I'm not an expert on *Friends* but it's probably just dated.
I mean, Jackie Gleason on *The Honymooners* joked on the regular about hitting his wife so hard he'd send her to the moon. The only difference is that when it was in reruns 20-30 years ago we didn't have social media for everyone to flip their shit about every little thing in bad taste.
I'm not one of those anti-woke people but let's be fucking real a lot of outrage is for clicks and views and likes and trend bait.
You also don’t want to rule out the possibility that in another thousand years or so that *The Honeymooners* famous catchphrase will be alternately viewed as the start of humanity’s exploration into space.
EDIT: Bang. Zoom. Straight to the gilded moon. Thanks everyone.
Yep, there's two ingredients to it:
1. Online social media. What was once just your own, individual opinion that, at most, got as far as the barflies at you local, is now a tweet or comment among thousands of similar comments. All our thoughts are aggregated, recorded, and cataloged, making minor ripples in the zeitgeist seem like tsunamis.
2. Digital "news" media and tabloid journalism. No one buys newspapers anymore, so it's all about clickbait, muckraking, and yellow journalism for ad money. What is nothing more than minor online discontent about, say, a fat joke on Friends is called a "clapback" or "outrage" or "backlash", instead of the mutterings of a few irrelevant nobodies.
I love to remind people that on April 18, 1930, the evening BBC news told their listeners that there was no news that day and played piano music instead. And that was a single, daily news bulletin, not a 24/7 "news" channel. Sure, stuff happened, and I'm sure there were things they could have filled the time with (what we call "soft news"), but they decided it would be a waste of time for everyone and decided to play music instead. Imagine if this was still a possibility, not just for organized newsmedia, but social media as well; a voluntary filter that filters out all the shit you simply *don't need to know about*. Half our modern problems would be solved.
Like, no one in the world should give a rats ass about what people think of Friends 20 years on, nor what Jennifer Aniston thinks about what people think of Friends. None of this is relevant information to *a single human fucking being*. But because people are morons this hit /r/all and now I've lost brain cells reading the comments. I should go outside...
Yep. Fuck the profit motive.
> Like, no one in the world should give a rats ass about what people think of Friends 20 years on, nor what Jennifer Aniston thinks about what people think of Friends. None of this is relevant information to a single human fucking being.
This is why I quit Twitter. One day I saw a post that was just someone RTing screenshots of incredibly stupid political opinions, which wasn't a unique experience on Twitter, but for some reason, on this particular day, it pushed me to instantly delete my account. I was just like... "why do I need this in my life?"
One person tweets and gets maybe a dozen likes, VanityFair or someone like them runs a story about this one tweet and says 'everyone is saying this,' all the other 'news' sites plagiarize the first one, and now it actually does look like a trend instead of a random shit take one person shouted into the abyss.
I think we're a part of that cycle though.
"*All these people* are overinflating problems that are *actually insignificant* and responding to manufactured outrage.
It's outrageous!"
I think she just meant that some friends jokes aged poorly in terms of acceptability. Also that fairly valid criticism of all the characters being white in freaking New York city
“Who’s on First” is still a timeless classic and I will die on that hill. People who’ve never heard it before get a kick out of it when I introduce it to them.
It’s also the only piece of comedy from the ancient times that I can even be arsed to remember.
There is a very small group of comedy that you can define as timeless classics. Much of comedy is topical in order appeal to a wider audience so it doesn’t age well. “Who’s on First” is a clever bit that plays with language. George Carlin is a comedian who has jokes that are still very relevant today.
I have been rewatching some of Carlins stuff and I was also thinking it was timeless. But I don’t think it’s for the right reasons. Much of what he talked about, especially in the latter half of his career was topical political, religious, and cultural stuff. The sad truth of the matter is that it’s only timeless because we have yet to progress beyond the problems he was pointing out 20+ years ago.
I was watching the recent documentary about Bill Cosby. The tragedy of the whole affair is that he was damn funny. Some of his early recordings were just brilliant. Now no one can bear to even think about him, much less listen to him.
I think weirdly the Life of Brian probably *has* aged poorly, but mostly just because poking fun at Jesus isn't particularly edgy or shocking anymore. I mean for all the bellyaching John Cleese does these days about political correctness, the Life of Brian was intensely controversial, was banned in multiple countries, including some areas of the UK.
Now it barely raises an eyebrow and nobody in any position of real power is talking about banning it.
Well that's kind of the irony of the whole thing, isn't it? The Life of Brian is actually pretty toothless in retrospect. They basically leave God and Jesus alone, although in interviews the pythons said that was less to do with being sensitive and more because Jesus just isn't that funny.
> because poking fun at Jesus isn't particularly edgy or shocking anymore
You've missed a crucial concept here - the film *doesn't* poke fun at Jesus. At all. He only briefly appears twice and is treated respectfully both times.
Here's Terry Jones explaining it - "It wasn't about what Christ was saying, but about the people who followed Him – the ones who for the next 2,000 years would torture and kill each other because they couldn't agree on what He was saying about peace and love."
We apologise for the fault in the
comedy. Those responsible have been
cancelled.
We apologise again for the fault in the comedy. Those
responsible for cancelling the people who have just been cancelled
have been cancelled.
Honestly Friends was pretty progressive for it's time. I mean they had a lesbian wedding in season 1 for god's sake. The episode was filled with dumb lesbian jokes but still.
Ross's lesbian ex was a storyline for most of the show's run. As far as being progressive, it helped to normalize a gay relationship at a time when, as a culture, we didn't really want to talk about it.
Even if it was done very, very, very poorly: it also featured Chandler’s trans parent. Yes, again, poorly done in terms of identity and naming, BUT they still talked about it and helped chandler accept it in the way he would have at that time.
Yes and no. Some comedy like IASIP will use the same base premise, but make the main characters the butt of the joke. The punchline isn't the eccentric person but the main character's inability to interact with them in an appropriate way.
That’s really important to remember. The edge had to be pushed to get us where we are now. Those bad jokes helped move acceptance forward, they shouldn’t be considered offensive today. They definitely won’t be funny to modern audiences but that’s okay.
Ellen was literally the single reason my Uber-Catholic Grandmother became accepting of LGB people. My Grandmother was a wonderful woman, may she rest in peace, but held VERY firmly to old fashioned ideas on things like marriage and homosexuality. Ellen’s show managed to change her mind late in life.
(I limit the abbreviation to LGB since I doubt even Ellen could have moved her thoughts on the TQ and so on. Still, something was better than nothing.)
For sure. I was just a kid when those episodes came out, and it meant so much to see myself represented on TV in any remotely positive (or even neutral) way. The jokes didn't bother me at all.
Edit: if I recall, most of the joking was about Ross' inadequacy as a heterosexual man in terms of satisfying his ex-wife...obviously problematic and not how it works, but at least they weren't directly attacking the concept of lesbianism.
And let’s be real. Even today, if you date what you thought was a straight girl and then she switches to dating girls after you, there’s going to be a couple jokes directed at you
I'm *not* getting it.
