I Am all in again.
Oh it's just you.
I Smell pop Culture with Eastern Allen and I Heeart Radio podcast.
Ah do you smell that?
Everybody that smells like pop culture? My name is Easton Allen. You just heard Scott Patterson say it. This is the I Smell pop Culture Podcast, a subsidiary of I Am all In one eleven productions. iHeart Radio, I heart Media, I heart podcasts. Here's what we do here, people, We
explore the pop culture references in Gilmore Girls. We look at the people that made them real, the songs, the movies, the institutions, the ideas that are in these pop culture references within the world of Gilmore, within Stars Hollow that continues today. Thanks for joining us. This is really exciting. There's a lot of pressure with this guest we're talking to this week. There's a lot of pressure here. I feel so scared. Not because she's mean, no, no, by
all counts. This is a very nice person. But we're going to talk to miss Manners, Miss Manners, and I need to make sure that I greet her correctly and we run this. I have to run a very tight ship over here, because this is the master of etiquette. We're talking to miss Manners for a very specific reason. That's because she was referenced in season one, episode eighteen.
This is the third Laura Lai and if you remember correctly, let's go back to season one here, there's a scene where, kind of early in the episode, Laura is working at the Independence End, Emily calls her to demand the hat rack back. She gave Laurlai that hat rack five years ago for Christmas, and it was gifted to Emily by Richard's mother, and she's coming over and she's going to
notice that hat rack isn't there. So once Laura I realizes that she was the victim of a regift, she says, you gave me a secondhand present, like something you got at the junk store, and Emily says, you're being a little dramatic. It was still in the crate. LAURLI responds, you actually went, huh, what should I get Laurele this year? You know what, I can't be bothered. Let's give her
something we don't want anymore. And Emily replies, you're not funny, and Laura I says, well, what would Miss Manners say about that? And Emily replies, well, if she met your grandmother, she'd understand. So that is in reference to if you don't know Miss Manners. Miss Manners is the queen of etiquette. She started a column in nineteen seventy eight called Miss Manners. People write in with their etiquette questions and Miss Manners
answers them. This was carried in over two hundred newspapers worldwide. She's written multiple books about etiquette, about Manners, about politeness, customs. She is a fascinating person, and we're going to talk to her and her daughter, Bina, who is also Mismanners. We've got two generations of Miss Manners joining us today, and they are here right now. We're going to talk to them and find out. We're gonna get answer that question.
First of all, we're going to find out what Mismanners would say about Emily's attempt to take back this gift. But Judith Martin and being a Martin aer here, Hi, guys, how's it going good?
Are you hello?
So great to see you, Nice to see you. Thank you so much for doing this. We are so excited.
I am fascinated by you and your career and everything you've done for American culture.
I just want to say that right off the top.
Thank you.
So, first of all, there's something I need to clear up with you. This is a question that has gone unanswered for fans of the show Gilmore Girls for twenty four years now. You were mentioned in Gilmore Girls in two thousand and one, and the question is a character is asked by her mother to give back a gift.
She's like.
Her mom calls her and says, I need the hat rack back that I gave you for Christmas. And she says why, and her mom's says, because your grandmother, my mother is coming over. She gave me that hat rack and I gave it to you, and if she sees that I don't have it out, she's going to be mad. And so then Loreli, the character, she says, what would Miss Manners say about this? I see two problems here, two questions here. First of all, is regifting, okay, can you regift something?
Regifting in general means giving away something that you got. This is not exactly this example you cited. In that case, if you can get away with it if nobody knows, fine, But in the example you cited, she's just borrowing it back to playcat mother. Why not?
Yeah, So that's okay, Well, of course, I.
Mean that's the idea is her mother would be upset. Although you know, technically speaking, you're not supposed to look around and see if your presence that you gave he are still there, but people do. And if she used it puts the hat rack back, why not. I mean the idea is not that she's actually taking it back, she's just borrowing it. But in general regifting, as I say, if you can get away with it, fine, but make sure you don't give it back to the person who gave it to you.
That's a crucial element there. So let's go back to the beginning here. You started as a journalist, I mean, a film critic, a theater critic. How did you How did the calling begin?
I didn't start that way. I started as a copy girl, and you don't even know what that is. Who gets sandwiches for reporters at the newspaper and runs copy back when it was a typed copy. So I was that. I was a reporter, and then I was critic, and then I did the column.
How did the calling begin? How did you discover this past? For etiquette manners in this?
