To wonder how Friends has survived 'cancel culture?'

[ChocolateSantaisthebestkind]

Over the course of Christmas/lockdown evenings, we have been watching these again on Netflix and DH and I were both saying we don't know how it has survived unedited some bits are down right uncomfortable to watch now.

1. Treatment of LGBT people

2. Making fun of disability -Ginger's leg episode

3. Phoebe's Childhood

4. Ridicule of foreigners

5. Joey/Ross/ Chandler treatment of women

6. Tag --> Sexual Harrassment at work

7. Gunther Stalker

8. Lack of racial diversity ('fixed' but tokenistically by introduction of Charlie)

9. Ageism

10. Body shaming

I know lots of us loved it back in the day and some episodes are still funny, but it just amazes me that there hasn't been more backlash.

AIBU to be

If Friends was current they definitely wouldn't have cast a woman with a deep voice as a transwoman.

If it was that bad they probably wouldn't have cast a woman as a transwoman.

Just coming back to this in an idle moment whilst DH wrangles DD into the bath. Re Gunther it was the episode where he bought all of Ross's furniture when Emily made him sell anything that Rachel touched, used sat on, with a fully furnished apartment a little stalkerish. Also thanks to the people who replied in the spirit, it was just a general wondering, not a call for it to be cancelled. I loved it in the day and like some episodes now, but as I said it's surprising to see there hasn't been more backlash with the response to other shows recently,

If you look at some old black and white films it's quite shocking at what was allowed in what we think of as a more prudish time. I watched a film called the Apartment about a clerk in an office who was coerced and bribed into lending his apartment by his bosses who used it as a place to shag the secretaries. I could hardly believe what I was watching. I watched about 5 minutes of The War of the Sexes (or words to that effect) today and gave up.

I'm a huge Friends fan, I've watched them all a million times but I have to agree with you OP, some of it is very uncomfortable to watch now, I watched the episode the other day where Ross & Emily were writing out their wedding invitations & she said "oh are you inviting Rachel." In fairness she was controlling & crazy & it showed before he said Rachel's name at the wedding. Also Ross acting ridiculously jealous when Rachel got her dream job was a huge red flag! But the most shocking thing I've read on this thread is that Charlie was in more episodes than Janice 😱 OH MY GOD 😉

@ChocolateSantaisthebestkind Oh FFS!

@littlepattilou why so nasty and hostile? I've already said many times, I am not saying it should be canceled, just surprised it seems to have escaped recent furors!

just surprised it seems to have escaped recent furors

The thing is, it hasn't.

I've read loads about it raising exactly the same points that you and your DH suddenly became aware of and were listed in your OP.

I'm amazed you've read nothing about.
Honestly, it's old news to me and, I should imagine, many others.

@LaMarschallin For goodness sake. I started this thread based on an idle chat with DH, because we are in London and cannot go out, so I thought I would have a chat on a chat forum for a bit of variety. I never claimed to be writing a dissertation on it or thinking it was a groundbreaking thought, hence why I don't know all of the research that others seemed. I also said (multiple occasions) that I don't think it should be canceled and that we had enjoyed in the past when younger. Yet some people have been really hostile and seemed to have enjoyed sneering at me. I won't be coming back to the thread anymore, it's become unnecessarily heavy and not the light relief I was intending to get me out of the Lockdown funk. Hey ho.

Okey doke.

It's nothing as glamorous as research, btw, it just seemed everywhere for a while.

Sorry about your lockdown funk, but I guess that's pretty ubiquitous too.

Well I have certainly seen lots of calls for Friends to be cancelled by those sort of people. I like to think the reason it hasn't actually succeeded is because the people who perpetuate cancel culture are simply a loud minority, along with some studios etc (unfortunately) occasionally pandering to them, rather than the actual general public thinking and acting that way

I guess the reason it's not been cancelled is because of money. Friends is worth mega bucks to the studios so they probably suppress any buds of wokeness towards it.

I love Friends, and personally don't think it's offensive.

What about American Pie? Stiflers mom and Finch. The concept of a MILF. The fact that the whole town was watching Jim and the exchange student on a web cam. Are we to jump on that now?

