la Vida Loca” and “Shake Your Bon-Bon” by Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin (born Enrique Martín Morales, 1971). Both songs were released on Martin’s 1999 self-titled debut English-language album. (His previous albums were in Spanish.) The album is credited with ushering in a wave of Latin pop and easing the transition of other Spanish-speaking artists into the English-speaking market.

21:00 – 🗺️ mention
TRISTAN: You know, I heard Paris’s dad has actually got a second family in Paris.

• Paris is the capital city of France. It is the most populous city in the country, and the fourth-most populous in the European Union (after Berlin, Germany; Madrid, Spain; and Rome, Italy). Paris was mentioned previously in episodes three and eight.

22:20 – 🏷️ feature
Reddi-Wip is visible in the Gilmore kitchen once again, this time in the fridge door as Lorelai is cleaning out food.

• Reddi-Wip is a US brand of whipped cream founded in 1948 and currently owned by Conagra Brands. It is sold in a pressurized can and expelled from its container by nitrous oxide (also known as laughing gas). It is the second-most purchased brand of whipped topping in the United States after Cool Whip. Reddi-Wip was featured previously in episodes two and seven.

22:30 – ⚖️ reference
RORY: They’re printing all the sordid details about it in the paper.
LORELAI: Ooh, how sordid?
RORY: Well, it’s not the Rick James incident, but Hugh Grant should be feeling pretty good about himself.

• Rick James (born James Johnson Jr., 1948-2004) was a US singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer perhaps best known for his 1981 single “Super Freak.” Rory is likely referring to James’s 1993 conviction for “two separate instances of kidnapping and assaulting two different women while under the influence of crack cocaine” (Wikipedia). He served three years at Folsom State Prison for these crimes before being released on parole in 1996.
• Hugh Grant (born 1960) is an English actor. In 1995, he was arrested in Los Angeles, California for receiving oral sex in a public place from a sex worker. “He pleaded no contest and was fined $1,180, placed on two years’ summary probation, and was ordered to complete an AIDS education program” (Wikipedia). He showed humility and candor when answering for the scandal, and his career did not suffer permanent damage.

22:55 – 🎥 reference
RORY: Madeline and Louise, Paris’s best friends – they said hello to me the other day.
LORELAI: Really? Like a normal hello, not like a “here’s Johnny” kind of hello?
RORY: Normal. Friendly. No axe.
LORELAI: Wow, you’re the new Heather.

• The Shining (1980) is a US-British psychological horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick. It tells the story of the Torrance family, who act as caretakers of the Overlook Hotel, an isolated mountain resort, during the winter off-season. The father, Jack, is crazed by malevolent supernatural forces, and in one famous sequence, he pursues his wife, Wendy, with an axe. When she locks herself in a bathroom, he throws the axe through the wooden door, shoves his face through the gap, and yells, “Here’s Johnny!” The line, likely ad-libbed by actor Jack Nicholson, is a reference to the catchphrase Ed McMahon used to introduce Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show beginning in 1962. The scene has been widely referenced in other media.
• The Shining is based on Stephen King’s 1977 novel of the same name. King was referenced in the pilot, and another famous scene from The Shining was referenced in episode two.
• Heathers is a 1989 US black-comedy teen film directed by Michael Lehmann. The film centers a clique of four teenage girls, three of whom are named Heather, whose lives are “disrupted by the arrival of a misanthrope intent on murdering the popular students and staging their deaths as suicides” (Wikipedia). With the passing of one Heather comes the ascension of the next to the role of “queen bee” in the high-school social order. Screenwriter Daniel Waters intended the film as an antidote to the rosier teen movies of the 1980s, particularly those of John Hughes. Incidentally, he wrote the film with Stanley Kubrick in mind for director.

23:15 – 🎥 reference
LORELAI: This is the pizza from mystery Tuesday. That one’s completely fine!
RORY: Don’t.
LORELAI: It’s in the box!
RORY: Oscar.
LORELAI: Felix.

• The Odd Couple (also known as Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple) is a US television sitcom that ran from 1970 to 1975. The show focuses on a pair of divorced men who share a “Manhattan apartment, and whose contrasting personalities inevitably lead to conflict and laughter” (Wikipedia). Tony Randall stars as “the neat, uptight Felix” (Wikipedia) and Jack Klugman stars as “the slovenly, easygoing Oscar.” The show is based on Neil Simon’s 1965 play and a 1968 film adaptation of the same name. The film is directed by Gene Saks and stars Walter Matthau as Oscar and Jack Lemmon as Felix. A phrase used on the show was mentioned in episode six.

26:00 – 🎧 feature + 🗺️ feature
Among the decorations inside Rory’s locker is a graphic reading, “Baby Spice,” written in a circle with a red line through it. What appears to be a Hungary travel brochure also hangs inside.