Like my parents were very interested in history and archaeology and anthropology, and one of the things they said was, if you want to know what a given society was like at a different time, look at their rules. And they were thinking of law really not etiquette, but look at their rules. Whatever they're being told not to do, that's what they're doing, because otherwise you wouldn't have to tell them not to and to. I extended this to manners, to etiquette. We lived abroad a bit and I saw
that behavior is not just spontaneous and natural. Different people behave different ways, and so I was always interested in the subject. And I mean, I think it's fascinating how people treat one another.
Yeah, it's it's very fast. I mean, I find it just so fascinating. And how I mean it differs from culture to culture, but overall, I mean, I think we all have the same understanding of how you should treat another person.
The rules can be very different. I make a distinction between the principles of manners, which are universal and unchangeable, and the particular rules because the particular ways people express this in different societies at different times, and it's different subgroups that can be different. But the basic understanding that's one of the nice things about the references in the Gilmer Girls that they understood the underlying principles are really important.
Yeah, forgive this question.
I'm just curious though, like when you when both of you get invited to dinner parties, are your friends like nervous.
For you to cut? Like I got to make sure everything is right of course.
That they're my friends.
Yeah, that used to be when I I mean, I'm well beyond dating age now and happily married. But when I was going on dates early, that used to be the test. If they made a big deal about Oh, I guess I have to watch my manners. I'm like, okay, we're done, goodbye, because it's just it's it gets so old. I mean, the whole point of manners is you don't call out people being you know us, you know, using the wrong fork or whatever it is. We don't want
to draw attention to it. So if people think that's the only thing that we're looking for, it gets like pretty tedious pretty quickly.
And if people say that exactly what Beata sidate, they say that to me, first of all, they're not really going to be my pals, because it would bore me to tears, but I usually say if you did something wrong, I would be too polite to notice.
All right, I love it.
And that raises another question like if you if you see someone behaving with poor manners, is it good? Like do you point it out? Or is that bad manners in itself?
If that person is your minor child, yeah, everybody else's is off out of bounds.
I mean it depends too, though what kind I mean if you read the column, we talk all the time about what kind of manners it is. If it's it's a you know, a table dinner table violation, of course not. But if someone is rude to us, we're still not pointing it out. But we have ways of being so polite that they sometimes I don't realize that we are schooling them. So there's there's techniques to.
Or defending ourselves.
Yes, right exactly. So it depends on what kind of violation it is. But yeah, we're not going around like you know, the Manners police telling people what they're doing wrong. That's the epitome of bad manners.
Nor are we letting people trample all over us.
So exactly.
Yeah, sometimes people say, well, you know, you always have to defer to the other person, No, you don't. They're polite ways of not doing that.
Someone else I was curious about is like technology has advanced so much, even just like the last few years, and the way people communicate has changed so much, Like how like there's got to be etiquette questions that have you know, come up over the last ten twenty years, like how long before you do like how long do you wait before texting someone back before it's rude? And things like that, like how how has technology changed etiquette or has it?
Of course it has, of course it is, but and sometimes very much for the better. As an example, the telephone was always a rude instrument. It says it's noisy, it says stop whatever you're doing and pay attention to me. People have now come to realize that if you just want to chat, text someone first and find out a good time. So that's a big advance in matters.
For example, something that drives me crazy and I don't know if I need to talk to my friends about this, but the putting the phone on the dinner table, like having the cell phone. They think that turning it over then it's it's okay where the screen is down. But like that to me, is so I find that to be so upsetting and right, well, yeah, that's the I mean, so is that on me to like tell my friends like, I don't I find this disrespectful? Can you put your
phone away? Or is there a different way I should be handling this?
If they use the phone, No, you don't go around scolding your friends. But if they in any way use the phone, you tune now, you say, or you do something else and you say, well, you know, treated as if they left the room. Okay, that's an example of not being trampled on. Okay, you're on the phone, I'm going to go do something else.
And it's so tempting. I mean, if you ever watch a group of people, one person takes a phone out, then all of a sudden, everybody, So it's modeling bad behavior. I mean I always think if you have an emergency, you have a child, you have a situation, you say, hey, i'm here, I'm just going to put this, you know,
on vibrate or something only because of whatever. But people tend to I'm reluctant to even say that because people then abuse it because everything's an emergency, right, like of course, whether or not, like yeah.
Exactly if you have a child, what the child's going to have an appendix attack while you're at a dinner party. If the child is it all ill? You shouldn't be at a dinner party. You should be on with the child.
But there are emergencies, I mean, we want to allow for that, just said, being everybody, everything's an emergency. If it can be used for good and not evil, then then we're here for it.
But otherwise, so was there ju Was there one column that stands out to you as being like your most controversial?
Is there one that that you remember like that?
