Is "Friends" offensive in 2018?

[St_Eddie]

New page of CaBers, with turkeys on their heads.

Sally's a Labour supporter.

Oh, yes.  You're quite right.  There was that whole 'Sally hates that Patrick is a Tory supporter' storyline.  She's still a judgemental irritant though.

I read somewhere that the "Phoebe's mother reincarnated in a cat" storyline was written by someone whose mother had recently died, and no-one wanted to tell her that it was ridiculous.

I should think not!  Fancy telling someone that they're ridiculous because their Mother has died.

[Billy]

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.

Half of me wants to say that yeah but (no but) when Little Britain was on, we were already a much more tolerant and acceptive society than even just 25 years earlier - we looked at Emily Howard and thought "Haha this is an amusing comedic character!" not "Ugh yeah trans people are disgusting" - if anyone actually did think the latter then that's pretty fucking weird. I find it hard to see anything made after about 1991 "dated" in an offensive way as most of the worst stereotypes on film and telly had long become extinct by then, and Little Britain never seemed problematic in the way much pre-90s stuff does.

But that could just be the future version of "But Eddie Booth was MEANT to be a stupid bigot" etc.

[Sin Agog]

No, but they are electric.

[Cloud]

Ehhh hmm.  I only ever watched a couple of episodes and just didn't find it funny.... I thought it was classic American sense of humour that just isn't remotely in tune with mine / presumably many British people.
Like
>person enters through door and stands there
"Wayyyyy!  Woooooo!  *massive applause*"
I don't get it.

But on the issue of changing social attitudes.  I totally get it, sometimes elements of past and present entertainment are problematic (though based on what people have said it sounds like they mostly were taking the piss out of shitty attitudes rather than glorifying them) and I'd not endorse homophobia or sexism etc, particularly as a bisexual in a room full of ponies, that would be a bit daft.  But are people maybe taking comedy a little bit seriously?  I think you have to laugh at yourself, the past, the human condition and so on and not take everything someone creates as some kind of political statement or dig dirt on old stuff to take offence to.   

This is more when I was younger but I used to love things just being gratuitously "offensive", partly through rebellion of course but I always got the sense that it reaffirms through humour just how offensive it is.  Surely that's the point, I don't know if that many (besides say the Bernard Manning types) are really mean spirited and genuinely spreading the -isms, rather than shining a light on it.

Rambling post is irrelevant as I know fuck all about the series beyond what people have posted, but general thoughts on the broader subject.

Little Britain is full of awful stereotypes, but I see it as poking fun at awful stereotypes. Maybe I was missing the intent.

[Thursday]

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

Which is all that most people are saying, but then this is picked up as "Millennials  snowflakes are SHOCKED AND OFFENDED by Friends"

[the]

>person enters through door and stands there
"Wayyyyy!  Woooooo!  *massive applause*"

I can confirm that that never happened in Friends, except sometimes if there was a celebrity guest star.

[notjosh]

There's definitely a lot of homophobia in Friends; Joey and Chandler are particularly bad.

What fucks me off is the reverse snobbery around Ross' job. He had an amazing job, had published books, gave talks that people wanted to come to, but all the other characters just roll their eyes when he mentions it and Chandler makes some sarky "could you BE any more boring?" remark. And you're like mate, you work in a dead-end office job which no one even knows the name of. Bunch of pricks.

Still one of the best shows ever though. Hit its peak in season 6 and went downhill after Monica and Chandler got engaged. Should have ended it there. Also the last line should have gone like this:

"Wow, so you and Chandler are engaged now, I guess that about wraps everything up."
"Yes. But remember, we may be a couple now, but we will always be... FRIENDS."
[They all look at each other knowingly]
Ber-derdler-ber-der-der-der-der

[Noodle Lizard]

The US Office is "impossible" now too:  https://www.avclub.com/the-office-is-getting-harder-to-watch-1822026491?rev=1515776935015&utm_content=Main&utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing

I remember growing up thinking I was liberal because I hated this kind of prudish, po-faced nonsense from the right.  If you look hard enough, you could probably find a Radio 4 clip of a 16-year-old 'me' moaning about the BBFC banning films.  So it's a bit depressing to see so much of this retroactive calling the most inoffensive shite ever "problematic" coming from the cool kids.

I also understand that publications like that have to constantly churn out content, and almost anything will do.

[Large Noise]

I also understand that publications like that have to constantly churn out content, and almost anything will do.