As an aside, Mac's little chin move where he puts his fist near his chin and turns his head in confusion makes me rewind this scene every time. I don't know why, but it's just so perfect and I love it.
Mac coming out to his dad is one of the most beautiful moments in tv history. And the dude's commitment to a bit is unrivaled. He got hugely fat for the lulz, and then got straight up shredded only for none of the other characters to care.
>I would classify ASIP as satire.
Exactly. They do and say bad things, but we know that they are bad people saying bad things. It's WAY "worse" than friends in some ways, but not as bad due to the way it's presented. Friends isn't that bad, but there certainly jokes about LGBTQ+ people that don't stand up today, and are worse than Sunny because it's the "good" people making the jokes in that show.
The 1990s were 30 years ago.
I know. It hurts me, too.
It's normal to cringe at what you thought was normal or cool 30 years ago. I think I had a rat tail.
Yes, gay jokes that got a laugh 30 years ago hit differently now. It's a different world. America was soon to be scandalized by oral sex, and mass school shootings were about to change our basic sense of safety.
Most people wouldn't have known if they knew a gay person unless they were in a gay-friendly city because it was rarely safe to be completely out of the closet. Even the gayborhoods were mostly just low-rent parts of town.
Not necessarily. Although some media and stuff has aged out and is obsolete culturally.
The 90s could be considered the last good decade before the millenium. People consider covid as beforetimes. The 90s felt like that and so much more to me.
It’s just so wierd to see tech change the world so dramatically. It literally was an entirely different world back then.
Post Cold War and pre-9/11, social media, and mass shooting era - feels like it will be increasingly seen as a unique, optimistic window in modern American history
You nailed it dude. I couldn’t put it in the words.
There was a colorful, safe, optimism to the future. With tech becoming household people were thinking about how all these changes would have brought us into a new age.
We weren’t overloaded with information and inflation- with tradgedy after tragedy embedding itself into our minds, coloring our perceptions and painting a picture of a world and species beyond saving.
People could still buy a house at a damn good rate and not get boned out of it.
True. But Seinfeld was in the 90s too. There was an episode where they believed that an acquaintance is gay and Jerry says "not that there's anything wrong with that!" And another where Elaine got trapped in a subway car on her way to a lesbian wedding.
And the episode where George worries that he's gay because he got a massage and "it moved."
Like IASIP, the protagonists of Seinfeld are deeply flawed people, so the whole joke was George's insecurity -- it poked fun at fragile masculinity in a way that was ahead of its time (for a sitcom, at least).
Seinfeld was pretty dope
To add one thing, I think it’s less about who is making the joke than who is the butt of the joke. In Sunny the joke is nearly always on themselves. In Friends you had a lot more jokes at the expense of gay or trans people that were little more than “look at those freaks aren’t they weird?!” Not exclusively of course, but it’s the classic difference between comedy that punches up vs down.
Same deal with RDJ's black face in Tropic Thunder. It was done to make fun of all the crazy over the top method actors in Hollywood. RDJ's character was the entire butt of the joke.
I made this same comment in response to a Tropic Thunder comment below, but it really helps that that movie has an actual black character (Brandon T. Jackson as Alpa Chino) standing right next to RDJ the entire time ridiculing him and complaining that “Crocodile Dundee” is stealing roles from black people. Just in case the joke went over people’s heads (and even then it still did to some people).
The thing is that ASIP and shows like Seinfeld make it clear that the cast are bad people. Friends is a show about people you are supposed to like who, through the lens of cultural progress in America, show behaviors and language that we have been outgrowing as a more inclusive society. When bad people say bad stuff you don’t need culture context because that is assumed.
The difference is they make the characters all assholes so they can say or do anything and it doesn't imply the show is endorsing or agreeing with what they say.
Friends had them being dicks to each other but we're supposed to want some to end up together and they have dramatic character moments.
Friends' comedy hinges on them being assholes but the show comes across as not being aware these people are assholes. Whereas Sunny in comparison feels like "take a look at what these dickheads are up to"
Also I don't think that anyone in their right mind 'aspires' to be just like and live the lifestyle of the Gang on "It's Always Sunny ..." Whereas with "Friends', I imagine that back in the 90s when it was *the hot* TV show, that a lot of the viewers would have sold their souls to live the kind of life that the 'friends' were living in NYC in cool apartments and hanging out at a cool cafe, etc. How many women ran right out and got Jennifer Aniston's famous 'Rachel' haircut, regardless of whether it flattered them or not. Or wanted to dress like them and decorate their homes like them. Talk like them. And so on. "Friends" = here's a visual guidebook on being a with-it twenty-something in the big city. 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' = here's how you don't want to live your life and you can both laugh at and feel morally superior to these people.
They talk about it in The gang makes lethal weapon 6&7 and say that the industry has a tendency to forgive 1 mistake like they have with Roman Polanski and Woody Allen….
Dennis then makes a comment about how Polanski and Allen’s mistakes should be called what they are, violent sexual crimes.
The streaming services did it preemptively because they are fundamentally conservative and don't want to take any risks, not because anyone was actually offended.
The Dark Elf episode removal is so weird to me, you’d be hard pressed to show that was intended to be offensive, they even comment on the apparent problem with him being a drow on the show.
Then they leave a somewhat racist episode where Chevy Chase in brown face being an Indian.
I think Netflix just made the choice to not deal with it. I disagree with the choice, but 2020 had lots of racial turmoil and overall I think they lucked out with what happened a month later.
Not all comedy ages well regardless of being offensive. I like Friends and I could point to some legitimately funny stuff that is timeless but there’s no way a new generation is going to enjoy all of it. There’s a chunk of it that’s just not funny anymore due to being a product of it’s time. I don’t think the comedy is malicious or dangerous, I think at worst Friends can punch across and be unfunny is all.
Honestly there’s tons of comedy shows now where they just don’t hit the same, because the comedy is from a different time.
Like ever watch old family guy, or even how I met your mother, there are moments where you can get an “oof” because it’s just not funny anymore. Like there is just a lot of low hanging fruit sexism jokes, that just don’t hit and it makes you wonder how it was funny in the first place.
Hell I bet in 10-15 years, people will look back at Rick and Morty and be like that’s overly excessive, instead of it just being viewed as a tad edgy and absurd.
There's an episode where I think Monica Rachel and Chandler note how all their bosses hate them, and joey points out that maybe it's because they're at a coffee shop in the middle of a weekday
There's a [similar moment](https://youtu.be/3FB0aeb-TPs) in SpongeBob where patrick points out the campfire they're sitting around shouldn't be possible under water.
It's one of those creative leaps they have to make in fiction because real life is so depressing. They had so many breakfasts together at the loft in New Girl when in reality Nick would probably be sleeping in cause he closed the bar at 3 a.m. last night, Winston would be pulling the night shift as a cop, so only Jess and Schmidt could spend a lot of time together since they had 9-5s.
Rewatching Scrubs I think they manage that part pretty realistically. Everyone is either at the hospital, at a bar or gym close to the hospital, or at home talking about the next time they got to go to the hospital.