Oh, everything's controversial because first of all, everybody wants to be an exception. Yes, and uh. The second of all, you know, the letters that people write to us, and you know, being a rights uh a column it says her brother, the letters that people write to us are not how should I behave there? How could I? How can I get even with the people who are rude to me? And usually the first choice is always violence of some sort to drive them off the road or whatever,
or blatant rudeness. And so that's one of the big things we're always dealing with that if you're if someone is rude to you and you are rude back, you're doubling the amount of rudeness, which, as I said earlier, doesn't mean you need to let them trample on you. There are polite ways of dealing with things. But that's that's the main thing. Where can you say beinga that we're always fighting that people want to be They want us to justify their being rude.
Yeah, exactly, and they also want to tell us why they're the exception. So I think it gets controversial when they say, well, you don't understand I have you know, a disability, or I have a whatever. And again, a lot of that is legitimate, and we're not here to
shame people about legitimate things. But when you start similarly using it as an excuse for everything, then it starts to become like, okay, well then we all have we all have issues, we all come to the table with something, and if we're going to start using that as an excuse every single time, I'm it's just rudeness. Well let's just call it what it is.
I appreciate you hearing that, because that's something that crosses my mind. A lot is a but like, it's fascinating that most people are asking for like you to justify their bad behavior as opposed to like, I don't know how to act in this situation, what is their appropriate way?
You're a little of that.
Yes, wow, Sometimes we have people who are like, you know, they'll say, perhaps I was raised by wolves, can you help me? And then of course our heart goes out to them, we want we want to help. But yeah, more often than not, people wanna lord over everyone else. How incredibly polite they were for being rude because somebody was rude to them.
Yeah, you know, like I keep thinking about like you don't know what you don't know? And I'm I'm a guy that I opened the door for my wife every every time we get in the car, I hold the door up before. But something this happened just a year ago. We were walking down the street and she was on the we're walking on sidewalk and she was on the street side of the sidewalk and I was on the interior. And a man stopped us and he pulled me aside and he said, you always need to walk on the
street side. That's something you need to do. And I didn't know that that was I didn't realize that was not being chivalrous and it stuck with me and every time walk on the street since then, I make sure to do that. But now I'm like, what else am I missing?
How was it first a stranger to stop you on the street over a trivial point like that. As a matter of fact, yes, you know what this dates from when people used to pour slop out the window and the man would be the woman would be closer to the building and not get poured on her. So it's as a medieval a medieval rule, and there are countries where it's always on the right, not necessarily on the
street side. But I mean, here's a trivial point you're very gracious about accepting, and some stranger tells you you're being rude to your wife.
Okay, I didn't know if I should because that's what kind of what I thought. But then I was like, is this me being defensive? Because I was like ignoring this, like you know, custom or something. But I also thought it was kind of a wild thing for a stranger to.
Say, yeah, in such an old fashioned rule, like we know it, but it's it's not one that I think most people do. I always thought it was it was horse issues because if you're if you're by the if the when, the if, the slap out the window, be closer to the woman who's closer to the building.
Who knows. Maybe it's okay.
I thought I always thought it was horse manure or something.
You're gonna be rude to your wife. You could choose more blatant with yeah, exactly.
I did think about that. I was like, I'm like, hey, listen, Pali, we're doing okay over here.
Yeah, don't cause problems.
It's so like if if someone that's another thing that, like, I don't know how many people can relate to this. I'm sorry, I'm gonna make this all about me right now, but I am always overridden with fear that I am being rude and I'm not realizing it or no, no one's saying it to me. I'm doing something that I don't know is rude, Like how how often does that happen?
Like what I don't know?
I mean, that's an I guess I can't give an example because I don't know, But like, am I not?
I don't know?
Like that just not.
Walking on the outside of the street or the sidewalk is your worst defense. I think you're doing okay. I mean rude people usually are rude because they don't care. They they're like or they're you know, they think they're defending themselves or whatever. I mean, I think the biggest violations are are meanness usually or it's not like you know, napkins and you know, things like that that you're sure, I guess you have bad luck, and people like to
point that out. But that's not that's not the stuff that we're truly worried about.
If you could give someone one piece of etiquette advice, just one like to make them a more to have better manners overall, what would that advice be.
We write five hundred page books.
Yes, he did many books.
Behavior, So I mean, think about other people. I kind of take took a strange turn. And my career besides this and that, I work at Second City and I do improv and it's not dissimilar. Like the rules of improv are very much like it's thinking about other people listening before you respond. I mean, I think a lot of times people, probably rightly so, make fun of improv that it's just you know, trying to be joky and
all that. But it's really about the ensemble and about caring about the people around you, and I think Manners at its best is intended to do that as well.
