For most part of the 90s, Jennifer Aniston’s successful stint as Rachel Green in the blockbuster sitcom Friends made her America’s heartthrob. Along with the ensemble cast featuring Matthew Perry, Courtney Cox, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, and Matt LeBlanc, she endeared herself to a global audience in a narrative featuring the lives of 6 friends in New York.
While the series gave fans many hilarious moments to cherish even today, the fact remains that a few of these jokes that landed brilliantly then, may not have aged well in terms of their appeal for the current generation of viewers. Aniston herself admitted the fact that certain aspects of her hit show were definitely offensive when looking back on these moments today.
Jennifer Aniston Regretted Being Part Of Some Problematic Scenes In Friends
Comedy is tricky business. While jokes provide a lot of laughs and entertainment, they can also be seen as a method of offending or hurting people, their values and sentiments. A lot also depends on the social climate and generation of the time, which could decide how the jokes land. Friends which was one of the biggest sitcoms of the 90s, faced a similar problem which one of the stars of the show Jennifer Aniston candidly confessed to.
Over 10 seasons, the show starring Aniston and a hugely talented ensemble cast of actors, ruled the roost on television, and became the favorite gang of buddies for viewers worldwide. Following the story of 6 friends navigating their lives in New York, the series had many evergreen moments that made fun of people, values, and life in general.
While these witty dialogues were quoted left right and centre by audiences in the 90s, these very same sentiments were not appreciated in the same manner many years down the line. Aniston in an interview with The Guardian in 2023, adressed this aspect and revealed that how many laugh-out-loud moments that worked for earlier audiences, may be seen as being extremely offensive in today’s sensitive climate.
Now it’s a little tricky because you have to be very careful, which makes it really hard for comedians, because the beauty of comedy is that we make fun of ourselves, make fun of life. In the past, you could joke about a bigot and have a laugh – that was hysterical. And it was about educating people on how ridiculous people were. And now we’re not allowed to do that.
Having said that, the Horrible Bosses actor who is estimated to make $20 million a year from re-runs and streaming of the series alone (via Parade), expressed remorse regarding many scenes in Friends which could easily have come off as tone deaf and hurtful to people when analyzed deeply today.
There’s a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of Friends and find them offensive. There were things that were never intentional and others … well, we should have thought it through … but I don’t think there was a sensitivity like there is now.
While many aspects of the show like the absence of diversity in casting could be viewed as problematic today, the fact remains that the sitcom is still extremely dear to the generation of people who grew up in the 80s and identified with the sentiments of the 6 buddies.
5 Times Friends Proved To Be Heavily Problematic In Its Content
While Friends star Jennifer Aniston admitted that her hugely successful show did have moments that can clearly be perceived as being offensive to the modern generation, she did not specify which scenes caused her to cringe. Looking back though, the show which became a sensation with audiences in the 90s, has quite a few problematic moments that raise many cultural, social, and gender-sensitive questions.
In season 9, Aniston’s character Rachel hires a male nanny to look after her daughter. This leads to Ross presuming that the nanny must be gay based on the job description. This clearly points to the fact that the character has automatically been assigned a specific gender role based on profession, which will definitely be frowned upon in today’s world that fights for inclusivity in all forms.
Through the seasons, there have been many references to Courtney Cox’s Monica Geller having struggled with obesity as a teenager. While she is seen to have combated all the insults to emerge a new person, the fact remains that the character was heavily body shamed. Furthermore, the reasoning that she becomes a worthy and popular person only after her weight loss while being seen as a loser before, is a hard-hitting reality that one cannot ignore.
Matt LeBlanc’s Joey Tribbiani is one of the most popular characters in Friends. While he provided a lot of entertainment as the handsome ladies man who has the smooth moves, a deeper dive into his character will show that many of his actions were highly s*xist. In one episode, he looks for a roommate with the condition, ‘female, non smoker, non ugly’, while in many other instances, he boasts of sleeping with women and then dumping them.
In making fun of people and situations, Friends also inadvertently indulged in what people may term today as homophobic jokes that could be seen as offensive to the LGBTQ+ community which has a huge and powerful presence today. In one scene, the buddies find out that Chandler kissed a guy in a bar, and have a hearty laugh at his expense while he cringes and makes excuses to soften the situation. This scene can be perceived as being insensitive and tone deaf when analyzed today.
While the finale that featured the reunion of Ross and Rachel warmed the hearts of every fan, there is no denying the fact that a subtle gender card was played in this situation as well. With Rachel having sacrificed her extremely lucrative job overseas to be with Ross, the elephant in the room that many viewers will want to address today is, why couldn’t Ross the man, move his life across the country for his love?
All 10 seasons of Friends are streaming on Max.