• The Spice Girls are an English vocal group and girl group, the female counterpart of boy bands like NSYNC and 98 Degrees also popular at the time. The five members of the Spice Girls – Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown (or Mel B), Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm (or Mel C), and Geri Halliwell – are also known by their stage names: Posh Spice, Scary Spice, Baby Spice, Sporty Spice, and Ginger Spice, respectively.
• “Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. … It is a popular tourist destination in Europe, drawing 24.5 million international tourists in 2019” (Wikipedia). Slovakia, mentioned in the last episode, is one of the countries with which it shares a border.

26:30 – 📖 mention + 🪶 feature
MAX: One of the greatest inspirations for working writers is the writing of others that they admire. Walt Whitman read Homer, Dante, Shakespeare.
26:55
MAX: Students, papers on Whitman are due tomorrow.

• Walt Whitman (born Walter Whitman, 1819-1892) was a US poet and essayist ranked among “the most influential poets in American literature. … [He] is often called the father of free verse” (Wikipedia). Whitman is credited with capturing the spirit and character of the United States in his writing, and his most major work, the poetry collection Leaves of Grass (1855), is commonly covered in high-school English curricula.
• Homer (Ancient Greek: Ὅμηρος, c. 8th century BCE) “was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history” (Wikipedia).
• Dante Alighieri (probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri, c. 1265-1321) was an Italian writer and philosopher. His Divine Comedy (originally Comedìa, or Commedia in modern Italian) “is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language” (Wikipedia). Dante’s Inferno, the first part of Divine Comedy, is well known for its depiction of the nine circles of Hell. “Dante is known for establishing the use of the vernacular in literature at a time when most poetry was written in Latin, which was accessible only to educated readers.”
• William Shakespeare (baptized 1564, died 1616) was an English poet and playwright “widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist” (Wikipedia). He was mentioned previously in episodes two and four. The same Shakespeare poster seen in episode four is visible in this classroom scene.
• An image of US President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) appears on the classroom wall in the background of this scene. Walt Whitman, a great admirer of Lincoln, wrote several poems eulogizing him following Lincoln’s assassination, including the famous “O Captain! My Captain!”

26:35 – 📖 mention
MAX: The novelist Edna O’Brien has been quoted as saying that every writer should read some Proust every day.

• Edna O’Brien (born Josephine Edna O’Brien, 1930) “is an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short-story writer. … Her first novel, The Country Girls (1960), is often credited with breaking silence on sexual matters and social issues during a repressive period in Ireland following the Second World War” (Wikipedia).

28:40 – 🏷️ reference
LORELAI: I just need space.
MAX: Well, I don’t. In fact, I want as little space as possible. A hundred clowns crammed into a Volkswagen, that’s the kind of non-space I’m talking about.

• Volkswagen (abbreviated VW) is a German automaker. One of their cars, the Volkswagen Beetle, is known for its compact size, a quality that was emphasized to great success in the 1960s “Think Small” advertising campaign. Another Volkswagen ad campaign, from 1999, was referenced in episode seven.
• Max is also alluding to a clown-car circus routine in which an implausibly large number of clowns emerge from a comically small car. This routine was first performed by the Cole Bros. Circus in the 1950s.

30:45 – 📖 feature
Rory reads New Poems of Emily Dickinson in the cafeteria as she eats her lunch.

• This collection of poems, written by Emily Dickinson and edited by William Shurr, was first published in 1993. According to the publisher’s description, “for most of her life Emily Dickinson regularly embedded poems, disguised as prose, in her lively and thoughtful letters. … In this remarkable volume, [Shurr] presents nearly 500 new poems that he and his associates excavated from her correspondence, thereby expanding the canon of Dickinson’s known poems by almost one-third.”

31:25 – 🏷️ mention
LORELAI: Did you save me some Jell-O?

• Jello is a brightly colored, translucent gelatin dessert that retains its shape after being fitted to a mold; other ingredients like fruit or marshmallows are sometimes suspended within the jello. The word “jello” is the generic form of the brand name “Jell-O,” which is owned by US food company Kraft Heinz. Classic Jell-O is sold in cups that can be packed in children’s school lunches or given to patients in hospitals.

34:50 – 🎧 reference
EMILY: A mistake? A mistake? Is that what you call it, a mistake?
LORELAI: Well, I tried to call it “Al,” but it would only answer to “mistake.”

• Though it isn’t a direct reference, Lorelai’s quip calls to mind Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al,” the lead single from his 1986 album Graceland. The song includes the lyrics, “If you’ll be my bodyguard / I can be your long lost pal / I can call you Betty / And Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al.”