The basic bargain of civilization is that I will restrain my more offensive impulses if you will do the same, because in the interests of living in peace, I love it and you just have to agree to that. And if it goes out of kilter in one direction or the other, if the individual is suppressed to the point where it's unpleasant, or if there is no inhibition on the individual, either one is very a very bad way to live.
I completely agree.
Being absolutely. It's like the rules of theater and of improv And when earlier you were asking about I moved from being a critic. That's what you look as a theater critic or film critic. That's what you look at. You look at dialogue, gesture, costume. How do people treat one another and how do they show symbolically at what kind of person they are.
It's so fascinating, and we have more to get into. We're here with Judith Martin, with Miss Manners herself and being of Martin, her daughter. We're going to be right back. We have two miss Manners here, two Mismanners with us, and I'm going to very politely introduce the following commercials, so please stay tuned everybody. It's the Icepel Pop culture podcast. My name is Easton All. I'm here with miss Manners, two of them, two miss Manners, Judis Martin and Beana Martin,
her daughter, her lovely daughter. So I read that being a right after you got married, you you two wrote a book, Mismanner's Guide to a surprisingly dignified Wedding. What was the wedding planning process? Like having the mother that you have, and there's so much that goes in a wedding in terms of etiquette, I mean, what was that like for you?
I mean, it was so much fun. I understand when people say like, oh, it's stressful. Yeah, you're trying to make a lot of people happy, but you're also getting to eat a lot of cake and try on dresses. And we had a good time. And I think, as I say, whenever anyone asks me, what's it like being my mother's daughter? First of all, I don't have another point of reference, so of course it was great. I mean, I don't know anything else. But also it's very freeing.
I have this weird son that's coming on. But it's very freeing that when you know the rules of etiquette that you don't have to worry about it all the time. And so you know, yes, it's great to have this resource when it came to the details and things like that, but a lot of it was already ingrained in me after living you know, for thirty something years at the time.
So yeah, we had a blast and we got to write about it, which was even more fun the book when when the book she'd already written a wedding book, and then when it was up for renewal, correct me, mom if I if I'm getting any of this wrong. But and the timing happened to work out that I just got engaged. So she asked me to help on it, and I was happy to write down, you know, the
things that were happening. But I noticed that other wedding books were always trying to make the bride the villain and you know, she's a bridezilla, and that was a very popular thing at the time, and I was like, who's buying these books. It's the women that you're insulting right now. So maybe it wasn't much better for the industry, but we were like, no, don't be led to believe, you know, don't be fooled by all the wedding industry.
Sadly we kind of which is also probably who's buying the books, but is the one who is leading to you to all this. I mean, it's a terrible comparison, but it's somewhat like, you know, the funeral industry, Like if you really cared, you do this, and you're taking people at their most vulnerable when a lot of people don't know what the rules are, and so they feel like, oh, I guess if I cared, then I'd have twenty brides maids who are dressed exactly alike and they have to
buy a thousand dollars dresses. Otherwise I don't care, like you know. So trying to dispel a lot of that and just make it a fun party that doesn't have to be the best day of your life. You hope it's not. You hope you'll have many more and that you get to keep your friends afterwards was seemed to us to be a worthy goal.
We did have a good time, didn't we did.
I tried all the cake I could get my hands on.
Yes, I love it.
That's such a anyone listening that is in the process of getting married, that's pay attention to those words, because like, I have such fun memories of my wedding too, And that's what it's all about.
What do most people.
Get wrong about put together a wedding? Like, what's something that everyone misses the mark on?
Well, the number one thing I hate is, oh, well, it's their day and they can do whatever they want.
There are no.
Etiquette free days. And if you're getting married, you have guests, you have family, you have to be considerate of them. Yes, but people turn it into fundraisers, they turn it into bioepics. Here's all about us, and I find all kinds of strange ways to alienate their families and friends.
And this is what again, the industry wants you to think, but that the venue, the food, the decorations, all of that is more important than the people who attend. So you hear constantly people saying, well, I mean, sure, small wedding, lovely. But if you're like, well, we're keeping it small because we want to go to Aruba and you know, have caviaar or whatever, it's a little hard to sympathize and
people get insulted. We get letters all the time of people like, you know, this is my niece and I wasn't invited, or I was invited to the video, you know, to the to a zoom version of it, and it just seems like a present grab. And so I think, in service of what my mom just said of it being my perfect day and I get to be celebrity for a day, people ignore the people that they love supposedly and treat them horribly.
Okay, I again, I appreciate hearing that, because you hear that thrown around a lot, like oh, it's it's their day or it's our day. We can do whatever we want. I heard about a friend of mine did one of those Disney weddings and there was no food because they spent so much of the budget on having Mickey come out to do the first dance.
