Friends became the biggest and most important comedy in the world for an entire decade. Millions of viewers around the world have been able to live in different languages all over the planet the adventures and misadventures of 6 young Americans who lived in New York and who faced their transition to maturity in humor. However, an equally undeniable fact is that the sitcom hasn’t aged very well in some ways.
For years, a stream has accused the popular series of being racist. And it is that during the more than 200 episodes of the series, the racial diversity was, to say the least, limited. There have even been accusations of plagiarizing another series with African-American actors and actresses who never found success with mainstream audiences.
But it is that in addition to this already very relevant situation, Friens has had to face many criticisms in recent years also for his lack of inclusiveness with certain groups and even for the old age of his humor in certain aspects.
About everything Jennifer Aniston talked about in an interview with Associated Foreign Press in which the title already specifies what the actress thinks of this controversy: “There is a whole new generation of young people, boys and girls, who now rewatch episodes of Friends and find them offensive.”
According to the actress who brought Rachel to life, many of these situations were improvised, although there were also scripted ones: “There are things that have never been scripted and others, well.. …we should have thought about it better. But I don’t think the sensibility was the same as it is now. Comedy evolved and movies evolved.
Jennifer Aniston gave some jokes about racism as an example: “Before, you could make a joke about a racist and laugh. It was hilarious and at the same time it educated people on the ridiculousness of these people. Now we don’t can’t do something like that anymore.” .
It’s not the only voice on the show to talk about it. A few months ago, one of the creators, Marta Koeffman, already made it clear that they could be blamed a lot: “Over the past few years, I have come to say that, unfortunately, I am guilty of this. And I will never go back on this error. Obviously, this was part of the systemic racism in our company. I wasn’t aware of it and it now makes me feel stupid,” she said on the BBC’s The Conversation. have ever faced. If I had known then what I know now, there are things I would of course have changed, but I didn’t, and I’ve never learned since.”
Plots that border on homophobia, transphobia, jokes about alcoholic secondary characters, rejection of being overweight, machismo… Some episodes of the series have distilled some of these problems, and if we pass them reviewing being critical, there are a few comments from the boys of New Yorkers that would not pass the standards of what we today understand to be humor.