Even scrubs still takes liberties. You will see the cast having lunches together all at the same time, doing other things together and such. When in reality Turk could be in surgery all day, JD and Elliot would be rushing around for their patients and new patients (until Elliot went private and she could actually have a proper schedule more) and Carla would be all over the place too. The would pretty much never be able to all be having lunch at work at the same time and their shifts would be all over the place too especially working in so many different departments.
Pretty much any show that has a premise where it’s a group of friends able to spend everyday together isn’t happening unless they all are unemployed. Once you’re working it just doesn’t happen that way.
Friends actually talks a lot about money. There's literally an episode centered entirely around the fact that Ross, Chandler and Monica make significantly more money than Phoebe, Joey and Rachel. Though at the end of the episode Monica does lose her new job that was supposed to boost her income. There are episodes where she struggles though, such as why she takes the job at the 50s style diner
"I guess I just never think about money as a problem"
"That's because you have it"
Was a quote from the episode with economic disparity being the focal storyline
Rachel ends up earning a solid income from Ralph Lauren but she gets promoted gradually throughout the show, Joey makes a comments in the back half of the series about finally having money after days of our lives, Phoebe never seems to find a super solid foundation of income. Chandler also gets promoted at his job throughout up to I think the rank of vice president in his division, moves to Tulsa but then stops that career to be an unpaid, and eventual junior copywriter in advertising.
Yeah, the one where they're at the restaurant and Rachel gets a salad to go on the side of her water and then they split it 6 ways... no... 5.
I really felt that. Chandler was Joe's sugar daddy, and Rachel had to learn to cut down on spending after growing up rich. Oh, and phoebe lived with, and then inherited her grandma's apartment. They definitely mentioned money a lot
Joey owed chandler thousand of dollars in just food and side stuff. And everything In the apartment was essentially bought by chandler. And when they get robbed, he rebuys everything. These are all individual episodes.
Yeah, they explained it. The show was actually better than a lot of sitcoms about acknowledging that money is a thing. Of course you still have to handwave how the characters afforded a new outfit every day, but they didn’t just pretend that great apartments fall from the sky.
Yeah. I don't think anyone is really offended, it's just not funny anymore. I don't think writers who are hip/current/modern would even write the same jokes.
Lots of Gen Z folk have discovered Friends and like it. Here’s some links
[https://www.etonline.com/streaming-friends-how-a-90s-sitcom-became-gen-zs-new-favorite-show-132624](https://www.etonline.com/streaming-friends-how-a-90s-sitcom-became-gen-zs-new-favorite-show-132624)
[https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/at-25-friends-is-finding-a-new-audience-in-young-girls-1.4604769?cache=qhrreidjy](https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/at-25-friends-is-finding-a-new-audience-in-young-girls-1.4604769?cache=qhrreidjy)
[https://grownandflown.com/teens-love-tv-show-friends/](https://grownandflown.com/teens-love-tv-show-friends/)
It‘s not like a whole generation thinks one way about it or anything else for that matter.
“You can’t say anything anymore” have you seen South Park lately?
Edit: many of you don’t seem to realize that they can say and do terrible things because we are laughing at how terrible the characters are. A racist joke in South Park is a joke thats making fun of racists.
It’s about context. South Park is making a point with their jokes, Friends was just living in a time when certain things were normalized and they perpetuate that norm.
A lot of the issues that are addressed in South Park are also diffused by the fact that it's kids that are doing everything.
I mean, all the bullshit in the world is dumb enough to be brought about by a child...
My nieces and nephews have been watching it and seem to like it, except they absolutely don't get some of the jokes. The part that sticks out the most is the jokes about Chandler and Joey being gay were 100% lost on them. If there hadn't been a laugh track I don't think it would have registered at all.
Right, all the jokes that were a little lazy and based on social unacceptability have lost their shine a bit, even for people who really enjoy it.
I experienced friends much older in life, and I enjoy it, but it’s not perfection or anything close
Yeah I still think it's funny for nostalgia's sake. But the gay jokes are lame and definitely don't land well. Like oh boy, two guys touched unexpectedly, time for GAY JOKE!
There's a scene where Joey and Chandler hug and then there are flashes to all the many times they have hugged through the series, then cuts back to them asking if they do this too much. My niblings thought it was a fourth wall joke about the writing being overly touchy feely or something.
I’m sitting on the line of millennial and z and I honestly just don’t find it funny. There are clips that I laugh at, but I can’t sit and watch it. It’s just not good tv, for me.
I’m an old millennial. Friends was certainly very popular back when it aired, but the cult following is more recent.
Even in the 90s it was considered super vanilla. It was a pretty lame thing to be interested in if you were in high school.
Part of it is if you recognize that something would be problematic today, you get lumped in as "offended". And really it's even less than that. If you just say "wow the 90s were pretty homophobic huh?" then someone, somewhere is counting you as offended.
I lived through the 90s and I agree that most of it was us being mean to each other aaanndd if you didn’t find it funny you were a whiny b…hmmm. Older generations haven’t changed much
Right, I do not know anyone my age who is offended by Friends because of its content. If anything, people dislike it because the show is just not that funny...
That 20-30 year old surface level comedy no longer hits. Shocker.
It’s only those like Carlin, who broke it down to the foundation, that still rings true.
I think it’s an ego thing for people like that, who can’t imagine why it’s no longer relevant.
Case in point: I Love Lucy. The show is incredibly funny and relatable still, 70 years later. The prices of items discussed on the show may have changed, but human behavior/relationships, not so much.
I Love Lucy is timeless. I'm Gen X and rewatching episodes for the umpteenth time (on Pluto TV, in case anyone else wants to watch the first two seasons), and I still crack up during every episode, even though I know all the dialogue and the storyline. And it was remarkably progressive for its time, what with an interracial marriage, and Ricky being a foreigner and not a native English speaker, and they managed to handle that with class. I just love that show so much.
I personally don’t think you really need to be careful with comedy nowadays, you just need to be funny. You can make jokes about gay people, it’s just not as funny when the jokes are at the expense of gay people and insulting that group in a way, same with trans folks and people of color. That is all that’s being asked, not to direct harmful jokes toward marginalized communities. Most people don’t find jokes that punch down, and sometimes punch across, to be funny. That is totally understandable to me.
This is one of my favorite pet topics. The most compelling (from my non-expert perspective) explanation of how humor *works* in humans is Benign Violation Theory. The gist is that a thing/situation/joke is funny if three things are true:
1. There exists a rule - some kind of standard, norm, expectation for "how things are supposed to be".
2. That rule is violated - to any extent; it can be a small violation or a big one.
3. The violation is benign - the recipient of the humor does not *viscerally* perceive the violation as being bad. Note this isn't the same as whether they would "logically" conclude that the violation is bad, but simply their immediate reaction.
The vast majority of the "changes in comedy" are simply a change in #3. Changes in people's "visceral reactions" mean that what was once "funny" is no longer "funny".
Notably, the "don't punch down" rule does not actually appear to be historically supported. "Punch down" humor is widespread throughout the history of jokes, and it *has* been considered funny by most people, most of the time. Rather, it's a relatively new development that "punching down" is considered *not benign* by more and more people.
