What Friends storyline wouldn’t work today?

[KyraLittle]

• Ross not wanting Ben to play with a Barbie
• Monica sleeping with an underage boy
• Monica being slut shamed
• Joey and Chandler finding breast feeding gross

Sure there are loads more.

I do love the show though

They obviously meant Emma

Maybe the whole sitting around chatting in a coffee shop ,wouldn't work ,today, instead they would be all.in their homes chatting on messenger,snap chat etc

Ross's pager. Although I think at the time it seemed a bit outdated but I'd assumed pagers were a bigger think in USA than here.

They'd not use the casual references to Donald Trump now (his blazer colour and seeing him at an elevator)

Joey having sex for a TV show role

The whole ivf /surrogacy story line. They would no way transfer that many embryos now (although maybe they would in America? Definitely wouldn't in Europe).

But then that storyline was ridiculous at the time anyway- Phoebe left alone with the embryos in a random petri dish and she had a positive test WAY before it would be possible.

Ross is such a hands off father to Ben. It’s like he only remembers he has a son when he’s a helpful prop to the storyline. Even my 17 year old picks up on that.. We’d consider him a bit of a deadbeat dad these days.

Yeah I have only ever seen pagers used in relation to Staff working in hospitals ,I don't remember them being a " thing " in the uk.at all , but Ben was born in 1994 I think, and I don't recall mobile phones being used much in the early 90,s a friend I used to share a house with when I was a student nurse around 1994/95 Dad had one and we thought it was very impressive!

I reckon most of the relationship/casual sex stuff would still fly and even the sexism - male nanny, boys playing with dolls. There were similar storylines to that fairly recently in Modern Family (which I think will look just as dated in 10-20 years, FWIW). There is a sense that "modern, enlightened" people are all OK with gender norms being broken but that there is a "type" of man who is really not OK with it, often someone from an older generation or who is painted as being a bit insecure so puts on a macho persona.

The fat jokes, the secret smoking in series 1, the gay jokes and any reference to "easiness" would not fly now I reckon.

And no they don't transfer loads of embryos in the US either. The reason is that IVF is now at a point where we can more accurately gauge the quality of the embryos and transfer the best ones. The risks of a higher order multiple pregnancy are considered higher than the risk of not getting pregnant using these higher quality embryos. In the past it wasn't as easy to determine the quality so they put more in in the hope that some would be good quality and stick, but it came with a risk of higher order multiples. They will put two in, because twins are routine enough that it's not considered a huge risk and there's still a risk one/both embryos won't take.

Octomom's doctor was sued/struck off over this IIRC.

I don't know why Ross' ex wife marrying a woman wouldn't hold up today, I don't think anyone would be happy about being cheated on and then you ex marrying them, and tbh if my husband left me (female) to marry a man it would hurt rather a lot, and I can imagine be fucking hard to get my head around more than if he left me for a woman. I must be so un PC.

Yes that would still be awful Buster, I think it's the Same sex marriage though people are referring to not that Carol left Ross for another woman that's a whole different issue !Same sex marriage is legal now in many parts of the world and a while lot more common place than it was in the 90,s

I'm watching a lot of friends at the moment on Comedy Central and the spaz laundry one was on yesterday.

The one this morning series 7 Ross asked Rachel what Carol's last name was and she said Carol Lesbian.

Still bloody love watching it though.

@x2boys ahhhhhh. The fact they could get married, I just thought it was the fact she was gay and got married, not the fact that she could get married! That didn't even cross my mind, and I've been watching reruns for the past 4 weeks!

The Ben playin with Barbie and Ross being het up would still work as there would be still some guys like that and the gag was when Monica exposed that Ross himself used to play “girls games” as a child,
I think we were on a break wouldn’t work because they would have been texting each other , a lot of the confusion came from Rachel not being able to get in touch with any of her friends or Ross and that’s why she allowed Mark over.

Sorry Emma yes :o

@StealthPolarBear yes, but he could have got on the plane and been the one to return regularly. No conversation, just Rachel's assumption that to have the man she had to make the sacrifice. Gah! It honestly ruined Friends for me as a teen 😂 I've chilled out about it now but I'm still cross with her!

Mobile phones would remove so much of the drama! Plus social media- we would all know that Ross had met Julie and probably seen all the selfies!

The fat shaming for sure, Monica wasn’t even that big in flashback episodes, probably half of America is bigger than she was!

I’ve got the episode on when Monica is outraged that her parents spent ‘her’ wedding fund

Definitely the gay jokes. A HUGE amount of them. I'm surprised they haven't cut them actually, given they've cut other parts out.

I can remember 16 year old me being outraged that Rachel threw her dreams away for Ross. Why didn't he get ON the plane??

But wasn't it a bit shitty of Rachel to force Ross to live thousands of miles away from either his daughter or his son (and to separate a child from their father), just so she could follow her dreams in Paris? Of course he couldn't voice an objection to this on the show, because Rachel would have done the right thing and dropped the Paris idea. We were just meant to believe Ross would be fine being so far away from Emma (which is nonsense) so that the writers could set up the emotional and dramatic reunion at the end.

Monica dating her fathers friend who'd known her since she was a young child. Always found that creepy.

What bits have they cut from the reruns? I watched it all first time around but have a terrible memory!

Monica dating her fathers friend who'd known her since she was a young child. Always found that creepy.
And then dating his son

@TooMuch87

But wasn't it a bit shitty of Rachel to force Ross to live thousands of miles away from either his daughter or his son (and to separate a child from their father), just so she could follow her dreams in Paris? Of course he couldn't voice an objection to this on the show, because Rachel would have done the right thing and dropped the Paris idea. We were just meant to believe Ross would be fine being so far away from Emma (which is nonsense) so that the writers could set up the emotional and dramatic reunion at the end.

Well firstly, Ross barely gave a toss about Ben-he only seemed to see him at Christmas, so I would believe that 😂 but more to the point, the conversations just didn't happen. It was Rachel giving up her dream as a given. If a discussion acknowledging it had taken place and that had been the joint decision, fair enough (I'm married to the military, welcome to my life!!!) but it was just the assumption that the woman would give it all up for the man who would make no sacrifice.

I really must remember it isn't real!!

Wait, do they really cut parts out when it's aired now?? Like what?