Why 'Friends' Might Be Hard To Go Back To 

I hope fans and non-fans alike can get something valuable out of this video - not here to condemn a show I've loved since I was a kid, but certainly to discuss its, uh, "complicated" relationship to politics and culture. If you like the video, please consider backing us on Patreon, or Ko-Fi for a one-time donation: www.patreon.com/jacksaint ko-fi.com/lackingsaint BONUS FUN! Here's a stream of me playing Friends: The One With All The Trivia to try and prove I know my Friends - and failing miserably. (Still processing, but will be available soon) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Kur6sqiApNI.html xxx twitter.com/LackingSaint

I think modern audiences are just more uncomfortable with the fact that Ross, the largest Friend, doesn't simply devour the other five.

What i got from this is that Friends is a great window into the mentality of middle class white people's politics of the 90s.

I've tried to watch friends a few times in the past, but one thing keeps bugging me. Why does Ross, the largest friend, not simply eat the other five?

Who's Monica the world needs to know

Great, now everytime I hear the word "Care" I think about Petscop, and not in like "caring for other people".

I see the points... but the race, gay and trans jokes weren't aimed at the race, gay or trans people. They were aimed at the ones struggling to "act right" around those people. They were showing them as the wrong ones, the inconsiderate ones. I think they were going for an "all in the Family" tact of making them laugh to get them to think (without as much of the depth). Chandlers problem with his father was around the breakup of his parents' marriage. Ross' problem with his ex's lover/wife came from the breakup of his marriage and her butting her way in their issues, not that she was a woman. There is no excuse for the fat jokes though. I mean, it was hinted that this was related to her touch of obsessive compulsiveness, but nothing comes of it, and their just mean.

I don't normally exist in this space, so perhaps the message is lost on me, but I'm taking it as: These characters have opinions different from mine and therefore are awful people. Perhaps it's because the video glosses over exactly how progressive the show was for it's time. While Ross' ex is often played for laughs, "she always drank straight from the can...I should have known," the fact that she's played AT ALL was the most amazing part of the show. It made people talk. I wasn't even allowed to watch episodes with her in it, or the one about Chandler's dad, until I left my parents house. Pre-Ellen, that's some amazing shit! And everything race-related is STILL an issue. There was even a meme, per se, at the time in comedy of the token black guy breaking the fourth wall and mentioning being the "token black guy". And when did abortion become such a large issue again? It's been an issue for a very long time, I know, but it wasn't AS BIG an issue since 1973. It's like it has just slowly built up into this giant mountain again. Being in my mid-30s and seeing people I knew in school walking around with children of their own I feel it's extremely important to keep Friends on the air. It's important to see how the generation raising this "woke" generation was brought up, what we were taught the world was like, and how we were taught to act in it (literally, my father and brother never hug because it's gay and that is what they were taught and what I, 15 years younger than my brother, was taught the world expects of two men, so Joey and Chandler are just a mirror pointedly exposing this ridiculousness.) It was shows like this one non-chalantly making jokes that helped snowball us into where we are now.

You can't blame a comedy show for not being ahead of its time. It's a good show... but just not in that way.

This opened my eyes a bit but to be fair it didn’t take much. It’s a very easy show to get burnt out on when it comes to my taste in humour.

Friends hasn't aged well in 2019 because firstly they have friends and secondly they can afford apartments

There’s one thing I wanna say. As a gay kid growing up watching Friends, I saw Carol and Susan and I saw the most stable couple on tv. That is something everyone missed. Carol and Susan were basically the only couple on tv who survived 10 years.

Friends was actually the show that introduced me to the concept of "normal" gay people. I mean, it was literally the first time I thought "Oh, they're just... like... regular people." So while the show did fail in many respects, I think it still did some social good.

SJW stands for Space Jam Watchers

Friends is like that straight but lgbt supporting friend that loves you but is tone deaf in a lot of conversations

My irritation with the show was Monica is a chef but obviously does not work long hours and gets paid very well. This is not the reality of a chef in a large city.

