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Here’s the one that’s driving me berserk...

Started by Emotional Support Peacock, May 11, 2021, 11:48:00 AM

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Icehaven

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on May 11, 2021, 05:23:01 PM


Only one of the Friends in Friends is ever broke, none of them have a job that is a joke that I remember and they never seem to struggle for love.


I'd just about let them off with ''your job's a joke, you're broke'' as at various times they've all either had rubbish or no jobs, and/or the others have taken the piss out of them because of their job (Ross and his boring dinosaurs and no one knowing what Chandler actually does) and apart from Ross they've all been skint at some point too. Maybe in the first series the ''love life being D.O.A.'' was a bit more appropriate as Ross had just got divorced, Rachel had left her fiancée at the altar and the other 4 just seemed to be single most of the time (although Joey was casually shagging away) but as it went on it became obvious none of them were ever exactly hard up for a date.
Fucking repeats, you'd think my remote was broken or something.

Fambo Number Mive

I wouldn't call Ross's job a joke just because the other Friends think it is though, he clearly loves it. Not sure how well paid he is, I don't know much about academia in the US around 1994-2004. The other Friends sneer at it but I think that's part of the anti-intellectual nature of a lot of television.

What does make a job "a joke"? Is it the nature of the work itself, how useful the job is to society or the conditions and people you work with? I'm analysing this way too much but I've been pondering it. If the character feels the job is a joke perhaps, but then the job is a joke only to him. Rachel hates her job as a waitress at Central Perk, and probably would say "my job is a joke". Does that make her job a joke, or is having to deal with Gunter more likely to contribute to her job being something that would fit with the "your job's a joke" lyrics.

I don't remember Monica or Joey being hard up during the show but it has been a long time since I watched Friends. I suppose being an actor is quite a financially insecure job, with no guarantee of long term or even short term employment. One of those professions that lots of people want to do but very few ever make any decent money from it.

It's probably a good thing I don't write songs and sitcom tunes.

Icehaven

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on May 13, 2021, 01:32:38 PM
I wouldn't call Ross's job a joke just because the other Friends think it is though, he clearly loves it. Not sure how well paid he is, I don't know much about academia in the US around 1994-2004. The other Friends sneer at it but I think that's part of the anti-intellectual nature of a lot of television.

What does make a job "a joke"? Is it the nature of the work itself, how useful the job is to society or the conditions and people you work with? I'm analysing this way too much but I've been pondering it. If the character feels the job is a joke perhaps, but then the job is a joke only to him. Rachel hates her job as a waitress at Central Perk, and probably would say "my job is a joke". Does that make her job a joke, or is having to deal with Gunter more likely to contribute to her job being something that would fit with the "your job's a joke" lyrics.

I don't remember Monica or Joey being hard up during the show but it has been a long time since I watched Friends. I suppose being an actor is quite a financially insecure job, with no guarantee of long term or even short term employment. One of those professions that lots of people want to do but very few ever make any decent money from it.

It's probably a good thing I don't write songs and sitcom tunes.

At one point Monica gets fired from her chef job and goes to work in a 50's style diner where she has to wear fake boobs, which arguably qualifies as both a joke job and being broke, and later on when her and Chandler are married, they're struggling when he's given up his job to do an unpaid advertising internship. Joey's always skint at first as he hardly works and Chandler pays for everything, then again when he gets dropped from Days of Our Lives and has to give up his new flat and all the fancy stuff he's bought (except the ceramic dog...) and move back in with Chandler. There's also that episode where they're all going out for Ross's birthday and Rachel, Joey and Phoebe secretly (at first anyway) bemoan how they can't afford an expensive night out and how the other three don't understand how much less they earn.

That's it, I appaently know more about Friends than I do about my own life, I'm never watching it again.

Jasha

Quote from: icehaven on May 13, 2021, 12:35:45 PM
I'd just about let them off with ''your job's a joke, you're broke'' as at various times they've all either had rubbish or no jobs, and/or the others have taken the piss out of them because of their job (Ross and his boring dinosaurs and no one knowing what Chandler actually does) and apart from Ross they've all been skint at some point too.

1990's New York, rent control board

Glebe

Your jobs alright, you've a foo quid, partner's not bad. Clap clap clap.

Video Game Fan 2000

your job's a joke
you're broke
and you're ready with your gun

frajer

Your job's a joke
You're clown
The circus is that waaaaaayyy