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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Ways the TV series 'Friends' was anti-feminist

330 replies

darleneoconnor · 07/05/2011 12:23

comes from another thread

-There are lots of references to porn, which totally normalises it

  • The women are unhealthily skinny
  • The 'fat Monica' running joke
  • Joey's womanising
  • Phoebe being used as a womb for hire
  • Monica was riddiculed for dating someone 7 years younger than her but it was ok for Ross to date someone 10 years younger then him
  • All the girls' desire to get married (especially Monica's bridzillaness), as opposed to the boys
  • the anti-single mother rant Monica had at her wedding
  • Rachel's birth was very medicalised and disempowering (but in context of USA healthcare system I suppose)
  • Chandler having to be 'taught' how to have a relationship
  • Monicas getting slagged off for having 'lots' of lovers
  • In the episode where Rachel, Phoebe and Joey make an issue of earning less than the others no-one mentions the gender split
  • They do quite gender-specific jobs, Monica/cooking, Joey/acting (which is 2/3 male), Ross/Paleontologist, Phoebe/massuese, Rachel/waitress/fashion buyer, Chandler/IT(?)
  • they get a stripper for a stag do then glamourise it by her saying how well she is paid
  • Ross's homophobia and his lack of equal parenting of his child
  • Monica's obsession with cleaning
  • the rich Monica and Chandler adopting the babies of someone too poor to keep them herself
  • Chandler pretending to watch tv so he doesn't have to do his fair share of the thanksgiving cooking
  • The football game where Rachel is a 'useless' girl, Phoebe flashes her breasts to win a point and Monica is ridiculed for being as competitive as the boys

I'm sure there's more...

OP posts:
Hasselhoffsheadband · 17/02/2022 19:12

Weirdest zombie thread resurrection ever!

User135644 · 17/02/2022 20:16

The attitudes in Friends come across as dated, sexist, homophobic etc now, because that's how things still were in 1996

Or not everything was taken so seriously at all time, including comedy (society is still full of division more so than ever).

90s was a good decade for sitcoms. The last 10 years hasn't been.

OhHolyJesus · 18/02/2022 08:24

I hate that I know this but both Monica and Chandler had infertility issues so she might not have conceived using a sperm donor anyway.

I'm remembering all kinds of things now.

Monica and Chandler had his colleague round for dinner to ask him for his sperm.

Erica, the woman whose twins Monica and Chandler adopted was ridiculed mildly for not knowing who the father was, and not knowing how you get pregnant (how she and 'Shovelly Joe' had sex would not have resulted in pregnancy).

When Chandler was working away, Monica surprised him but he was watching porn when she arrived and caught him, he changed to a shark attack programme and later she offered to 'thrash' so to replicate what she thought turned him on.

Phoebe had a surrogacy pregnancy with triplets for her brother - but his girlfriend was his ex-teacher so there was another big age difference. It always confusing me as it was Alice's eggs (with her she would they have been the best option, I think she was meant to be in her mid/late 40s) and her brother's sperm. As her half brother was estranged from her, as their father left Phoebe and Ursula as young kids, it always seemed to be a way of making a connection and becoming closer than something she genuinely wanted to do. (Phoebe tried to explore what is truly altruistic in another episode and as she got something from it sort of concluded that nothing is truly altruistic unless it harms or takes something away from you.)

The only other thing that comes to mind is Rachel having a Teeny Weeny according to a hate campaign led by Ross and Will who were both in love with her. Isn't that insulting to those with DSD conditions or just to men with small penises?

I say all this realising that it was a long time ago and applying the standards of today is unfair to the writers and those who made the programme a great success of its time.

Don't get me started on Sex in the City...

EeeICouldRipATissue · 18/02/2022 17:55

having a Teeny Weeny according to a hate campaign led by Ross and Will who were both in love with her
Will wasn't in love with her, he hated her guts because she was mean to him in high school, in his words she made his life a misery

EeeICouldRipATissue · 18/02/2022 17:58

applying the standards of today is unfair to the writers and those who made the programme a great success of its time
Exactly
Also think it was progressive for the time seeing as, there was a lesbian wedding and a single mum storyline

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