Also I still think Joey was the best friend in terms of being 'woke'...he loved the man's bag Rachel found for him and defended it as a fashion choice even when other people were criticising him for accessorising with something 'girly' (or for accessorising at all). He was really fond of all the girly stuff Janine brought into his apartment and was comfortable with it until Chandler made it seem like a bad thing. And he was completely okay with kissing a guy for a role to the point of trying to get other men to kiss him so he could practise/research the part, whereas Chandler and Ross were so insecure about their sexualities they could barely hug another dude. The other friends were always putting him down for it but Joey was progressive, considering :/

Me: *watches this video* RU-vid: Ohh, I get it! You want to watch 5 Ben Shapiro wrecks SJW videos, 10 3-hour long Sargon streams, 41 Liberals Destroyed by Logic videos, and Cucker Carlson Being Racist Compilation disguised as an SJW wrecking video!

I can't believe this show is a quarter of a century old now. I remember watching the very first episode back in 1994. It was on after Roseanne and I thought I'd give it a go. I have to say, this is the only show that made me laugh back then and still makes me laugh now. While being largely progressive for its time in many ways, it's important to acknowledge and challenge the problematic elements of this show. Keeping dialogues like this going is how we progress and get better. Great video.

What's strange for me as someone who grew up with the show and watching it into my teens is I always viewed the gay and trans jokes as laughing at the ignorance of the characters. The male nanny was funny because Ross was being so unreasonable and the episodes with Chandler's dad was funny because he was so weird about it despite his dad clearly being happy. Then again as a young kid who wasn't fully aware that I myself was a part of the LGBT+ community at that point may have been subconsciously looking for the reassurance that people's ignorance were the butt of the joke, and not the people like me.

What gets me is Rachel kinda threw her dreams away for Ross. Like she was literally about to move to paris to work in fashion with Ralph Lauren. I am still so mad. Rachel deserved way better.

As much as I love friends, its bread and butter was uncomfortable gender based humor and none of that is fun to rewatch.

to me friends is like junk food for your brain. It's not really good for you, but it's comfortable.

Why doesn't Ross, the largest friend, simply eat the other five!

thank you for this lol im gay & trans and i watched friends for the first time ever- no nostalgia goggles beyond seeing a couple episodes on tv/at a friend's house in the early 2010's- on netflix, all the way through, every episode, and it was one of the worst television experiences of my life. people act like having a critical eye for these things is just people trying to get woke points online or being offended for the sake of being offended or something but no sometimes it just sucks to be a person trying to watch a show everyone around you thinks is so good they havent stopped talking about it for 30 years only to find out they were laughing at people like you the whole time.

Skimmed a few comments and didn't see anything mentioned in them or in the video, itself, but what about the one where Carol and Susan got married? That was a pretty big push. It was only the second gay wedding on TV, just a few weeks after the first and already in the plans to be done, so I don't think it was a "we gotta do one too" kind of episode. But yeah, pro-wedding and the person playing the officiator was (is?) a big LGBTQ ally IRL, Candice Gingrich who is, herself, non-binary I believe. Candice's brother, Newt Gingrich, was also a big anti-LGBT advocate in the right wing, so choosing her specifically definitely comes across as a political push (in the right direction). It was so controversial at the time that there were some cities that refused to air that episode. I feel like that shows what the political climate was like back then, and why their inclusion of the content was actually beneficial and forward thinking, for the time. You bring up It's Always Sunny as a better successor in this area but I also wonder how people will look back on it 10-20 years after it's done being on the air and if they will think it's problematic, too. I think a lot of this is hindsight bias, when it comes to Friends. For its time it was progressive (probably why my conservative parents didn't want me watching it, but I still did, and it was what put the concept of LGBTQ in my head as real people). The other thing I often bring up is how Chandler had disconnected from his "dad?" because of the gender/crossdressing thing yet Monica is the one that pushed him to get back in touch and reconnect, a message saying that this kind of thing shouldn't be what splits a family.

Some of the most cringeworthy parts for me are where the women themselves undermine the men by calling them “girls” or saying things like they’re scared to lose against a “bunch of girls” - why would you undermine men by undermining yourself. I also hated how much the girls were sexualized - It made it so that these men viewed every female in a sexual manner, even their closest friends.

i love this show, but always skip the episodes dealing with chandler's transgender parent. "this person from a marginalized community is a freak" is the laziest type of humor there is, & some may argue that comedy is subjective, but there is a real science behind how to structure an effective joke. comedy that primarily consists of "trans people are freaks lol" isn't just offensive to trans people, it's offensive to the art of comedy itself.

The biggest thing I noticed when watching friends was how it treats gender. I understood that gay and trans awareness is in a much different place, but how casual Friends is with sexism is kind of weird to watch now. A lot of it is played off as a joke, but its still there.

