Watching ‘Friends’ in 2020

Decades later, ‘Friends’ is somehow both popular & controversial.

The One In Which I Re-watch Friends.

There is something to be said about the success of Friends. For a show that premiered in 1994 and ended more than a decade ago, somehow Friends still continues to speak to the cultural zeitgeist and enjoys this wild popularity that remains unmatched to this day.

Perhaps this continuing relevance is what drew me towards the show again. This curiosity to understand if as a grown up, my reaction towards the sitcom would still be the same as it used to be when I was younger.

So amongst the thousands of shows that I could watch on Netflix, one fine day, I decided it was time to revisit Friends.

Watching a 1994 sitcom with the perspective of 2020 can be tough.

Friends without a doubt was a very progressive show for the 90s. From being one of the first US sitcom to show a lesbian wedding, to Phoebe agreeing to be a surrogate mother, Friends was always pushing the boundaries of what was normal.

Unlike other sitcoms in the 90s, it was not afraid to portray unconventional relationships on prime time television. It used humour so skillfully that it was able challenge the status-quo, and yet still occupy a middle ground so as to not create outrage.

And perhaps this is the reason why the show appeals to younger viewers today that are growing up in a culture that embraces such ideas as the new normal.

However, just because a show is popular and still relevant doesn’t necessarily mean that it aged like fine wine.

With all its progressiveness considered, Friends is not perfect.

Time and again, the show is criticized for the way it fat-shamed Monica, the countless homophobic jokes, the lack of diversity and the sexism often displayed by the characters. So while the show definitely made strides in LGBTQ representation and its portrayal of gender roles, often times the show ended up making jokes about the very things it was trying to normalize.

For instance, by poking fun at Ross’ discomfort over having male nanny the show challenges the idea of masculine gender roles, however in another instance even though Rachel wants her date, Paul Stevens (Bruce Willis) to share his feelings with her, she can’t handle it when he begins to cry and ridicules him as a “weepy, clingy, moist monster”.

Another example is how the show ridicules Chandler’s queerphobia by having him often mistaken as a gay man. And yet at the same time the show’s unkind treatment of Chandler’s transgender dad for the sake of punchlines is questionable to say the least.

Hence even though the show broke many barriers, it also contradicted the very statement it was trying to make.

Yet, the thing is, if you’re going to judge the past, whether it be your own or a work of art, from a contemporary perspective, you are bound to find something problematic in it.

But does this mean that those problematic aspects should not be addressed?

Hell, no.

Just because it wasn’t distasteful back then doesn’t necessarily mean it should be given a free pass now. With the kind of impact Friends has on viewers throughout the globe, it is possible that through its self-contradictions, it is reinforcing those very ideas that it was trying to challenge.

Having said that, it would equally unfair to judge Friends solely by its most controversial aspects. You would be ignoring the positive impact that it did have in the way it redefined the idea of a family.

It constructed the idea that the relationships you’ve made by choice can be as strong as the bond shared by a family. So here are 6 friends in New York who have a messy relationship with their parents, but with each other they find the kind of comfort and acceptance that their parents denied to them.

In addition to this, Friends celebrated all kinds of motherhood and family structures. Through Rachel it showed that that you could be a single mother and still be successful, it portrays Susan and Carol as a happily married same-sex couple with their son, it treated Phoebe’s decision to be a surrogate with respect, and lastly it refused to let Monica be defined by her infertility.

Friends, from the very beginning emphasized alternate family structures as normal. And perhaps, it is this departure from the “traditional” or the “norm” that has resonated with audiences across cultures and generations.

Even though I completed a show that ran for 10 years in less than a month, as I watched the characters big farewell to the apartment and their lives together in New York, I was greeted by a familiar sadness; a sadness that I have felt often times before while saying goodbye to things I cherished.

It is damn good television. Even in its imperfections.