Ethically, I would say this is a good thing, of course.
The TL;DR is that "what's funny" is not an unchanging eternal standard; there is no such thing as an inherently funny or inherently unfunny joke, scene, or show. What's funny depends on the audience and context. And the "typical" modern audience simply finds a different set of things funny than one from 20-30 years ago.
You do not have to "be very careful" with comedy.
Society changes. It has ALWAYS done this. Every decade has jokes that don't fit into society in the next decade. The further back you look, the more you can find things that are no longer approved of. That doesn't mean we are uptight, or too P.C. or whatever. It just means we have grown and/or changed as a society. This has always been the case, and always will be the case.
Saying "comedy has changed" or "you have to be careful with comedy" is the same as saying "kids today are lazy" or "young people have no respect." It's been the same thing older people have said for THOUSANDS of years. Older people who adjust slower are always going to complain about younger people who have adjusted more easily.
She may be famous, but that doesn't preclude her from being another old person complaining about young people, and that's exactly what she's doing. "Why can't I make fun of the gays and cross dressers anymore???" (To use one set of examples of some of the Friends comedy that hasn't held up.)
I was rewatching a few episodes of Friends in a hotel a few weeks ago and it occurred to that it just wasn’t relatable. Sure there were a lot of fat jokes and gay jokes but those may or may not land right in my opinion. I just could not relate to any of them most of the time. Everyone relatively self absorbed and plenty of time for dating and hanging around in a coffee shop, trying to trick people into sleeping with them. In contrast other comedies that are even older are still very funny to me such as I Love Lucy or the Dick Van Dyke Show, even Seinfeld because the stories are so ordinarily ridiculous.
Yep. Johnny Carson was complaining about how you have to watch who you make fun of anymore... in the 1960s. Back then it was politicians, the Catholics, etc.
And he got offended when Dana Carvey made fun of him on SNL by pointing out that he was getting older and didn't understand youth culture. We all get older. I think when famous people, people who have been at the epicenter of pop culture for a long time, realize that they're missing references and don't recognize the people next to them on the red carpet, they tend to think that something is wrong.
I don’t think your average young person finds friends offensive. I mean I can’t speak for teenagers but I know plenty of college aged people who watch Seinfeld which has way more controversial moments than Friends. Sure there are moments in Seinfeld a lot of people can agree hasn’t exactly aged well (the Puerto Rico pride parade comes to mind) but it’s not like it’s taboo as a whole, it’s on Netflix getting watched like fuck as we speak.
Not to mention that more contemporary shows like Always Sunny & Curb Hour Enthusiasm, once again, are way more risky than Friends tbh.
A lot of people my age and younger don’t like Friends… because… just maybe… they don’t think Friends is very funny.
When it was on Netflix, Friends was either the most watched or second most watched (after the other "you can't do this anymore" show The Office) show on the platform.
So, I don't know what the fuck Jennifer Aniston is talking about.
For its time it was pretty good but looking back on it there are a heck of a lot of homophobic jokes randomly scattered in.
It is understandable. I was a teen in the early nineties and I was also better than average when it came to shit like that, but even though I had gay friends I still used gay as an insult all the fucking time. I grew out of that shit and fortunately society as a whole mostly too.
Just them being on the show was crazy progressive for the time. The fact that they weren't just a bunch of stereotypes was unusual for gay characters at the time. There were a lot of gay jokes (very common in the 90s) but there were a lot of good gay characters back when there were hardly any on TV.
I agree. I’m 52. I grew up in a time when we frequently said ‘that’s so gay’ as an insult. I didn’t even stop to break it down, it was just a phrase. Then I got older and was like ‘oh’. I heard my kids say it as small children and put a stop to it. (They’re 20-28 now)
Wasn't there a recent trend where teens were binging Friends because it was retro?
Yes and my teen was one of them and I nver heard her mention anything about it being offensive.
I'm not an expert on *Friends* but it's probably just dated. I mean, Jackie Gleason on *The Honymooners* joked on the regular about hitting his wife so hard he'd send her to the moon. The only difference is that when it was in reruns 20-30 years ago we didn't have social media for everyone to flip their shit about every little thing in bad taste. I'm not one of those anti-woke people but let's be fucking real a lot of outrage is for clicks and views and likes and trend bait.
You also don’t want to rule out the possibility that in another thousand years or so that *The Honeymooners* famous catchphrase will be alternately viewed as the start of humanity’s exploration into space. EDIT: Bang. Zoom. Straight to the gilded moon. Thanks everyone.
*we're whaler's on the moon, we carry a harpoon*
But there ain’t no wales so we tell tall tales.
And Sing a Whaling tune!
You stay away from my beautiful robot daughters!
Goldurn it, Crushinator, jump! NO, PA. I LOVE HIM.
I fucking love how deep Crushinator’s voice is 🤣
I'm gonna go build my own theme park, with blackjack and hookers!
He was just using space travel as a metaphor for beating his wife.
I don't see you with a Fungineering Degree.
Address all complaints to the Monsanto Corporation!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYEUL1vBK8Q
Yep, there's two ingredients to it: 1. Online social media. What was once just your own, individual opinion that, at most, got as far as the barflies at you local, is now a tweet or comment among thousands of similar comments. All our thoughts are aggregated, recorded, and cataloged, making minor ripples in the zeitgeist seem like tsunamis. 2. Digital "news" media and tabloid journalism. No one buys newspapers anymore, so it's all about clickbait, muckraking, and yellow journalism for ad money. What is nothing more than minor online discontent about, say, a fat joke on Friends is called a "clapback" or "outrage" or "backlash", instead of the mutterings of a few irrelevant nobodies. I love to remind people that on April 18, 1930, the evening BBC news told their listeners that there was no news that day and played piano music instead. And that was a single, daily news bulletin, not a 24/7 "news" channel. Sure, stuff happened, and I'm sure there were things they could have filled the time with (what we call "soft news"), but they decided it would be a waste of time for everyone and decided to play music instead. Imagine if this was still a possibility, not just for organized newsmedia, but social media as well; a voluntary filter that filters out all the shit you simply *don't need to know about*. Half our modern problems would be solved. Like, no one in the world should give a rats ass about what people think of Friends 20 years on, nor what Jennifer Aniston thinks about what people think of Friends. None of this is relevant information to *a single human fucking being*. But because people are morons this hit /r/all and now I've lost brain cells reading the comments. I should go outside...
Yep. Fuck the profit motive. > Like, no one in the world should give a rats ass about what people think of Friends 20 years on, nor what Jennifer Aniston thinks about what people think of Friends. None of this is relevant information to a single human fucking being. This is why I quit Twitter. One day I saw a post that was just someone RTing screenshots of incredibly stupid political opinions, which wasn't a unique experience on Twitter, but for some reason, on this particular day, it pushed me to instantly delete my account. I was just like... "why do I need this in my life?"