I can look at a picture that I drew when I was 11 years old, and I can have a lot of fondness for it, yet still think "well, obviously, I wouldn't draw like that NOW." I think we can apply the same perspective to media that we consumed when we were younger. We can enjoy and appreciate it for what it was and what it meant to us at the time, yet still move on from it. Hell, we can apply that to our younger selves. I mean, surely that's what growing up IS.

Surprised you didn't talk about How I met your mother. Always thought that was the true successor to friends and I've always been surprised that people aren't more upset about it since it essentially has all the PC problems of friends but it was released later when they should have known a little better.

I absolutely love It's Always Sunny because they haven't been afraid to dedicate entire episodes to, and revisit, sensitive topics from the very beginning. But the reason it's *so fucking good* even 14 years later is that they ONLY reference distasteful things they've done in the past to bring the show writers' language surrounding minorities up to current standards - they never do it to redeem the characters by having them straight up apologize. The characters are supposed to be assholes. They say things that most people know are bad, but McElhenney knows how to evolve the edgy humor over the years to make fun of his own characters' ignorance. For example, before he came out the joke wasn't that Mac was gay haha so gross, it's that his friends didn't really care but he himself was in so much denial. Anyway I love Sunny thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Nitpick, but I think Monica’s “he-she” comment wasn’t offensive. She was trying and genuinely didn’t know what pronouns to use and apologized. It was pretty progressive considering the humor friends usually uses...

I could never get into Friends, even as a kid. None of the characters seemed likable to me, they treated everyone badly and the laugh track made me wanna break shit.

friends: "what if i don't wanna be a shoe? what if I wanna be a purse or a hat?" Rachel's arc is learning to risk being rejected by her family to live her life authentically and find herself also friends: chandler have transgender parent pls laugh now ahaa

genuinely, the most uncomfortable thing about this show for me was ross. he’s extremely manipulative, insufferably jealous, and neurotic to the point of screaming hysterically on so many occasions, but he never suffers any real consequences. it’s enough to make me feel bad for rachel.

But here's the million dollar question, friendo: WHERE DOES SEINFELD FIT INTO ALL OF THIS???

Honestly even before I realized I was queer, the show made me deeply uncomfortable just due to how the entire plotlines would center around a group of friends who didn't feel comfortable enough to be honest with each other. It's like Supernatural, everyone talks about how much they love the show and I'm sitting here screaming "JUST HAVE A GODDAMN CONVERSATION" for an entire episode lol

Friends isn't always my thing but whenever it's on TV it's something chill to watch. Of course, as trans and gay, I really hope I don't stumble across _those_ episodes. I'm praying I don't. Besides, if there's any show that deserves to be done to death in essay videos, it's The Big Bang Theory (not saying this video is overdoing anything but TBBT is overdone for good reason).

I think a lot of people struggle with this concept specifically because of their own extremism. Some people view the world in terms of "good" and "bad" and don't know how to deal with the stuff that's in between. So when you say "this is not good lgbt representation," or "this has sexist undertones," or "this fantasy racism is poorly thought out," all they hear is "the thing you like is Bad Now and can never be good again." Then, since they're now perceiving this as a binary choice between Thing I Like and Voice of My Conscience/Respect of My Peers, they clench up and double down and instead try to spin the Bad moniker back around on what they see as the accusers. It becomes about defending Thing I Like instead of actually critically examining their biases and preconceptions. The ironic part is where they start accusing everyone else of being "too PC!!" or "such a SJW!!" when in fact it's their own extreme approach, and inability to appreciate things that are not 100% Good in their minds, that is the source of their own suffering.

Funny thing is, I've seen far right RU-vid channels talking about Friends like it was the first malicious wave of left-wing agenda to normalise 'the gays', and further the liberal mindset. Personally, I just think it was a good show in the context of its time and we should view it as such.

Well, they had a trans woman played by a woman. That’s remarkably progressive, given how many shows and movies still can’t seem to get that.

Just want to remind everyone that Courtney cox's bangs in scream 3 were a war crime

I've always seen 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia' as the successor to 'Seinfeld'.

MY SJW POWERS ONLY GO SO FAR I LOVE IT!!

I recently re-watched it in isolation, and I did enjoy some parts of it, but I definitively feel uncomfortable with a lot of stuff. I remember cheering on for ross a lot more back in the day, now he seems kinda really creepy? And controlling. But that's actually really good, shows how far we are growing and evolving.

