FOREVER FRIENDS
APPEAL OF THE ICONIC HIT U.S. SITCOM
BThe show is doing fine. A reunion could only disappoint MARTHA KAUFMANN
EFORE Netflix bought Friends in 2015, its popularity had stalled. It was still comfort viewing for those who watched live on Friday nights back in the day. But its E4 reruns were over and it had moved to subscription-only.
This made it the I Love Lucy of the 21st century, with random episodes popping up if a remote control-flicker made it as far as the Comedy Channel. Perky whiteness and bootcut jeans were starting to feel old.
Then Netflix bought it for $30million and introduced the binge-watching generation to pivoting, lobsters and being on a break. Being able to watch episodes back to back hooked in a new student demographic and gave the show a new lease of life.
It also found a new audience of children who liked the pet monkey, daft songs about malodorous pets and Ross dressed as an armadillo. To their parents’ relief, all the references to sex whizzed over their heads.
Part of its appeal was nostalgia for an age this audience had just missed.
When Friends ended in 2004, the cast had mobile phones but kept them in their pockets. When they got together in Central Perk, they talked to each other. Other people they knew – Chandler’s ex, Janice, or Ross’s non- Rachel girlfriends – would show up and join in the conversation.
The six characters at the heart of the show socialise in a way that does not happen any more. They set up dates for friends or ask hot strangers how they are doin’. No swiping.
They drop into each other’s homes without texting first. Once they’re there, they do more than show each other funny videos of parakeets that look like the Kardashians.
When they make plans, they stick to them and don’t bale out by text at the last minute because something that might possibly be more exciting has blipped on their screens.
They were real life friends. Today, they would be a WhatsApp group.
Chandler, Ross and Monica have careers that leave them plenty of free time for hanging out. Joey, Rachel and Phoebe have more precarious jobs but can still afford to lead a pretty delightful life. Student debt, overdrafts, zero hours contracts and the impossibility of ever buying property are never mentioned.
No wonder young adults find it delicious escapism, close enough to be in living memory but a million miles from their own recession-defined lives.
They don’t watch it uncritically. In its second life, Friends has been criticised for its lack of diversity, homophobia, sexism, borderline emotional abuse and sexual harassment in a way that was rarely raised the first time around.
Ross’s outrage that his son is playing with a Barbie, Rachel hiring Tag purely because he is hot and everyone teasing Joey because he carries something that resembles a handbag would not be acceptable today. The constant fat-shaming of young Monica, played for cheap laughs by Courtney Cox in a cruel fatsuit, would be a red flag.
There were only two non-white characters, Ross’s girlfriends Julie and Dr Charlie Wheeler. Not an accurate representation of a racially diverse city such as Manhattan.
Chandler’s trans father, played by Kathleen Turner, is a whole pile of wrong that would be handled in a completely different way today.
These millennial reservations don’t concern the other key new audience for Friends – children. Young viewers love the daft comedy and physical gags and don’t yet know they are giggling at an imbalanced power relationship that could lose Ross his job.
Brands from New Look to Asos are cashing in on the kids’ new obsession, with everything from branded pyjamas to pencil cases. There’s a Friends-themed cafe in Primark in Manchester, where harassed parents can have coffee and cake while their children queue up to have their picture taken on an approximate copy of the Central Perk velvet couch.
Friends Fest, an attraction run by the Comedy Central channel, is another way to part fans of the show from their money. For £32 plus booking fee, devotees can hang out in a recreation of Chandler and Monica’s apartment and spend more cash on Friends-themed food, drink and merchandise.
This money-sucking machine, which tours the country and was in Glasgow last year, regularly sells out. A special Christmas version, Friends Festive, hits London in December.
This six-wheeled bandwagon will not stop rolling any time soon. Netflix paid $100million to keep Friends until 2020, when owners Warner Bros is expected to start its own streaming service. At the moment, it earns the media firm $1billion a year. Thanks to some smart negotiating for seasons nine and 10, resale rights bring the cast $20million a year each.
Despite this, producer Marta Kaufmann has vetoed a reunion. It’s a big question every time one of the cast does an interview and Jennifer Aniston has indicated she is up for it.
But its creator thinks Chandler’s mid-life crisis and Ross and Rachel’s PTA traumas would kill the magic.
“One, the show is about a time in your life when your friends are your family. It’s not that time any more,” Kaufmann told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “All we’d be doing is putting those six actors back together but the heart of the show would be gone.
“Two, I don’t know what good it does us. The show is doing just fine, people love it. A reunion could only disappoint.”