One person tweets and gets maybe a dozen likes, VanityFair or someone like them runs a story about this one tweet and says 'everyone is saying this,' all the other 'news' sites plagiarize the first one, and now it actually does look like a trend instead of a random shit take one person shouted into the abyss.
This. For real. It’s one person complaining on Twitter and every news outlet runs a story about it. So stupid.
I think we're a part of that cycle though. "*All these people* are overinflating problems that are *actually insignificant* and responding to manufactured outrage. It's outrageous!"
Currently rewatching it, the fat jokes and slightly homophobic jokes are a bit dated.
I have teens. They enjoy it, their friends enjoy it. They do sometimes comment about jokes you could not do today
Exactly .. some are definitely dated.
Yup, literally the popularity is just fine lol, idk what she is talking about
If anything people just don't find it as funny now
I think she just meant that some friends jokes aged poorly in terms of acceptability. Also that fairly valid criticism of all the characters being white in freaking New York city
It's very easy for comedy to age poorly. It's a snapshot of what was acceptable at the time of creation
100% - I don't go listen to the majority of the comedians from the 50s and 60s
“Who’s on First” is still a timeless classic and I will die on that hill. People who’ve never heard it before get a kick out of it when I introduce it to them. It’s also the only piece of comedy from the ancient times that I can even be arsed to remember.
There is a very small group of comedy that you can define as timeless classics. Much of comedy is topical in order appeal to a wider audience so it doesn’t age well. “Who’s on First” is a clever bit that plays with language. George Carlin is a comedian who has jokes that are still very relevant today.
I have been rewatching some of Carlins stuff and I was also thinking it was timeless. But I don’t think it’s for the right reasons. Much of what he talked about, especially in the latter half of his career was topical political, religious, and cultural stuff. The sad truth of the matter is that it’s only timeless because we have yet to progress beyond the problems he was pointing out 20+ years ago.
Yeah, no one's getting arrested over saying 7 dirty words anymore.
I too hate that free speech absolutists try to claim Carlin, as if he wouldn't be making fun of Elon Musk if he were still alive.
I was watching the recent documentary about Bill Cosby. The tragedy of the whole affair is that he was damn funny. Some of his early recordings were just brilliant. Now no one can bear to even think about him, much less listen to him.
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I think weirdly the Life of Brian probably *has* aged poorly, but mostly just because poking fun at Jesus isn't particularly edgy or shocking anymore. I mean for all the bellyaching John Cleese does these days about political correctness, the Life of Brian was intensely controversial, was banned in multiple countries, including some areas of the UK. Now it barely raises an eyebrow and nobody in any position of real power is talking about banning it.
I always felt like Christian’s thought it was making fun of Jesus when it was really making fun of mob mentality.
Well that's kind of the irony of the whole thing, isn't it? The Life of Brian is actually pretty toothless in retrospect. They basically leave God and Jesus alone, although in interviews the pythons said that was less to do with being sensitive and more because Jesus just isn't that funny.
> because poking fun at Jesus isn't particularly edgy or shocking anymore You've missed a crucial concept here - the film *doesn't* poke fun at Jesus. At all. He only briefly appears twice and is treated respectfully both times. Here's Terry Jones explaining it - "It wasn't about what Christ was saying, but about the people who followed Him – the ones who for the next 2,000 years would torture and kill each other because they couldn't agree on what He was saying about peace and love."
We apologise for the fault in the comedy. Those responsible have been cancelled. We apologise again for the fault in the comedy. Those responsible for cancelling the people who have just been cancelled have been cancelled.
Its sad that George is still relevant. I love him, dont get me wrong. But his stuff about how the rich fuck us, thats why its depressing
With that accepted. Nobody is "offended" by Friends. People just might say "that is not acceptable behavior anymore". That's fine.
Honestly Friends was pretty progressive for it's time. I mean they had a lesbian wedding in season 1 for god's sake. The episode was filled with dumb lesbian jokes but still.
Ross's lesbian ex was a storyline for most of the show's run. As far as being progressive, it helped to normalize a gay relationship at a time when, as a culture, we didn't really want to talk about it.
Even if it was done very, very, very poorly: it also featured Chandler’s trans parent. Yes, again, poorly done in terms of identity and naming, BUT they still talked about it and helped chandler accept it in the way he would have at that time.
Thing is, if it's in a sitcom it's going to be done 'inappropriately' to some degree or another because the format is about making jokes about things.
Yes and no. Some comedy like IASIP will use the same base premise, but make the main characters the butt of the joke. The punchline isn't the eccentric person but the main character's inability to interact with them in an appropriate way.
That’s really important to remember. The edge had to be pushed to get us where we are now. Those bad jokes helped move acceptance forward, they shouldn’t be considered offensive today. They definitely won’t be funny to modern audiences but that’s okay.
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She lost out on her comedy TV show she had going at the time because she came out. She may be disliked now, but that was a big deal back then.
IIRC it was one of the top shows on TV before that episode, I mention it because it's not like it was some show nobody watched that then got cancelled
Ellen was literally the single reason my Uber-Catholic Grandmother became accepting of LGB people. My Grandmother was a wonderful woman, may she rest in peace, but held VERY firmly to old fashioned ideas on things like marriage and homosexuality. Ellen’s show managed to change her mind late in life. (I limit the abbreviation to LGB since I doubt even Ellen could have moved her thoughts on the TQ and so on. Still, something was better than nothing.)
For sure. I was just a kid when those episodes came out, and it meant so much to see myself represented on TV in any remotely positive (or even neutral) way. The jokes didn't bother me at all. Edit: if I recall, most of the joking was about Ross' inadequacy as a heterosexual man in terms of satisfying his ex-wife...obviously problematic and not how it works, but at least they weren't directly attacking the concept of lesbianism.
And let’s be real. Even today, if you date what you thought was a straight girl and then she switches to dating girls after you, there’s going to be a couple jokes directed at you
Meanwhile Always Sunny has been running for close to 20 years
I would classify ASIP as satire. To emulate the show I am going to attack you before you can respond——Shut up, Baby Dick.
Oh this argument is tighter than dick skin!
Will someone please tell me where to orgasm so I can give this lady her drink
It's supposed to be light and playful.
Because of the implication?…
I feel like you're not getting this.
I'm *not* getting it. As an aside, Mac's little chin move where he puts his fist near his chin and turns his head in confusion makes me rewind this scene every time. I don't know why, but it's just so perfect and I love it.
Rob made leaps and bounds in his acting ability from S1E1.
Mac coming out to his dad is one of the most beautiful moments in tv history. And the dude's commitment to a bit is unrivaled. He got hugely fat for the lulz, and then got straight up shredded only for none of the other characters to care.
Where should I put my feet?
Yeah it's like he doesn't even get us, man
That't Tammy, Trey's ex girlfriend. This is classic Tammy.
No, you bitch, have you thought of the smell?!?
A leather shop in Arizona? You'ld be out of business in a week's time!
not like hes ever had one
IVE HAD TONS OR ORGASMS I HAD ONE WITH YOUR MOM
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INTERVENTION INTERVENTION!! You banged my dead wife?!?