I love how he's so loud about how criticizing something doesn't mean it's cancelled because honest to god some people think they're the same thing

love something that knocks friends down a peg while uplifting sunny

You didn't even research DocFuture's "A semi-alphabetical listing of Black actors with speaking roles on Friends" master piece. I'm sad.

I've never watched Friends in my life, but I watched this whole vid

My only exposure to Friends was when my dentist put an episode on and kept pausing her work on my teeth to watch the TV :/

When I was a kid I loved Friends a whole lot. In my early teens I was in a very dark place emotionally and I actually wrote a list with reasons not to kill myself: watching every episode of Friends was one of the items on that list. Nowadays, I can't even watch it. It sucks so much. The worst part is how extremely fragile the masculinity of the three main guys are, and how that often manifests as misogyny and homophobia. I don't judge other people for still liking it, but for me it has gone from one of the few things that brought me comfort and joy to a show I actively hate.

Thanks for this. I still would say I like and enjoy friends, but there are definitely episodes that made me super uncomfortable on my last rewatch, and I can only imagine it getting worse with time

It's Always Sunny seems more like a successor to Seinfeld then Friends.

When Friends first aired I was DEEPLY closeted and I felt that it even mentioning queer people was, oddly enough, the most progressive thing on television. Back then my parents didn't allow me to watch Ellen or anything else remotely accepting of GLBT issues. Friends problematic take was literally as good as it got for me- and I loved it! Any episode that so much as mentioned Ross' wife made me feel so much better- we did exist! And for all that they mock her, they largely accept her. Growing up in a fundamentalist culture, it managed to reach me where nothing else could. So as an adult with all these fond memories I went back on Netflix to watch it again... and was appalled. These days there are lots of shows with good representation and I don't have to settle, and it just doesn't hold up anymore. Friends was a product of its time and unfortunately that time was shitty for us. Better than previous decades, definitely, but well short of something good for queer people. So I love friends still, in context, but I'm so very glad that it seems anachronistic now.

Oh! Don't forget the bit where Phoebe screams "Well now I've seen everything!" at a lesbian wedding! But that was okay. Because she was possessed by a ghost at the time.

oof. The 90's. Where is was socially acceptable to have trans ppl as butt of a joke for no reason other than "They different!". My perspective on friends changed when my dad complained about how "white" the show was. I didn't know what he meant at the time, I was only 13 or so. As as adult, I totally see what he meant. Strange, even through I'm mixed I saw whiteness as norm and didn't think much of lack of minorities. I mean, the show takes place in new york city. The One of the most diverse places in the world.

My family didn't watch friends much but I remember very clearly seeing the episode you're using to talk about the issues with transphobia when I was a little girl. My family's reaction to her & the way that the show made it clear that this was a normal & accepted way to treat trans people made me cry & still comes to mind every time my family pretends that they would've supported me. I could never actually watch friends after that.

I never liked Friends( not because of these issues) but because it wasn't my cup of tea. The comedy was dry and the laugh tracks made it even more boring. But it's okay if someone likes it.

I grew up in a Seinfeld house so maybe I’m bias thinking it’s apples and oranges comparing Always Sunny to Friends. How I Met Your Mother is the spiritual successor to Friends- Always Sunny is the modern Seinfeld.

I know the show didn’t intend this but I’ve always hated Ross and loved Susan.

MONICA IS WHAT, JACK!?!?!? fantastic vid, love these light examinations and revisitations of older media as it sees new light.

For a little I tried a thing where I hit “next episode” when a joke like this came up, I went through the seasons pretty quick hah

“She always drank it out of a can i should have known” is still funny tho lmao

you revealing that you've watched "friends" through this video was really a bold move. Has your channel recovered to such a powerful blow????

I usually liked "Friends" in the same way I liked "how I met your mother".... they're all stereotypes to create amusing scenarios that would be terrible people if they where real.

Friends is my grandmothers favorite show, I think some of the moments are funny but I don't love it a ton, In general Im not a huge sitcom fan anyway.

