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Love it or hate it, Friends remains one of the most popular television shows of all time. It generated millions of views over an incredible 10-year run. The finale alone, which aired on May 6, 2004, was watched by 52.5 million people.
Friends introduced the world to six relatively unknown actors—Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, and Matt LeBlanc. Together, they completed the beloved New York City-based gang of twenty-somethings who, much like the show’s viewers, are figuring out their careers and relationships with the support of their friends.
Some resonated with Ross, the academic of the group, while others identified with the likes of Phoebe and Joey, who survive by hustling…well, in their own happy-go-lucky ways. Meanwhile, many fans were drawn to the will-they-won’t-they dynamics within the group’s bachelors and bachelorettes. Ross and Rachel kept us on the edge of our seats until the very last episode, while Monica and Chandler’s (mostly) drama-free pairing kept us grounded.
I’ll admit to having watched every episode of Friends—yes, even the clip shows—at least five times. But whenever I rewatch the series, there’s always a new line, scene, or entire episode that makes me cringe because it’s openly offensive. As much as I felt comforted by reruns in my teenage to young adult years, Friends wouldn’t really pass a test of political correctness today.
The One Where Friends Lacked Racial Diversity
For the entire ten seasons of Friends, I can recall maybe 5 people of color. Ross’s paleontologist girlfriend from Season 1, Julie, was played by Asian American actress Lauren Tom. Later on, Aisha Tyler guest starred as Ross’s girlfriend, Charlie. All other POC credited in the show were extras, like Gabriel Union and Craig Robinson.
All in all, Friends did not have the most racially diverse cast, a fact that the showrunners acknowledged many years after the finale. “If we did Friends today, no, I don’t imagine they would probably end up being an all-white cast,” admitted executive producer Kevin Bright.
He explained that the creators didn’t intend to write an all-white cast into the show. They just picked the actors based on their auditions, and they all happened to be white. Co-creator Marta Kauffman added that, while it wasn’t the intention, she acknowledged her role in systemic racism, especially with such a cultural impact that the show left.
We can’t really do anything about the casting of Friends now, and we’re seriously grateful for the amazing actors they ended up hiring. But we can use the gap in casting as a teaching moment for future television shows to, not just hire people of color to pass the diversity test, but to tell stories that echo the experience of people of color.
The One Where They Objectified Men and Women Constantly
Many episodes in Friends feature locker room talk between the men and women of the show. Joey is usually at the center of these conversations. He saw women as conquests. For instance, when Ross and Rachel stopped him from dating the nanny they hired, he compared her to forbidden fruit, one that he must have.
But Joey wasn’t alone in objectifying men and women. Every single one of the Friends main characters is guilty of it at some point. Rachel hired an assistant based on his looks. Chandler dumped every woman he found an aesthetic fault in. Monica objectified women with Joey. Ross went on a date with women just to mess with Rachel. And Phoebe bit the skin of the massage client she had a crush on.
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The casual sexism, objectification, and borderline sexual harassment portrayed in Friends would totally fail the show in today’s cultural (and legal) standards, and rightly so.
The One Where They Perpetuated Toxic Masculinity
Though Joey was clearly written to be the macho of the group, they all showed signs of toxic masculinity—the idea that men have to be ultra-masculine, which has deep ties to homophobia (but that’s for a separate conversation).
Joey’s sexism is a direct example of how men behave towards women to assert their dominance in Friends. Meanwhile, Chandler is the type to get embarrassed by things that might question his manliness. In one episode, he asked, “Where are all the men?” This was after he walked into Joey making potpourri with his female roommate and Ross fixing a dental emergency with makeup. He was also ashamed about his talent of threading eyebrows—but it is more symptomatic of the embarrassment he has of having a trans woman for a parent.
And then there’s Ross. In one episode of Friends, he made fun of Joey for using a shoulder bag and asked if it’s where he put his makeup. He manipulated his son to play with a G.I. Joe action figure instead of a Barbie doll, passing on the toxic masculinity he abided by to future generations. To me, his biggest offense was when he fired a male nanny because, in Rachel’s words, he “needed his men to be men”. The thought of having a man in a job traditionally held by women threatened his masculinity.
The One Where They Made Fun of Fat People
Like every other sitcom, Friends had a lot of running gags. One of those is that Monica used to be fat. Sure, because being fat is such a funny, funny thing!
In many flashback episodes, they put Courteney Cox in a fat suit. And when her character shed all the weight, off came the fat suit to reveal her very slim figure. She instantly became desirable in Chandler’s eyes, whose hurtful fatphobic jokes actually triggered Monica to achieve such a drastic weight loss.
The fatphobia of Friends wasn’t very subtle. Some of the characters made remarks that made fun of fat people. In one episode, Phoebe joked that she couldn’t make her hands meet when she hugged Chandler, who was worried he gained a few pounds. When gossiping with her sister, Rachel mentioned their other sister gained weight in her “ass and face”. And Ross always brought up bad memories of growing up with “fat Monica”—like the time she broke the porch swing and their childhood dog’s back by sitting on them.
The One Where They Used LGBTQ+ People as Punch Lines
But Friends didn’t just rely on fatphobia for comedy—the show also used LGBTQ+ people as the butt of their jokes several times.
The most cringeworthy scenes are those that mentioned or featured Chandler’s dad. It was actually integral to Chandler’s back story: his parents divorced because his dad was gay. The trauma left him with such trust issues that he couldn’t maintain a long-term relationship.
While I can understand still being traumatized from the divorce, Chandler is clearly uncomfortable with the fact that his dad is a drag queen in Las Vegas and a trans woman named Helena. He covers this discomfort with endless jokes and sarcasm. He was unsure of inviting his estranged parent to his wedding because he was ashamed of her. Nora Bing, his mom, deadnames Helena and calls her by her birth name Charles.
Friends Would Struggle With Political Correctness Today But Honestly? It Was A Different Time
There are many problematic things about Friends that will definitely call for immediate cancellation if the show aired today. But it was a different time, a time where you could joke about women, feminine men, fat people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community and nobody would bat an eye.
Thankfully, we’re living in different times and we can view Friends under a more critical lens. Even though I am a fan of the show and still appreciate much of its comedic timing, acting, and writing, I think it’s important to call out the ways cultural phenomena like Friends can be—and has been—harmful to different communities.
It’s nearly 2023 and if a sitcom is still using marginalized communities for joke material, it must not be a very funny show.
