The 1990s hit NBC sitcom Friends has been resurrected by Netflix and eager millennials are binge-watching to see what their parents enjoyed during the years of non-streamable television. But they don’t seem to be laughing as much because they are looking through a social justice lens and they see a lot of problematic issues in this cast of characters.
Outlets like the Independent, Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed, and others, picked up on the dismay of millennials they say are “shocked by storylines,” upset by the show “chucking offensive and inappropriate hand grenades all over every episode,” while leaving them “f***ing infuriated” after a binge. Apparently, there’s too many “homophobic and transphobic” jokes for these social justice viewers. And let’s not forget all of the “white privilege.”
“I have binge-watched Friends,” Lauren Smith wrote at Thought Catalog. “I feel flooded with guilt afterwards… every episode leaves me cringing… blatant misogyny, homophobia, body-shaming, and — despite being set in the most racially diverse city in the world — the whitest cast you’ve ever seen.”
There are complaints that in one episode, Rachel sexually harassed a male assistant she hired so they could go on dates. And here we thought a woman boss calling the shots was pure feminism. Then there were all the fat suits worn by Monica and Joey. Fat shaming!
For National Review, Kyle Smith writes:
As for the “homophobia,” the show’s co-creator David Crane, who wrote many episodes, is gay. Did he hate himself? Did he employ writers who hated him? It’s okay to make fun of your own tribe, but anyway what Friends did was find comedy in all the discomfort with homosexuality, just as black comics mine racism for comedy. The show won a GLAAD Media Award in 1996 for the way it handled the lesbian affair of Ross’s (David Schwimmer’s) ex-wife. The (over)use of gay-panic jokes involving Chandler and Joey may be hackery, but it isn’t hateful.
Being a leftist must be exhausting. It's more insufferable to read about this than it is to watch an episode of Friends.