This is a big part of the issue.

I'd also guess that we're now seeing the result of this type of commentary becoming almost impossible to do professionally, and therefore the preserve of- how should I put this- young idiots.

I mean, the GQ article your link refers to manages to discuss The Office without any material analysis of either US workplaces or the television industry. And when you don't have any real insight to share, you can always use sheer moral outrage instead. Guaranteed to get a bunch of shares and comments like "this is so important".

[SteveDave]

Despite "Friends" being on constantly when I had a TV, the only episodes I can remember is the one with the competition where Monica and Rachel lose and have to swap flats with Chandler and Joey. "Miss Chanandler Bong" "Viva Las Gaygas!" "He's a transponder!" "THAT'S NOT EVEN A WORD!" Great days.

[jobotic]

What fucks me off is the reverse snobbery around Ross' job. He had an amazing job, had published books, gave talks that people wanted to come to, but all the other characters just roll their eyes when he mentions it and Chandler makes some sarky "could you BE any more boring?" remark. And you're like mate, you work in a dead-end office job which no one even knows the name of. Bunch of pricks.

He should have got an important and cool job in the fashion industry like what Rachel did.

[olliebean]

Things I've noticed re-watching Friends now that I don't recall being aware of the first time round:

- How obviously influenced by Seinfeld it is.
- How unlikeable they all are. Chandler in particular.
- How early and often Ugly Naked Guy is mentioned.

Things I definitely remember from the first time round:

- How annoying that fucking monkey was.
- How unbearable any Ross and Rachel scene was once they got together.

As far as being offensive goes, it certainly has its share of cringey moments but it's nowhere near as bad as the millennibles are making it sound.

[Utter Shit]

Shout out to Eddie, brilliant character. This is unbeLIEVABLE.

[the]

What fucks me off is the reverse snobbery around Ross' job. He had an amazing job, had published books, gave talks that people wanted to come to, but all the other characters just roll their eyes when he mentions it and Chandler makes some sarky "could you BE any more boring?" remark. And you're like mate, you work in a dead-end office job which no one even knows the name of. Bunch of pricks.

Chandler's nondescript job was the butt of jokes all the time, in fact there's an entire plot about him having a crisis and switching careers because of it.

People sitting in rapturous awe of a paleontological career is not fertile sitcom territory.

[Utter Shit]

Yeah I don't think that's a fair criticism, they all get jokes made about their jobs to some degree or other, and generally the more successful they are the more jokes are made, which seems fair - certainly Ross and Chandler get more than, say, Rachel when she was working in the coffee house, and Joey is made fun of way more once he's a successful actor than when he was struggling. It's not reverse-snobbery, it's just a result of their scattergun approach to joke writing - everything is a potential target, especially with the billions of writers a show like Friends has.

[Wet Blanket]

How obviously influenced by Seinfeld it is.

I've always thought it one of the great cultural failures of the UK that Friends got the prime time Channel 4 slot while Seinfeld was relegated to late night BBC2.

As has been mentioned by some other posters, it seems strange to me that the right-on 90s are now getting the 'problematic' treatment. I suddenly feel bad for all the grief I've given my dad over the years for the thought-crimes of the 60s and 70s. Is this just the way that young people now distance themselves from the culture of their parents?

In-Show, Phoebe has had a traumatic life. This may be a good reason to let her believe her mother is a cat if she wants, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.

She is hurting someone though, that's one of the reasons Ross is against it; hasn't she pinched some little girl's pet cat?

[mippy]

Half of me wants to say that yeah but (no but) when Little Britain was on, we were already a much more tolerant and acceptive society than even just 25 years earlier - we looked at Emily Howard and thought "Haha this is an amusing comedic character!" not "Ugh yeah trans people are disgusting" - if anyone actually did think the latter then that's pretty fucking weird. I find it hard to see anything made after about 1991 "dated" in an offensive way as most of the worst stereotypes on film and telly had long become extinct by then, and Little Britain never seemed problematic in the way much pre-90s stuff does.

But that could just be the future version of "But Eddie Booth was MEANT to be a stupid bigot" etc.

The way people characterise trans people, both on the telly and in general, has changed a LOT in the past few years. If you were born after 1991, that's going to be pretty stark. I know that's not the point of the Emily Howard character, but without the wider context (see: people younger than 30 thinking Do They Know Is Christmas is wildly patronising toward Africa as a continent, rather than being about a specific event...)

