We knew, of course, that any “reunion” (a.k.a. a payout opportunity of 2.5 million dollars each) with the cast of Friends was bound to be, if not disappointing, then at least utterly hollow. Still, “hope dies last” as they say, and oh, how Friends: The Reunion killed any yearning select fans and obligated viewers might have had for redemption. This, after all, was a grand opportunity to address some of the more glaring issues with the show, currently being spoon-fed to a new generation that, despite their cries of “fluidity” and “diversity,” still can’t get enough of this series—the “comfort food” of television, as it were.
But comfort, as Amazon has taught us, always has a higher long-term price. And Friends, much like the late 90s/early 00s pop that “subtly” brainwashed female tweens and teens into believing that 1950s yarn about submission to men, brainwashed a lot of others into thinking only white people live in New York (or “New York” as depicted on a Burbank backlot). Opening with the cast members entering Stage 24 separately, the hugs and gushings ensue before they proceed to be interviewed by James Corden because, well, why not?—he, too, will do anything for the right fee. But prior to the sit-down, there’s a title card that commences the special by noting, “Since the finale, the cast members have been in a room all together only once. Until today…” And why does one think that is? That the people who claim to be “family” can only seem to get together en masse when paid an exorbitant sum? Maybe it’s because, apart from family being a pain in the ass, some aspect of their internal monologue expresses a slight shame for perpetuating the cycle of white supremacy in pop culture, and doesn’t want to be triggered by being around the other people who made that possible as well. Like a Woody Allen movie, Friends has stood out all the more over time for its glaring commitment to blinding whiteness. “Oh but Monica and Ross are supposed to be Jewish, isn’t that ‘ethnic’ enough?” Uh no, not quite. Just ask the cast of Seinfeld.
While most sitcoms have a tendency not to age well because of their tunnel vision need to “go for the laughs,” Friends has perhaps had less of an excuse than, say, something like I Love Lucy (complete with Ricky spanking Lucy when she misbehaves). Because this show was on-air in the “post-feminist,” “post-woke” 90s. What excuse did it really have to be so retro, other than airing on a network that gets its financial bread and butter from a largely Middle American audience?
Excuse enough, clearly. So it was that we had such vexing character elements as the fact that the artists of the group were paid paltrily in comparison to those who were willing to be corporate shills in their twenties. As though to reiterate to a mass audience that a “career” in the arts will only work out for obtaining food, clothing and shelter in TV land (and even there, just barely), one can’t help but think of all the undercutting dissuasions from such a path as actor, chef, “fashionista” and musician might have been made thanks to Joey, Monica, Rachel and Phoebe (note: the majority being the female half of the crew). A monetary disparity that was most highlighted in “The One With Five Steaks and an Eggplant,” which should, of course, have been called “The One With Hootie and the Blowfish.” Here, Joey, Rachel and Phoebe are finally forced to speak out against Ross, Chandler and Monica (whose financial “bliss” turns out to be ephemeral because she’s a woman, so duh) for always wanting to do expensive, bougie shit. This includes the plan to celebrate Ross’ birthday with tickets to Hootie and the Blowfish. Which, incidentally, is about the “Blackest” Friends gets… without ever actually showing the band’s lead singer.
So it is that the pay gap between the artists and the corporates seems only to underline the point that the successful ones, in the end, opt out of the art they were originally trying to “monetize.” After all, Joey ends up selling out for the soap opera gig (fuck the theater), Rachel chooses Ross over a more prosperous, challenging career based in Paris, Monica settles with Chandler and even the resident “weirdo” Phoebe succumbs to the notion of falling into the little wife role with Mike (Paul Rudd).
When the actors are questioned on Friends: The Reunion about where their characters would be now, the best they can offer—even still—is that they’re all married with kids somewhere. Kudrow speculates that Phoebe is in Connecticut, but that she’s “advocating” for those who are “different,” which one supposes just means a student who is interested in the arts. Shit, when you look at the show now, it feels like one of the characters really ought to be named Karen.
Grasping at straws on how to play up some kind of “diversity” angle, or at least an allyship one, they drum up Lady Gaga to appear at Central Perk and sing “Smelly Cat” with Phoebe, thanking Kudrow afterward for her performance and commitment to being “the different one.” Uh, literally, Phoebe wasn’t “different.” She’s a heterosexual white lady who just happens to be fucking annoying while passing it off as “quirk.” But then, that’s kind of the case with Lady Gaga, too, so in this way, her cameo makes a bit of sense.
Other ways in which the reunion tries its best to gloss over Friends’ inherent whiteness and the damaging effects of its staunch commitment to an almost calculated colorlessness is by offering a segment of people from around the world talking about their love of the show. But, to be frank, it doesn’t exactly scream “forward-thinking” that a Ghanaian woman is impressed by the fact that Monica asked Chandler to marry him like it’s some grand testament to defying gender norms.
Markedly absent from the cameo roundup was Aisha Tyler a.k.a. the only Black person to appear on the show for multiple episodes (wow, nine). Yes, Gabrielle Union claimed the first “speaking role” for a Black person on Friends, but was given no such character arc—if that’s what it can be called—as Charlie (Tyler). Of the role, Tyler would later comment, “I knew it was something new for the show, and it was really important because, the fact of the matter was, it was a show set in Manhattan that was almost entirely Caucasian. It was an unrealistic representation of what the real world looked like.” And it seems to be, based on this reunion, one that the cast is all too happy to continue ignoring by not mentioning it at all. Why bring up the longstanding (white) elephant in the room? Keep it light, airy. Like the show itself.