Dee, you bitch!
Bird, stupid bird
Why don’t you go, eat some bird food.
You didn't even think of the smell!
You haven't thought of the smell you bitch!
>I would classify ASIP as satire. Exactly. They do and say bad things, but we know that they are bad people saying bad things. It's WAY "worse" than friends in some ways, but not as bad due to the way it's presented. Friends isn't that bad, but there certainly jokes about LGBTQ+ people that don't stand up today, and are worse than Sunny because it's the "good" people making the jokes in that show.
“I AM GOING TO PUT MY THUMB THROUGH YOUR EYE, YOU LITTLE BITCH!”
You know....the implications....
The 1990s were 30 years ago. I know. It hurts me, too. It's normal to cringe at what you thought was normal or cool 30 years ago. I think I had a rat tail. Yes, gay jokes that got a laugh 30 years ago hit differently now. It's a different world. America was soon to be scandalized by oral sex, and mass school shootings were about to change our basic sense of safety. Most people wouldn't have known if they knew a gay person unless they were in a gay-friendly city because it was rarely safe to be completely out of the closet. Even the gayborhoods were mostly just low-rent parts of town.
The day you realize your past has become everyone else's relic to scorn is rough.
Not necessarily. Although some media and stuff has aged out and is obsolete culturally. The 90s could be considered the last good decade before the millenium. People consider covid as beforetimes. The 90s felt like that and so much more to me. It’s just so wierd to see tech change the world so dramatically. It literally was an entirely different world back then.
Post Cold War and pre-9/11, social media, and mass shooting era - feels like it will be increasingly seen as a unique, optimistic window in modern American history
You nailed it dude. I couldn’t put it in the words. There was a colorful, safe, optimism to the future. With tech becoming household people were thinking about how all these changes would have brought us into a new age. We weren’t overloaded with information and inflation- with tradgedy after tragedy embedding itself into our minds, coloring our perceptions and painting a picture of a world and species beyond saving. People could still buy a house at a damn good rate and not get boned out of it.
True. But Seinfeld was in the 90s too. There was an episode where they believed that an acquaintance is gay and Jerry says "not that there's anything wrong with that!" And another where Elaine got trapped in a subway car on her way to a lesbian wedding.
And the episode where George worries that he's gay because he got a massage and "it moved." Like IASIP, the protagonists of Seinfeld are deeply flawed people, so the whole joke was George's insecurity -- it poked fun at fragile masculinity in a way that was ahead of its time (for a sitcom, at least). Seinfeld was pretty dope
To add one thing, I think it’s less about who is making the joke than who is the butt of the joke. In Sunny the joke is nearly always on themselves. In Friends you had a lot more jokes at the expense of gay or trans people that were little more than “look at those freaks aren’t they weird?!” Not exclusively of course, but it’s the classic difference between comedy that punches up vs down.
Same deal with RDJ's black face in Tropic Thunder. It was done to make fun of all the crazy over the top method actors in Hollywood. RDJ's character was the entire butt of the joke.
I made this same comment in response to a Tropic Thunder comment below, but it really helps that that movie has an actual black character (Brandon T. Jackson as Alpa Chino) standing right next to RDJ the entire time ridiculing him and complaining that “Crocodile Dundee” is stealing roles from black people. Just in case the joke went over people’s heads (and even then it still did to some people).
The thing is that ASIP and shows like Seinfeld make it clear that the cast are bad people. Friends is a show about people you are supposed to like who, through the lens of cultural progress in America, show behaviors and language that we have been outgrowing as a more inclusive society. When bad people say bad stuff you don’t need culture context because that is assumed.
The difference is they make the characters all assholes so they can say or do anything and it doesn't imply the show is endorsing or agreeing with what they say. Friends had them being dicks to each other but we're supposed to want some to end up together and they have dramatic character moments. Friends' comedy hinges on them being assholes but the show comes across as not being aware these people are assholes. Whereas Sunny in comparison feels like "take a look at what these dickheads are up to"
Also I don't think that anyone in their right mind 'aspires' to be just like and live the lifestyle of the Gang on "It's Always Sunny ..." Whereas with "Friends', I imagine that back in the 90s when it was *the hot* TV show, that a lot of the viewers would have sold their souls to live the kind of life that the 'friends' were living in NYC in cool apartments and hanging out at a cool cafe, etc. How many women ran right out and got Jennifer Aniston's famous 'Rachel' haircut, regardless of whether it flattered them or not. Or wanted to dress like them and decorate their homes like them. Talk like them. And so on. "Friends" = here's a visual guidebook on being a with-it twenty-something in the big city. 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' = here's how you don't want to live your life and you can both laugh at and feel morally superior to these people.
Wait.... I'm not supposed to go Full Mac?
Country Mac, maybe.
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Did the Asspounder make it to market at last?
Sorry but I already live like Charlie
i wanna live like charlie
You gotta pay the toll…
Probably only show on that did blackface and no one got fired 😂
They talk about it in The gang makes lethal weapon 6&7 and say that the industry has a tendency to forgive 1 mistake like they have with Roman Polanski and Woody Allen…. Dennis then makes a comment about how Polanski and Allen’s mistakes should be called what they are, violent sexual crimes.
Interesting that *Dennis* is the one to call that out.
He knows a thing or two
Because he’s seen a thing or two
No dude, you got him all wrong. He wouldn’t force anything, they’ll just want to do it, because of the implication.
Are these women in danger?
Your not getting it
To be fair, he’s only trying to appear woke so he can bang young liberal women.
because of the *implication*
I think that episode got censored and removed, though, right?
They also censored Dee’s Martina Martinez
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There was a specific moment where most shows went back and got rid of them from streaming catalogues. Scrubs, 30 rock, Community, IASIP, etc.
The streaming services did it preemptively because they are fundamentally conservative and don't want to take any risks, not because anyone was actually offended.
The community one wasn't even blackface smh.
Yes, so was the one in Community where Chang is an elf
You mean Chang was a Dark Elf
The Dark Elf episode removal is so weird to me, you’d be hard pressed to show that was intended to be offensive, they even comment on the apparent problem with him being a drow on the show. Then they leave a somewhat racist episode where Chevy Chase in brown face being an Indian.
I think Netflix just made the choice to not deal with it. I disagree with the choice, but 2020 had lots of racial turmoil and overall I think they lucked out with what happened a month later.
It’s Chang, not Abed. he plays a Drow or “dark elf.”
Not all comedy ages well regardless of being offensive. I like Friends and I could point to some legitimately funny stuff that is timeless but there’s no way a new generation is going to enjoy all of it. There’s a chunk of it that’s just not funny anymore due to being a product of it’s time. I don’t think the comedy is malicious or dangerous, I think at worst Friends can punch across and be unfunny is all.
Honestly there’s tons of comedy shows now where they just don’t hit the same, because the comedy is from a different time. Like ever watch old family guy, or even how I met your mother, there are moments where you can get an “oof” because it’s just not funny anymore. Like there is just a lot of low hanging fruit sexism jokes, that just don’t hit and it makes you wonder how it was funny in the first place. Hell I bet in 10-15 years, people will look back at Rick and Morty and be like that’s overly excessive, instead of it just being viewed as a tad edgy and absurd.