[mippy]

http://metro.co.uk/2015/12/26/agatha-christies-and-then-there-were-none-used-to-have-a-super-racist-title-5585685/

We've been rewatching Seinfeld - Mr M for mostly the first time - and the thing that seems to have dated the worst is how many plots would cease to exist if mobile phones had been widely used back then. I wonder if that makes it harder for people who have grown up with them to enjoy.

[Wet Blanket]

Little Britain was offensive in 2003 and met with a lot of criticism for its stereotyped and regressive characters. I don't buy Matt Lucas's "it was different back then" defence at all. It wasn't that different. They shamelessly targeted the 'gloriously un-PC' brigade the way Mrs Brown's Boys does now.

[MojoJojo]

S1E18 and still waiting for a non-white character.

In S1E2 (and maybe the first one too) Monica has a scene with a black chef lady who she works with. The fact I don't remember the character from when I saw it before or if she even has a name suggests she didn't last long.

[Utter Shit]

Yeah but to be fair isn't Friends set in a small, backwater town that is unlikely to see many black folk?

[magval]

Shout out to Eddie, brilliant character. This is unbeLIEVABLE.

I absolutely love those few episodes. I catch myself saying 'see ya pals' in his weird way all the time.

[ieXush2i]

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

And Joey is super-rapey.

Also that episode where Chandler manipulates that woman who leaves an answerphone message into sleeping with him, twice.

It's not that you need to go looking for something offensive in Friends, it's more that you watch it with 2018 eyes and dodgy stuff leaps out at you. Seinfeld and IASIP get away with depicting people acting heinously because they don't have a forced hugging-and-learning moral moment most episodes, whilst the characters overlook all sorts of shitty things the other Friends are doing.

[magval]

- How obviously influenced by Seinfeld it is.

This has stuck out to me too in that they've both done a version of the unconventional breakup scene within the first few episodes - Seinfeld when he 'broke up' with a male friend, and the Friends ones acting like Monica's boyfriend is their boyfriend when she tells them she's gonna chuck him.

[Dr Syntax Head]

Yeah but to be fair isn't Friends set in a small, backwater town that is unlikely to see many black folk?

He puts the goldfish in his pocket. Still hilarious

[ieXush2i]

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.

Isn't the male nanny depicted as being ridiculously over-sensitive, crying all the time and playing the flute because gay?

[ieXush2i]

This has stuck out to me too in that they've both done a version of the unconventional breakup scene within the first few episodes - Seinfeld when he 'broke up' with a male friend, and the Friends ones acting like Monica's boyfriend is their boyfriend when she tells them she's gonna chuck him.

George has a storyline about his ex girlfriend starting a lesbian relationship. George becomes a hand model. George wants to see Jerry's girlfriend's breasts because she saw his penis. There are tonnes of Seinfeld lifts. no wonder Larry David hated it so much.

[notjosh]

Yeah I don't think that's a fair criticism, they all get jokes made about their jobs to some degree or other, and generally the more successful they are the more jokes are made, which seems fair - certainly Ross and Chandler get more than, say, Rachel when she was working in the coffee house, and Joey is made fun of way more once he's a successful actor than when he was struggling. It's not reverse-snobbery, it's just a result of their scattergun approach to joke writing - everything is a potential target, especially with the billions of writers a show like Friends has.

Yes, I know. I was just trying to deconstruct it in a 'James Bond is a shit spy' sort of way.

Chandler is a twat though.

[Dr Rock]

How funny it is come down to taste, and relativity. Such as, since the 90s when Friends began, how many really funny mainstream sitcoms has the UK produced?

[Utter Shit]

How funny it is come down to taste, and relativity. Such as, since the 90s when Friends began, how many really funny mainstream sitcoms has the UK produced?

Let alone ones that have run for 240 episodes with no great dip in quality (I know some people see the Chandler/Monica relationship as the start of a downturn in quality, but this happens at around the same time as Ross' breakdown, which was essentially justification for a massive personality change - him turning into a nutter is one of the best strands in the whole show, and most of the best bits of the later series involve him going berserk. Famously the sandwich episode which begins the switch, but I loved the later (series 9 maybe?) episode where he tries to be supportive of Joey and Rachel's relationship, but only manages to out himself as a grade A madman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06PJ-V0QAJE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlphsItmdqg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BtFB5kAjCQ