While some might have expected Brad Pitt to materialize considering he’s decidedly Team Aniston now, he doesn’t bother with it either. But his guest appearance on the show is brought up, at which time no one seems to want to mention the heinousness of how his character started a rumor about Rachel in high school that she was intersex as a means to get her made fun of. Even then, the episode was met with backlash from the Intersex Society of North America, lambasting the episode with Devon King’s missive, “Your Thanksgiving episode was ignorant, insulting, degrading and absolutely unprofessional.” Alas, as with most of the things that get called out for being rather horrendous on Friends, Marta Kauffman is there to say something dismissively apologetic like, “I might not have done the hermaphrodite stuff today if I had that to do over in the one with Brad Pitt.” Um, “hermaphrodite stuff”? Way to sound super evolved since the era of the episode in question.
Elsewhere on the lack of evolution front (no paleontology reference meant), rather than bringing up Ross’ frequent creepiness/predatory behavior, it seemed Schwimmer preferred to talk up the crush he and Aniston had on one another throughout the initial seasons of the series. Because why broach the inappropriate relationship between Ross and his student, Elizabeth Stevens (Alexandra Holden), or his attempt to create an inappropriate relationship between him and his cousin, Cassie (Denise Richards)? The incest didn’t stop there in Friends either, for then there was the revelation that Monica’s first kiss was actually shared with Ross, smokescreened by a darkened room (something Billie and Finneas have probably fallen prey to as well).
Friends’ systematic disregard for its sexual indecorousness doesn’t fall squarely on Ross’ shoulders, however. Take, for example, the casual “joke” in the script for “The One With Ross’ New Girlfriend” about Joey realizing he was sexually abused by his tailor for years until Chandler went to try out the old man for himself and informs Joey afterward, essentially, “No, that’s not the extent of how ‘fittings’ go.” Chandler himself is well-renowned for being homophobic despite having a “drag queen” and “gay” father (played by Kathleen Turner). Again, correct terminology is not Friends’ forte. Unless it’s for Phoebe to call out bisexuals with the lyrics, “Sometimes men love men/And sometimes men love women/And then there are bisexuals, though some just say they’re kidding themselves.”
Dealing with non-heterosexuality on the show at the time might have been seen as “enlightened,” but looking back, treating Chandler’s transgender (though that word is never used) father as a running joke, not showing a kiss between Carol and Susan at their wedding and mocking Joey incessantly for donning a “man bag” in “The One With Joey’s Bag” are all signs of a patent narrow-mindedness. One that also extends into the territory of treating a woman like property.
Case in point, in Friends: The Reunion, the cast chooses to riff off “The One With the Apartment Bet” game. Leading Schwimmer to ask the other five friends trivia questions that include the presence of the barbershop quartet Ross gets to sing for Rachel in season three. Wanting Aniston or Cox to finish out the lyrics, what doesn’t get brought up is how denigrating it was for Ross to send a singing telegram to her office like he was marking his “possession” by announcing, “Congratulations on your first week at your brand-new job! It won’t be long before you’re the boss. And you know who will be there to support you? Your one and only boyfriend—it’s nice to have a boyfriend—your loyal, loving boyfriend, Ross—Ross!” As Rachel put it in the episode, “It was like you were marking your territory. I mean you might have well have just come in and peed all around my desk!”
Unfortunately, it isn’t just misogyny, homophobia and “negrophobia” (yes, it’s a real word) that thrive on Friends, but even cacomorphobia. Having Courteney Cox dress up in a fat suit to garner laughs about her weight/how unlovable she was back in her teen years isn’t really something that ever needs to see the light of day again. For “the gag” only further promoted the idea that if you want to be loved in a romantic capacity, let alone accepted by society, you need to be “cut down to size.” Kind of like Friends ought to have been in this reunion, but instead looked upon it as a chance for more self-aggrandizement.
Accenting that nothing has changed for Friends or how its participants see it, only white celebrities (apart from Mindy Kaling, who appeared to show up because she studies comedy like a dweebo) are there to comment on the show’s impact. Otherwise, it’s nothing but a literal parade of white people as they walk down the runway to model “iconic” costumes from the show. You have Cara Delevingne, Cindy Crawford and the number one appropriator of Black culture at the moment, Justin Bieber. Like whaaaaat? How is anyone so okay with reveling in the very characteristic that makes the show even more cringe-worthy in the present?
In many ways, the fact that a two-part finale of Friends’ fourth season takes them back to Anglican mecca—Britain—is all too fitting an evocation. This is the country where their kind was born. It’s almost like “bottling whiteness at the source” and taking it back to “New York.”
Kauffman would also go on to state that it wasn’t a “conscious decision” to only cast white leads for the show (not bothering to mention why there were no non-white non-leads either). That it was all just a matter of “finding the right voice” for the character. She doesn’t seem to think it’s odd that it would never occur to her or anyone else involved that one of those voices could be a person of color. That perpetuating the trope of how races don’t (and apparently “shouldn’t”) commingle wasn’t helpful to an already intrinsically white supremacist country.
So sure, Friends: The Reunion can bill itself as a celebration of how the series continues to be a uniting comfort to all (mainly the cast members being compensated in twenty million dollars’ worth of royalties a year), but the reality is, it’s been one of the greatest advocates for division and separatism ever to grace supposedly modern airwaves.
