Friends remains one of the most rewatched—and highly quoted—sitcoms of all time. But some of its 10 seasons have aged poorly since the series ended in 2004, a fact star Jennifer Aniston pointed out in a recent interview.
“There’s a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of Friends and find them offensive,” she told the Associated Foreign Press (via Yahoo). “There were things that were never intentional and others…well, we should have thought it through, but I don’t think there was a sensitivity like there is now.”
While promoting Murder Mystery 2, her upcoming Netflix sequel with Adam Sandler, Aniston spoke of the ways “comedy has evolved,” saying, “now it’s a little tricky because you have to be very careful, which makes it really hard for comedians, because the beauty of comedy is that we make fun of ourselves, make fun of life.”
Despite the show’s beloved status in TV history, many of its story lines veered into territory that’s become less widely accepted with time—including a multitude of homophobic and fatphobic jokes.
One of the show’s creators, Marta Kauffman, has acknowledged that her series was a product of its time. Last year, she told the Los Angeles Times she regretted the near-erasure of Black characters on Friends, and said that she’d given her alma mater, Brandeis University, $4 million to endow a professorship in its African and African American Studies department. Kauffman then appeared on the BBC World Service show The Conversation and apologized for misgendering the character of Chandler’s trans parent, Helena. Kathleen Turner, who played the role, said in 2019 she wouldn’t have taken the part today because there are other “real people able to do [the part].”
Although Aniston wasn’t asked about any specific episodes, she did defend her show by asserting that bigots were often the punch line. “You could joke about a bigot and have a laugh. That was hysterical. And it was about educating people on how ridiculous people were, and now we’re not allowed to do that,” Aniston said. “Everybody needs funny! The world needs humor! We can’t take ourselves too seriously. Especially in the United States. Everyone is far too divided.”
Savannah Walsh
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