MovieChat Forums > Friends (1994) Discussion > Stop "woke-testing" Friends!

Stop "woke-testing" Friends!


https://ew.com/tv/2019/09/10/friends-problematic-humor/

Friends has received a fair amount of retroactive criticism for its outdated humor and for not aging well. Yes, many of the jokes Friends made wouldn't fly today, says Kristen Baldwin. "But Friends wasn’t made today; it began nearly a quarter-century ago, and it ended 15 years ago," says Baldwin. "Pop culture should be aspirational, but it also reflects the society as it exists in the moment it was made. It’s not particularly productive to hold Friends (or anything else from past eras) up to 2019 standards — and it’s disingenuous to scold the show for failing to adhere to a level of discourse that literally did not exist in mainstream pop culture at the time. The latter-day critics often fail to acknowledge the many ways that Friends was ahead of its time. People who accuse the writers of trafficking in 'gay panic' jokes for laughs seem to ignore the fact that those jokes were made at the expense of the man panicking — in most cases, Matthew Perry’s Chandler Bing." Baldwin adds: "It’s wonderful that today, we can talk in a frank and honest way about why those things are hurtful. But insisting that Friends was intentionally derogatory or somehow more problematic than any other pop culture at the time is a silly exercise in false outrage. It’s okay to celebrate the show while also recognizing it as an example of how far we’ve come as a culture. And if you still need something to be angry about, you needn’t look any further than the here and now."

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Oh yeah, we were all so unevolved back in the 90s! Like cavemen, really! Funny how this person thinks today's PC "woke" culture is somehow an improvement. Most people don't give a crap about that nonsense and therefore still enjoy Friends.

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We must understand that "the issue is never really the issue..." It isn't really about Friends or about the time period it came out in. Big Bang Theory, which is like the closest thing to a 'new Friends' even though it just ended, has been routinely criticized for being 'problematic', and trust me this consensus will only worsen among these critics. These critics I refer to are of course not normal people like you and I, but those insufferable naggers we all know who live to be offended. (Those whom indeed once dubbed themselves 'woke' but now even chastise YOU for calling them that.)

Friends might seem like a show that was harmless and even pretty liberal in its time (a lesbian wedding in the first season FFS!), a show that to NORMAL people to would be hard to understand as 'offensive'. But anything made that long ago will just too obviously trigger the type of people who look to be triggered. Between a show considered to be offensive even back its own day and which tried to be so, like Married with Children, and lighthearted fare like Friends, there's virtually no difference in the eyes of woke scolds. If it's old, it's offensive just by having existed. HOWEVER, these people can easily watch anything on the air right now and also become offended, unless its something that makes painstaking efforts to be woke-adjacent (which is why non-woke-adjacent content are getting harder to find). -Actually no, even the most woke content can still offend wokies. They throw liberals from 25 years ago like the Friends creators under the bus, and why stop there?

Sure they'll respond to offensive content in old programs by often telling us "Thank God how far we've come", but on the other hand these same people aggressively bemoan the systemic systems of systemical oppressions that seemingly just CANNOT be overcome even now. Lest someone THEY disagree with mention how far we've come, they will quickly decry how NOT far enough we've come for it to matter. It is all about their need to force everyone to adhere entirely to whatever their views proper thinking are at any given moment (which is a rapidly changing thing and very deliberately so). It is about forcing blind compliance and allowing themselves to feel like they're in total control. It may seem easier to have offended them 20 years ago without trying to, but you can almost just as easily do so now without trying to.

There is no winning, as they are just waiting with bated breath for the opportunity to correct you, reprimand you, cancel you. They live for these opportunities to scold you in the name of signaling their high-minded superiority. Because so often throughout their own personal lives, they have felt weak and utterly powerless. They were and still are, weak people, which is why the seek power.

Truly, these people must be pushed back on. They are approaching something even Orwell couldn't have imagined. We should ignore, disregard and RIDICULE them while we still can, because believe it or not, these fighting tactics actually work. Also, take comfort in enjoying watching whatever the hell you want, because you're in a luckier place than they are to not be cursed by this need to work yourself up into self-righteous rage over entertainment.

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It's refreshing to watch a show that was made before PC/woke tyranny began to crush comedy. Those who find it offensive are an insignificant minority of dimwitted nannies and nincompoops who should be laughed at, or, better yet, ignored.

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Uh, yeah. Rewatched the first 3 seasons a few months ago and loved it. So so funny! Folks today.... sigh...

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I never watched "Friends," but I see this happening all over the place with older movies. It's like, you've got a ton of idiots from this era who think the world started in 2010, and refuse to view older films without the 2010s glasses on. They are so stupid, that they judge everything from the past they see by today's standards, and not only is it not a productive thing to do, it judges a film/tv show very unfairly by societal standards that didn't even exist back then!

It's almost as bad as teenagers who refuse to watch anything that was made before they were born, because they think such stuff doesn't matter or have a place in their pathetic little everyday lives.

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There is an odd rush to prove that Friends is evil because it isn't woke. The strangest element of that is when they inevitably cite the "transphobia" with Chandler's father. The SJW author forgets that the whole plotline with Chandler's father is how Chandler needs to get over himself, accept his father for who he (or she?) is, and just invite his estranged dad to the wedding. The plotline is about accepting the non-conforming person.

So...

1. Friends (or any show) shouldn't be judged by our standards
2. The quality of any show has nothing to do with its politics or "wokeness"; ticking boxes does not equal artistic merit.
3. BUT EVEN SO, Friends was always kinda woke. It had a lesbian couple portrayed without exploitation, a plotline about accepting a trans father, and so everybody ripping on Friends for those reasons can take a hike.

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Friends is hilarious to those WITH a sense of humor. Those who are offended by everything definately don't have those.
They do not understand rhe concept of joke, humor, sattire, comedy.
They have idiotic, archaic rules of...this you can joke about but not that, you are evil if tou have a joke about a holy, sacred topic, one that cannot be mentioned.

They make the world a miserable place.

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The humor is not "outdated". It's still just as funny as it was then. It has aged well. It's not "problematic". If you are so stupid that it makes you feel unsafe, here's a perfect solution: don't watch it.

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