Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 08:05:17 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Is "Friends" offensive in 2018?

Started by thecuriousorange, January 15, 2018, 08:55:50 PM

Previous topic - Next topic
Young people are seeing the era-defining show for the first time. Inevitably, some aspects of it have aged.

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/entertainment-arts-42690207   


Dr Syntax Head

It was offensive in the 90s.

Edit. This stinks of people actively looking for something to be offended about. If you look hard enough you can find something that will offend somebody in absolutely anything. Balamory? Celtic stereotyping. Teletubbies? Trivialising the issues of the LGBT community. Peppa Pig? Anti meat eating propaganda. country file? Focusing on upper/middle class white England.

up_the_hampipe

Everything made before like two years ago has "problematic" elements, I'm sure.

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on January 15, 2018, 09:02:48 PM
Everything made before like two hours ago has "problematic" elements, I'm sure.

Your post offended my temporal sensibilities so I updated it for our times.

Sebastian Cobb

It's still fucking crap, if that helps?


Spiteface

I find the word "problematic" to be problematic. And twattish.



Dr Syntax Head


Dr Syntax Head

The thing is I'm actually surprised because Friends has always been one of those completely non offensive shows that you would put on if you went around to a person's house that you were in the early stages of dating for a indoors date night. It always came across as 'safe' TV. No major issues tackled, all light hearted fun with a little sexual innuendo here and there but nothing to much, no references to butt sex or anything crass like that. From my own jaded and seen it all point of view I'd imagine you have to be particularly sensitive to be offended by anything in Friends. From a gender perspective it was quite positive in that it often showed the women to be cleverer and more mature than the male buffoons.

up_the_hampipe

It is dated in terms of its attitudes to some things, but it's never really hateful.

shiftwork2

S1E18 and still waiting for a non-white character.  Janice has already hilariously re-appeared once, Fun Bobby has put in his first appearance although his drink problem and subsequent instant ostracism from the group has not yet been depicted, and Chandler is yet to gain 30 lbs and lose his comic timing.  Quite enjoying it, but then I always liked it.  Sorry.

Dr Syntax Head

Better to have no black character than a token black character. No need for sorry for liking it. If you like it you like it.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on January 15, 2018, 09:17:13 PM
It is dated in terms of its attitudes to some things, but it's never really hateful.

The stuff with Chandler's Dad is the most problematic, certain jokes are bloody horrible.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on January 15, 2018, 09:23:56 PM
The stuff with Chandler's Dad is the most problematic, certain jokes are bloody horrible.

We had a long debate about this before, and I think we all agreed that I was right.

EDIT: Obviously joking, but here's a post from an earlier thread with my thoughts on that stuff https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,59126.msg3089045.html#msg3089045

Utter Shit

 One day, when it's not on TV literally every hour of the day and is finally escapable, I reckon people will realise just how well-written it was.

non capisco

I found the James O'Brien podcast where he interviews Matt Lucas interesting. Lucas does express some regret about various Little Britain characters, mostly the "I'm a laaaaaady!" transvestite. It did strike me that Little Britain, a show that still feels dead recent because I'm a middle aged man and the countdown to the grave feels more accelerated with each passing year, could seem to teenagers now what something like 'Love Thy Neighbour' appeared to be to me when I was 18.

BlodwynPig

Soft kitty, warm kitty, ever so...errr..smelly cat smelly cat

easytarget

[tag]Gary Numan considers rewrite[/tag]

Gulftastic

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on January 15, 2018, 09:23:56 PM
The stuff with Chandler's Dad is the most problematic, certain jokes are bloody horrible.

Also, Ross's fear that playing with a doll might make his young son a poofter. And his reaction to the nanny who's a bloke.

Quote from: Utter Shit on January 15, 2018, 09:25:53 PM
One day, when it's not on TV literally every hour of the day and is finally escapable, I reckon people will realise just how well-written it was.

Totally agree, it's a great show.

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: Gulftastic on January 15, 2018, 09:32:04 PM
Also, Ross's fear that playing with a doll might make his young son a poofter. And his reaction to the nanny who's a bloke.

These things come up to show the narrow minded nature of the character though right? They don't just leave it as Ross continues to hold that belief, he gets woke. That's the point surely.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Gulftastic on January 15, 2018, 09:32:04 PM
Also, Ross's fear that playing with a doll might make his young son a poofter. And his reaction to the nanny who's a bloke.

The joke being that Ross is being an insecure masculine twat, not that his son playing with a doll is wrong, or that a man being a nanny is weird. I thought that was obvious, considering how the other reasonable characters respond to it.

non capisco

I fucking hate Ross. Why did the biggest bell-end out of the Friends have to share my first name? To compound matters during the height of Friends mania I was knocking about with a lass called Rachel.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Dr Syntax Head on January 15, 2018, 09:33:43 PM
These things come up to show the narrow minded nature of the character though right? They don't just leave it as Ross continues to hold that belief, he becomes more aware of the subject. That's the point surely.

Quote from: non capisco on January 15, 2018, 09:35:19 PM
I fucking hate Ross. Why did the biggest bell-end out of the Friends have to share my first name? To compound matters during the height of Friends mania I was knocking about with a lass called Rachel.

Could you *be* any more bitter?

Dr Syntax Head

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on January 15, 2018, 09:35:09 PM
The joke being that Ross is being an insecure masculine twat, not that his son playing with a doll is wrong, or that a man being a nanny is weird. I thought that was obvious, considering how the other reasonable characters respond to it.

That's what I was trying to say in a way less clear than you've just put it.

Dr Syntax Head

Thanks Blodwyn. I hate the 'woke' word but it was all I had at the time

non capisco

Quote from: Special K on January 15, 2018, 09:37:05 PM
Could you *be* any more bitter?

My answerphone message is me singing along to 'We Will Rock You', to be fair.