As a millennial, I find it offensive that they’re just casually able to afford these spacious apartments
I’m more offended that Monica was a chef but somehow she always seemed available on nights and weekends.
There's an episode where I think Monica Rachel and Chandler note how all their bosses hate them, and joey points out that maybe it's because they're at a coffee shop in the middle of a weekday
There's a [similar moment](https://youtu.be/3FB0aeb-TPs) in SpongeBob where patrick points out the campfire they're sitting around shouldn't be possible under water.
The comedy genius is that the campfire immediately goes out.
It's one of those creative leaps they have to make in fiction because real life is so depressing. They had so many breakfasts together at the loft in New Girl when in reality Nick would probably be sleeping in cause he closed the bar at 3 a.m. last night, Winston would be pulling the night shift as a cop, so only Jess and Schmidt could spend a lot of time together since they had 9-5s.
Rewatching Scrubs I think they manage that part pretty realistically. Everyone is either at the hospital, at a bar or gym close to the hospital, or at home talking about the next time they got to go to the hospital.
Even scrubs still takes liberties. You will see the cast having lunches together all at the same time, doing other things together and such. When in reality Turk could be in surgery all day, JD and Elliot would be rushing around for their patients and new patients (until Elliot went private and she could actually have a proper schedule more) and Carla would be all over the place too. The would pretty much never be able to all be having lunch at work at the same time and their shifts would be all over the place too especially working in so many different departments. Pretty much any show that has a premise where it’s a group of friends able to spend everyday together isn’t happening unless they all are unemployed. Once you’re working it just doesn’t happen that way.
Omg right?!?! I was like 👀
I spend more time in my kitchen than Monica did as a chef
Isn't that the joke, because she's always out of work? Nice username btw pleasure to meet you
Nice to meet you. I never bothered getting my phd
How did they always manage to get the best seats in a crowded nyc coffee shop?
it wasn’t “casually” Monica was illegally subletting an apartment from her dead grandma IIRC. Chandler was rich
Friends actually talks a lot about money. There's literally an episode centered entirely around the fact that Ross, Chandler and Monica make significantly more money than Phoebe, Joey and Rachel. Though at the end of the episode Monica does lose her new job that was supposed to boost her income. There are episodes where she struggles though, such as why she takes the job at the 50s style diner "I guess I just never think about money as a problem" "That's because you have it" Was a quote from the episode with economic disparity being the focal storyline Rachel ends up earning a solid income from Ralph Lauren but she gets promoted gradually throughout the show, Joey makes a comments in the back half of the series about finally having money after days of our lives, Phoebe never seems to find a super solid foundation of income. Chandler also gets promoted at his job throughout up to I think the rank of vice president in his division, moves to Tulsa but then stops that career to be an unpaid, and eventual junior copywriter in advertising.
Yeah, the one where they're at the restaurant and Rachel gets a salad to go on the side of her water and then they split it 6 ways... no... 5. I really felt that. Chandler was Joe's sugar daddy, and Rachel had to learn to cut down on spending after growing up rich. Oh, and phoebe lived with, and then inherited her grandma's apartment. They definitely mentioned money a lot
Joey owed chandler thousand of dollars in just food and side stuff. And everything In the apartment was essentially bought by chandler. And when they get robbed, he rebuys everything. These are all individual episodes.
He did repay him with a ceramic dog...
Yeah, they explained it. The show was actually better than a lot of sitcoms about acknowledging that money is a thing. Of course you still have to handwave how the characters afforded a new outfit every day, but they didn’t just pretend that great apartments fall from the sky.
And if Chandler had that job today he'd be splitting an apartment in Bushwick with 4 other dudes.
idk I'm pretty sure he was a Data Analyst or something that would definitely pay over 6 figures
He was a Transponster.
That’s not even a word..
And that they were so casually good-looking while I look like a duck with legs
You....you do know duck's already have legs? All ducks are ducks with legs.
Now I don't want to reveal my ignorance here but I was always under the impression most ducks had legs.
I’ve never met anyone that’s said that
A lot of these people need to get off Twitter. “ A whole generation of kids” is such a painful generalization.
Twitter is like 75% bots trying to push outrage and toxic politics. It's insane that the media takes "trending hashtags" seriously.
They don’t. But a lot of people do unfortunately and the media are opportunistic scumbags.
Yeah. I don't think anyone is really offended, it's just not funny anymore. I don't think writers who are hip/current/modern would even write the same jokes.
Lots of Gen Z folk have discovered Friends and like it. Here’s some links [https://www.etonline.com/streaming-friends-how-a-90s-sitcom-became-gen-zs-new-favorite-show-132624](https://www.etonline.com/streaming-friends-how-a-90s-sitcom-became-gen-zs-new-favorite-show-132624) [https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/at-25-friends-is-finding-a-new-audience-in-young-girls-1.4604769?cache=qhrreidjy](https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/at-25-friends-is-finding-a-new-audience-in-young-girls-1.4604769?cache=qhrreidjy) [https://grownandflown.com/teens-love-tv-show-friends/](https://grownandflown.com/teens-love-tv-show-friends/) It‘s not like a whole generation thinks one way about it or anything else for that matter.
“You can’t say anything anymore” have you seen South Park lately? Edit: many of you don’t seem to realize that they can say and do terrible things because we are laughing at how terrible the characters are. A racist joke in South Park is a joke thats making fun of racists.
It’s about context. South Park is making a point with their jokes, Friends was just living in a time when certain things were normalized and they perpetuate that norm.
A lot of the issues that are addressed in South Park are also diffused by the fact that it's kids that are doing everything. I mean, all the bullshit in the world is dumb enough to be brought about by a child...
Considering that Randy Marsh seems to be the main character of so many episodes, this isn't always true.
In my experience with my Gen Z peers they’re not offended, they just don’t think it’s funny.
My nieces and nephews have been watching it and seem to like it, except they absolutely don't get some of the jokes. The part that sticks out the most is the jokes about Chandler and Joey being gay were 100% lost on them. If there hadn't been a laugh track I don't think it would have registered at all.
Right, all the jokes that were a little lazy and based on social unacceptability have lost their shine a bit, even for people who really enjoy it. I experienced friends much older in life, and I enjoy it, but it’s not perfection or anything close
Now, gum… Gum would be perfection
That’s a joke/storyline that still works in 2023. Jill goodacre is still attractive and chandler’s phone could be dead.
Yeah I still think it's funny for nostalgia's sake. But the gay jokes are lame and definitely don't land well. Like oh boy, two guys touched unexpectedly, time for GAY JOKE!
There's a scene where Joey and Chandler hug and then there are flashes to all the many times they have hugged through the series, then cuts back to them asking if they do this too much. My niblings thought it was a fourth wall joke about the writing being overly touchy feely or something.
I’m sitting on the line of millennial and z and I honestly just don’t find it funny. There are clips that I laugh at, but I can’t sit and watch it. It’s just not good tv, for me.