My favourite thing about how there’s basically a generation finding and watching friends for the first time on Netflix decrying it as a tone deaf politically incorrect product of its time... is that we now have a generation watching glee for the first time and just loudly screaming “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS MESS I LOVE IT??” No but I enjoy friends for what it is- I just think people get too defensive as much as people get offended. To paraphrase the gamer gate lady, you can enjoy something and be critical of it. I can totally enjoy the 90s vibes of Ross and Rachel being on a break one minute and say they handled treatment of trans characters about as well as a dropped pie. We can talk about how there’s even Disney channel shows that covered racism, challenges of disabled people and eating disorders (I’m mainly thinking of that’s so Raven, the little mermaid, and Lizzie McGuire there) but friends didn’t. And it’s okay for your water cooler conversation to go from “I’m SUCH a Monica!” To “pretty weird everyone was white huh?” Without the show being evil now. No shows are perfect and we all love consuming and discussing media so the conversation should evolve too. Except for the good place, the good place is perfect.

I think your right in your observation that the reason Friends has become uncomfortable is that it had been, at the time, the pinnacle of "politically correct" material. Because it give a very popular mirror in which to view just how bogus we were in the not so distant past.

I was incredibly happy when you brought up It's Always Sunny as a counterpart to Friends because, looking back at Friends from a modern lens, the actual characters seem more and more like crazed sociopaths. So, to sort of summarize one of the video's key points, both Friends and It's Always Sunny are shows about a group of asshole sociopaths, it's just that It's Always Sunny is consciously aware of this, while Friends can never bring itself to admit this due to the conceit that they need to make the cast "relatable" to the audience.

I think something else to keep in mind is Friends came out at a time when audiences were sick of 80s and early 90s sitcoms beating people over the head very clumsily with the "very special episode " trope. These came across as very blunt and preachy and I think Friends and a few other shows really shied away from that perhaps a bit too aggressively and basically told their audience we won't make you think about anything.

What kinda ticks me off is that the characters never learn anything new or grow out of judgmental beliefs. Ross still fires Sandy (the nanny), everyone judged Joey and his handbag, Chandler with his "gay quality", etc. The show never sets the characters up to challenge their own ideals. Their ideals are glossed over so that we can point and laugh at something else. If a piece of media or an entertainer relies solely on mocking marginalised groups, then that entertainer is not all that funny. However, a piece of comedy that mocks ideas, traditions and institutions will always stand the test of time. Just look at George Carlin for example. He's seen as one of the best comedians of all time and yet he rarely ever made fun of marginalised groups. He challenged all the norms from a time wayy before friends. So I think that the "different time" excuse holds no validity at all.

We nico nico need to stop using sonic music in the background

Honestly, my issue with rewatching is always Ross now. He was the epitome of being a douche and, usually, when something was wrong or something we wouldn’t consider OK now, it usually came from Ross

Pretty sure most of the gay jokes were at the characters’ expense for being immature They definitely talked about it too much though

Honestly as an enby Monica's "sorry I'm new" bit was cute! Like she's doing her best but genuinely doesn't know and would change her behavior if informed. If only the rest of it was like that - respect and willingness to learn from other, often more marginalized communities!

I've had a similar situation when I started rewatching Malcom in the Middle last month. It's probably one of the few family sitcom shows that actually challenged the status quo and never shied away from asking tough questions. Appreciated it a lot more because of that.

I haven't watched the entirety of Friends in a long time, but I'm shocked (although I maybe shouldn't be) that they only had 2 POC characters in 10 seasons. In a show set in New York City.

So exhausted by old shows that gave LGBT characters visibility and tried to have a positive message, now being flagged as terrible. It was progressive at the time. It made some missteps. I'm a gay man and I still adore the show and frankly, half of your supposedly objectionable material wasn't even offensive. Tell you what: I'll happily acknowledge your concerns about the trans portrayal if you knew better terminology to use in the 90s. If you didn't, give them a damn break. Chandler's dad played by a cis woman was meant to show acceptance, and the gay men I knew at the time thought the casting was brilliant. Can we please be supportive of shows that try to support us and not live in an oblivious bubble that pretends history isn't a thing?

(i’m bi, and) as someone who grew up watching and loving the show, i still laugh at some of the jokes that, if made today, would feel very gross and offensive. and i think that’s because when i put the show on, i comfortably fall into the worldview of the show, and it’s not funny because ”haha gay” (although on a surface level it definitely seems like it) but because it subverts the expectations that this show in the 90’s fostered (for example being heteronormative). it is also because the show doesn’t really ever acknowledge the very dangerous discrimination that these marginalized groups faced and still do. so when they make these kinds of jokes, (because when watching it i accept its norms and worldview,) it just feels like another harmless joke born out of subverting expectations. but although i can still find these jokes funny, i would never blame someone for not doing that. not everybody had the luxury of forgetting the discrimination they face. and i think it’s totally normal to just find these comedic bits gross

Why is everyone in this comment section so hurt? Damn y'all gotta relax

so friends doesnt tackle huge societal problems (why should it, it's a stupid sitcom) and appeals to straight white middle class americans (a big group of people - it makes sense to have them as a target demographic) and that's a problem?? imo it's okay to have a certain target demographic? when media tries to cater to everyone it becomes way too diluted to be as relatable as friends was back in the day. are hot pants and leggins bad just because i as a dude dont fit in them? of course not.