Who knew Mickey was so expensive?
Wow? Yes, like twenty five grand for Mickey to come out and dance.
With you what?
Whychie the budget of my entire wedding. I was insane.
Yes, I gotta get that gig right, Wow, no one will ever know who it was me inside.
Yeah, yeah, I like that. Gosh, I'll dance with whoever.
So this is a podcast about Gilmore Girls, and it's that's a show that's ultimately about the relationship with a mother and a daughter. And I mean, I just from talking to you guys today, you get along so well. That's so fun to see mothers and daughters that have this kind of a relationship.
Have you guys always been close?
We have?
And the thing is continued. Bina has a wonderful relationship with her daughter.
I love you, Yeah, I have. I have a teenager who refuses to be like a teenager. She still likes me and is kind to me and other people, and she's she's wonderful.
What are families for?
If you're don't exactly well, I feel it necessary to say too that Gilmore Girls is pretty much responsible for the birth of my daughter because my husband and I bonded uh even before our first date. We started talking about how much we both loved Gilmore Girls and famously in our relationship. He said, well, I have all the DVDs if you want to borrow them, and I was like, no, I'm good, and he was like later he was like, I was trying to make a move and you ignored it.
As I kind of like to watch things several times, although Ben we did, and then we watched it during the pandemic, we watched it as a family. So Gilmore Girls, and and I so appreciate how the writers did when we did get those reference manners references, because so often
it's it's used for evil, it's you. And obviously the Paladinos understood what manners, you know, what what mismanners represents and was not using it as like this snooty thing to make people feel bad, was Laurel I really just saying most of the time I think that, Yeah, they just kind of being like, no, you got to be nice to people.
I love that.
That makes me so happy, Like when when you saw that in Gilmer Girls. I mean, first of all, mismanagers is a cultural icon. Mismanners is popped up everywhere. But like seeing Gilmer Girls, was that? How did that feel for you? Being a like seeing it on a show you love, Like, was that exciting?
Oh?
Yeah, it was so fun and it felt I mean not that she was more than than validated, but yeah, and something that I really love when it was used, well yea was Yeah, it was a joy.
I love that so so much.
And I love that you that there's multi generations of this close mother daughter relationship being here. Is your daughter going to take on the mismanners mantle? Does she have any interest in that?
I mean, we were trying to indoctor Rainer.
For both of you with this empire you've built. Does it get You can be honest with me, It's just it's just us here, Okay, no one else is listening?
Uh? Does it?
Ever?
Does it get irritating?
Like when you're at a party or you're at the bank to someone pull you aside and go, hey, how can I cancel on my friend's birthday? You know, like you must get those questions all the time in your personal lives.
Right, No, No, occasionally, but I answer them as best they can.
Yeah, Okay, I love it.
I mean I I don't. I don't think people my name is on the byeline, but I don't. I don't think I'm as readily associated with it. But I mean, actually, you know when I say that, and every once in a while, I do have a friend who but they do it very kindly. They're like, I know I shouldn't abuse the relationship, but I have an etiquette problem. I'm like, yeah, sure, hit me.
And we might sell our friends about their areas of expertise.
I mean absolutely, thank yeah, it's like having a friend as a doctor, you know exactly.
I was going to say that, I'm like, you don't want to abuse it, but it's there as a resource of.
Uncle who got really tired of people telling them parties telling him their medical things. And he would say, Okay, let's have a take your clothes off and I'll have a look.
I love it so much.
Nowadays they probably would though.
Right, yeah, yeah, seriously.
So, uh, this is this has been so much fun talking to you guys. And the column is still I mean, like people can find it online. Uh and uh, what's the You've written so many books, I mean, what what's if there's is there one book you would recommend to people that want to improve their etiquette overall?
One of your books, Well, there's a kind of encyclopedic one called which is the original one, and then I did a revised version of it, Miss Manners Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior. But their individuals are getting married, the wedding book.
There's a third Miss Manners. Mister Manners. My brother and they wrote a book on mind your business.
Yes, Miss Manners, minds your business. Yeah, I just keep turning them out.
I love it. You guys are so cool.
This is Judith Martin and her lovely daughter Being and Martin, Miss Manners together. Thank you so much for joining us today on I Smell Pop Culture. Please, everybody, you would be so rude if you don't check out these books. If you don't read this column, that's me saying that. Not then that's me saying you're going to be rude. Thanks so much, you guys, it's been the best.
Well, it was fun. Thank you you enjoyed so nice to meet you.
Thanks hey everybody, and don't forget Follow us on Instagram at I Am all In podcast and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com