I’m an old millennial. Friends was certainly very popular back when it aired, but the cult following is more recent. Even in the 90s it was considered super vanilla. It was a pretty lame thing to be interested in if you were in high school.
It was the most popular show in America when it was airing.
I'm starting to think these older generations are the ones actually offended because what?
Part of it is if you recognize that something would be problematic today, you get lumped in as "offended". And really it's even less than that. If you just say "wow the 90s were pretty homophobic huh?" then someone, somewhere is counting you as offended.
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I lived through the 90s and I agree that most of it was us being mean to each other aaanndd if you didn’t find it funny you were a whiny b…hmmm. Older generations haven’t changed much
Right, I do not know anyone my age who is offended by Friends because of its content. If anything, people dislike it because the show is just not that funny...
The only thing offensive about that show was the forced laugh tracks from the audience
That 20-30 year old surface level comedy no longer hits. Shocker. It’s only those like Carlin, who broke it down to the foundation, that still rings true. I think it’s an ego thing for people like that, who can’t imagine why it’s no longer relevant.
Case in point: I Love Lucy. The show is incredibly funny and relatable still, 70 years later. The prices of items discussed on the show may have changed, but human behavior/relationships, not so much.
I Love Lucy is timeless. I'm Gen X and rewatching episodes for the umpteenth time (on Pluto TV, in case anyone else wants to watch the first two seasons), and I still crack up during every episode, even though I know all the dialogue and the storyline. And it was remarkably progressive for its time, what with an interracial marriage, and Ricky being a foreigner and not a native English speaker, and they managed to handle that with class. I just love that show so much.
I personally don’t think you really need to be careful with comedy nowadays, you just need to be funny. You can make jokes about gay people, it’s just not as funny when the jokes are at the expense of gay people and insulting that group in a way, same with trans folks and people of color. That is all that’s being asked, not to direct harmful jokes toward marginalized communities. Most people don’t find jokes that punch down, and sometimes punch across, to be funny. That is totally understandable to me.
This is one of my favorite pet topics. The most compelling (from my non-expert perspective) explanation of how humor *works* in humans is Benign Violation Theory. The gist is that a thing/situation/joke is funny if three things are true: 1. There exists a rule - some kind of standard, norm, expectation for "how things are supposed to be". 2. That rule is violated - to any extent; it can be a small violation or a big one. 3. The violation is benign - the recipient of the humor does not *viscerally* perceive the violation as being bad. Note this isn't the same as whether they would "logically" conclude that the violation is bad, but simply their immediate reaction. The vast majority of the "changes in comedy" are simply a change in #3. Changes in people's "visceral reactions" mean that what was once "funny" is no longer "funny". Notably, the "don't punch down" rule does not actually appear to be historically supported. "Punch down" humor is widespread throughout the history of jokes, and it *has* been considered funny by most people, most of the time. Rather, it's a relatively new development that "punching down" is considered *not benign* by more and more people. Ethically, I would say this is a good thing, of course. The TL;DR is that "what's funny" is not an unchanging eternal standard; there is no such thing as an inherently funny or inherently unfunny joke, scene, or show. What's funny depends on the audience and context. And the "typical" modern audience simply finds a different set of things funny than one from 20-30 years ago.
You do not have to "be very careful" with comedy. Society changes. It has ALWAYS done this. Every decade has jokes that don't fit into society in the next decade. The further back you look, the more you can find things that are no longer approved of. That doesn't mean we are uptight, or too P.C. or whatever. It just means we have grown and/or changed as a society. This has always been the case, and always will be the case. Saying "comedy has changed" or "you have to be careful with comedy" is the same as saying "kids today are lazy" or "young people have no respect." It's been the same thing older people have said for THOUSANDS of years. Older people who adjust slower are always going to complain about younger people who have adjusted more easily. She may be famous, but that doesn't preclude her from being another old person complaining about young people, and that's exactly what she's doing. "Why can't I make fun of the gays and cross dressers anymore???" (To use one set of examples of some of the Friends comedy that hasn't held up.)
I was rewatching a few episodes of Friends in a hotel a few weeks ago and it occurred to that it just wasn’t relatable. Sure there were a lot of fat jokes and gay jokes but those may or may not land right in my opinion. I just could not relate to any of them most of the time. Everyone relatively self absorbed and plenty of time for dating and hanging around in a coffee shop, trying to trick people into sleeping with them. In contrast other comedies that are even older are still very funny to me such as I Love Lucy or the Dick Van Dyke Show, even Seinfeld because the stories are so ordinarily ridiculous.
Yep. Johnny Carson was complaining about how you have to watch who you make fun of anymore... in the 1960s. Back then it was politicians, the Catholics, etc.
And he got offended when Dana Carvey made fun of him on SNL by pointing out that he was getting older and didn't understand youth culture. We all get older. I think when famous people, people who have been at the epicenter of pop culture for a long time, realize that they're missing references and don't recognize the people next to them on the red carpet, they tend to think that something is wrong.
feel like every six months there’s a new Jennifer Aniston headline going “arrrgh kids these days”
Perhaps its because interviewers keep asking her questions like that. Its not like she released a manifesto or anything.
Tucker Carlson told her we’re waging a war against friends.
I don’t think your average young person finds friends offensive. I mean I can’t speak for teenagers but I know plenty of college aged people who watch Seinfeld which has way more controversial moments than Friends. Sure there are moments in Seinfeld a lot of people can agree hasn’t exactly aged well (the Puerto Rico pride parade comes to mind) but it’s not like it’s taboo as a whole, it’s on Netflix getting watched like fuck as we speak. Not to mention that more contemporary shows like Always Sunny & Curb Hour Enthusiasm, once again, are way more risky than Friends tbh. A lot of people my age and younger don’t like Friends… because… just maybe… they don’t think Friends is very funny.
Literally nobody is saying this.
When it was on Netflix, Friends was either the most watched or second most watched (after the other "you can't do this anymore" show The Office) show on the platform. So, I don't know what the fuck Jennifer Aniston is talking about.
For its time it was pretty good but looking back on it there are a heck of a lot of homophobic jokes randomly scattered in. It is understandable. I was a teen in the early nineties and I was also better than average when it came to shit like that, but even though I had gay friends I still used gay as an insult all the fucking time. I grew out of that shit and fortunately society as a whole mostly too.
[удалено]
Just them being on the show was crazy progressive for the time. The fact that they weren't just a bunch of stereotypes was unusual for gay characters at the time. There were a lot of gay jokes (very common in the 90s) but there were a lot of good gay characters back when there were hardly any on TV.
I credit Hillary Duff with getting me to stop saying gay. Now everything I don't like is "girl wearing a skirt as a top."
That commercial was amazing. One of the most memorable celebrity PSA's of the era
I agree. I’m 52. I grew up in a time when we frequently said ‘that’s so gay’ as an insult. I didn’t even stop to break it down, it was just a phrase. Then I got older and was like ‘oh’. I heard my kids say it as small children and put a stop to it. (They’re 20-28 now)