Community next please! I was watching it recently and like, “Huh- woah.”

“Both played by straight women” they’re actors, It literally doesn’t matter what their sexuality is in real life because they’re, and say it with me now, pretending!

Even when it was actively on TV, I never watched it because I thought it was incredibly bland. 5 upper middle-class WASPs in NYC? Please lmao

Friends is that show that I watch when there's nothing else interesting on and I still get laughs out of it every once in a while. The fact that some moments feel outdated it's only natural, as it is an older show, but we shouldn't ignore the problematic shit in it.

This gonna be a shocker, but I only ever got around to watching friends somewhat recently out of pure coincidence(family), and maybe it's just that my taste in comedy has evolved, but I never really found it funny. Mostly awkward, but not like the great Sacha Baron Cohen awkward where the humor pushes boundaries and intentionally makes you uncomfortable, rather in a "well that didn't age well" kind of way. So when I saw you were planning this video, I was pretty hyped, and boy did you deliver. Since you also brought up "It's Always Sunny" as a parallel, I'm wondering if you've also seen Xavier Renegade Angel. It's a show I completely turned away from because of the offputting CG and abhorrent humor, but now that I'm older, it's those aspects that I appreciate about it. It has a lot of offensive stereotypes, but they're presented in such a ridiculously over the top manner that no one in the right mind would take them seriously. If you haven't checked it out yet, it's at least worth a look. Probably one of the most surreal experiences I've had with a tv series.

Chandler had a great job and made good money. This is referenced many times. He made Joey's way. Ross had a pretty amazing job too. Monica and Rachel had rent control and at least one decent job at first. And by the time we saw where Phoebe lived, she had multiple jobs and was quite the hustler. We know she struggled in the beginning, but landed somewhere in comfortable closer to 30. It's quite possible that after spending her youth homeless, she was actually good with her money as an adult and able to save.Didn't she live with her grandmother early on?

The one thing that really makes it annoying to me is the laugh track which very unambiguously tells me how to feel about any given scene.

As a gay person.... legitimately none of these offended me? people need to calm down it was a product of its time, and while it has a few questionable lines, nothing is honestly that homophobic or transphobic or anything

seinfeld is the far superior 90s sitcom, change my mind.

I can't believe people actually get offended by such innocent simple shit like Friends. Like c'mon, really? Life must be rough for SJWs, and it's all self imposed.

Great vid! It does boggle my mind though when people feel/say Friends is inclusive. It's literally a story about affluent white people in NY. And as a former nonwhite New Yorker, I always wondered how the show could white wash one of the most diverse cities in America.

It's was a product of its time but to be honest, the jokes never seemed to marginalize homosexuals or trans people. Sure, they made fun of the stereotypes surrounding them but every gay/lesbian/trans/feminine character was always shown as a good person. If anything, the Friends were portrayed being flawed because they could imagine a male nanny for example. Of all the entertainment from that time, Friends is perhaps the most unoffensive piece of media you could watch.

The first time I had my eyes opened to the fact that Friends is a bit problematic, was a professor pointing out how difficult it would be for your only 6 friends to all be white in *new york city*

friends in the high day was mocked a lot for the fact it was nearly all white cast btw

it was a product of its time, plus it was a COMEDY. Other tv shows of that time were similar. you should be talking about how I met your mother since that was post friends and still did this.

David crane, one of the two creators, was gay. People are just too sensitive their jokes no one is homophobic or transphobic or anything.

Friends always felt hostile to me. Like an environment where I wasn’t welcome, and the people were constantly reminding me.

As a bisexual, I really love this show. But it wasn't great at handling transgender characters or toxic masculinity. It did feature the first lesbian wedding shown on TV so that's good I guess. Also yes, Chandlers 'dad' is a transgender woman and has been confirmed to be by one of the show's creators.