41:10 – 🎥 reference
MAX: I was the one who started the kiss.
LORELAI: I’m the one who knocked it up to NC-17.

• In the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) rating system is used to grade the suitability of a film’s content for audiences of different age levels. NC-17 is the most restrictive of these ratings and indicates that a film “may contain explicit sex scenes, an accumulation of sexually-oriented language, and/or scenes of excessive violence” (Regal). Whereas the second-highest rating, R (Restricted), requires an adult to accompany movie-goers under age 17, no one under age 17 may be admitted to a film rated NC-17 (No Children Under 17).

References Sorted by Category

Jump to category: Brand Names | Famous Figures | Film, Television & Theater | Geography & Politics | History | Literature | Music | Sports | True Crime

🏷️ Brand Names

• 00:25 – Petfinder (Internet company, pet adoption)
• 01:40 – Kleenex (facial tissue)
• 15:35 – Mead (paper products)
• 22:20 – Reddi-Wip (whipped cream)
• 28:40 – Volkswagen Beetle (automobile)
• 31:25 – Jell-O (gelatin dessert)

⭐ Famous Figures

• 08:45 – Marilyn Monroe (actor, model, and singer)
• 08:45 – Arthur Miller (playwright)

🎥 Film, Television & Theater

• 00:00 – Paris Is Burning (1990 film)
• 02:05 – The Omen (1976 film)
• 04:05 – This Old House (television show)
• 15:00 – Rebecca (1940 film), Alfred Hitchcock (director)
• 15:00 – Psycho (1960 film), Alfred Hitchcock (director), Norman Bates (character)
• 22:55 – The Shining (1980 film)
• 22:55 – Heathers (1989 film)
• 23:15 – The Odd Couple (1965 stage play, 1968 film, 1970s television show)
• 41:10 – NC-17 (MPAA rating)

🗺️ Geography & Politics

• 00:35 – US Route 26 (highway)
• 21:00 – Paris, France (European city)
• 26:00 – Hungary (European country)

⭐ History

• 26:30 – Abraham Lincoln (US President)

📖 Literature

• 05:35, 26:30, 28:10 – Marcel Proust (author)
  • 07:00, 23:25, 26:40 – Swann’s Way (book)
• 05:35 – Michael Crichton (author and filmmaker)
• 07:55 – “There’s a certain Slant of light” by Emily Dickinson (poem)
• 26:30 – Walt Whitman (poet and essayist)
• 26:30 – Homer (poet)
• 26:30 – Dante Alighieri (writer and philosopher)
• 26:30 – William Shakespeare (playwright and poet)
• 26:30 – John Keats (poet)
• 26:35 – Edna O’Brien (author)
• 30:45 – New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson (book)

🎧 Music

• Ricky Martin (artist)
  • 19:45, 20:40 – “Livin’ la Vida Loca” (song)
  • 19:45 – “Shake Your Bon-Bon” (song)
• 26:00 – Spice Girls (girl group), Emma Bunton (singer), Baby Spice (stage name)
• 34:50 – “You Can Call Me Al” by Paul Simon (song)

⚽ Sports

• 16:45 – Nancy Kerrigan (figure skater)
• 16:45 – Tonya Harding (figure skater)

⚖️ True Crime

• 22:30 – Rick James (musical artist), kidnapping and assault charges (criminal case)
• 22:30 – Hugh Grant (actor), lewd conduct charge (criminal case)

Frequent References

A few things come up so routinely in the show, I am not going to include an entry for them every time they do. I wrote about the following people, places, and things when they first appeared or were mentioned.

• Hartford, Connecticut (US city)
• Harvard University (academic institution)
• Herman Beeftink (piano and string composer)
• Independence Inn (named for the American War of Independence)
• Jeep (automotive brand)
• Sam Phillips (series composer)
• “Travel to Historic Brazil” (poster in Rory’s bedroom)
• “Where You Lead” by Carole King and Louise Goffin (series theme)

Image Credits

Image [4]: This edition appears to be the one Rory is reading. Book citation: Dickinson, Emily. New Poems of Emily Dickinson. The University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

Images [1], [2], and [3], and the image behind the book cover in image [4], are stills from this episode. Episode citation: “Paris Is Burning.” Gilmore Girls, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, cinematography by Ronald Víctor García, season 1, episode 11, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund/Polone, Warner Bros. Television, 2001.

Indigenous Land Acknowledgment

In beginning my work on this guide, I’ve come to realize just how many references (however subtle) the show contains to the Revolutionary War and the colonial history of the United States. It is important and necessary to acknowledge the people whose lands were usurped when these events took place, though this is not a simple matter. Please visit my land acknowledgment page to view the results of my research.

Posted 9 March 2021 (updated 11 May 2024)