Or even the inbetweeners? Is briefcase w*nker offensive to those who like to do well in school now? Or if we look at Jay... should it not be highlighted that he's a bullshitter probably because his father is such a horrible person. Or the fact that Neil's dad is constantly thought to be gay. Or that all the boys are interested in is sex?

You can find offence in anything. Or you can just take it at face value.

Cancel culture is invented by people who are learning about the world and creating their opinions from the internet. The rest of us live in the real world and use our real life experiences to form our opinions and to learn.

Well said @gingganggooleywotsit

This while discussion is .

Friends will be cancelled eventually, don't worry. It's not as obviously offensive as older sitcoms, but time will catch up with it. Remember it's only 20 years old or so. In the 1990s the BBC were still showing repeats of Til Death Do Us Part, nowadays nobody would dare broadcast it.

What we find acceptable today will be offensive to future viewers. Twenty years from now people will (rightly) be aghast at Mrs Brown's Boys, and Friends will be obliterated from the record entirely.

Twenty years from now people will (rightly) be aghast at Mrs Brown's Boys

I thought that ship had sailed* already as far as MN goes

*Yes, first heard that phrase on Friends.

Most of the group were accepting of Carol and Susan bar Ross (who to be fair was the one who was dumped) and I think it was actually good in how they handled Chandlers dad - it was realistic, a lot of people would probably struggle if their dad turned out to be gay and homosexual and divorce affected him. It’s also heart warming to see him come to terms with it in the end. I think this matter is handled realistically.

Exactly. The idea that its offensive is bizarre. Ross' wife dumps him for another woman, while she is pregnant, and makes a new family with this woman and his kid. Of course he's not ok with it, why would he be? Why wouldn't he make jokes and be resentful and angry and upset?

Same for Chandlers Dad, everyone is actually very accepting, but Chandler is bitter about his dad abandoning him to follow a very different lifestyle....thats normal! of course he would be. It's not about his dads sexuality or anything, its about childhood loss.

Good comedy is about how things in life actually ARE. With a woke review they are complaining that the show should be about how they would like things to be.

In the real world, people joke about all kinds of things that others find offensive. Cancel culture is a tiny minority of very loud people who are never going to change that.

Twenty years from now people will (rightly) be aghast at Mrs Brown's Boys

We're aghast now. Because its completely shit.

Mrs Browns boys is way more problematic in every way than friends ever was! Ajnd friends is actually funny!!

I watched friends for the first time during lockdown 1, I was really surprised at how not-offensive I found it having read loads about how un PC it supposedly is!

@Samcro

I have no idea what cancel culture is.

It involves sanctimoniously sucking all the fun out of life generally, by nit picking on the trivial it allows genuine concerns to be ignored because people are bored to death. The same thing happened with feminism, renaming manhole covers, just one example, led to mockery.

@IceIceBebe

Twenty years from now people will (rightly) be aghast at Mrs Brown's Boys

We're aghast now. Because its completely shit.

My late breakfast watching is Last of the Summer Wine, makes me homesick for the Pennines. It has sexism, domestic violence, racism and probably all the other No Nos if I could be bothered to notice!

@LaMarschallin

If Friends was current they definitely wouldn't have cast a woman with a deep voice as a transwoman.

If it was that bad they probably wouldn't have cast a woman as a transwoman.

Does Chandler's father not tick a box of some hue?

Friends has always been cancelled on my TV. Not funny, never was.

Why do people continuously confuse the subject of a joke and the butt of the joke? The joke about Ginger's leg was not laughing at disabilities, for example. Think about it for two seconds and it's obvious.

The men were uncomfortable with any suggestion they were gay (e.g. the stupid Ross-and-Joey-nap-together storyline). Who's the butt of the joke there - the men, or gay people? And doesn't that silly storyline pale in comparison to Susan and Carol's wedding, where Ross gives a powerful little speech about how much they love each other and then walks her down the aisle?

Friends has survived becaus the Twitter mob are just unintellgent people braying at each other, and nobody outside their circles pays attention.

Grease, on the other hand, is disusting.