"Friends was racist and sexist"

jimgoose

_Dara_ wrote: »

I never found TBBT funny and always thought its premise lacked legs.

I should like The Big Bang Theory, but I can't. I don't get it. What exactly are they trying to do with Sheldon Cooper? Is he autistic? Or more of a sort of a Mr. Humphries for the 21st century?

Ash.J.Williams

Anyone offended by a 90s show in this century really needs to go to YouTube and watch an episode of "love thy neighbour"

_Dara_

Relikk wrote: »

Each to their own and all that, but I genuinely feel a little sorry for people who think Friends is one of the funniest T.V. shows they've ever seen.

I’ve watched and loved a lot of comedies down the years, including some critical darlings and IMO classic Friends holds its own with most of them. I understand that some people just don’t like the show but there is, and always has been, a sniffiness towards the show from many, an implication that if you find it funny, you’re unsophisticated. I genuinely think a lot of these people haven’t even given the show a chance or would never admit to finding it funny. Some people just don’t want to think that something can be simultaneously hugely popular AND good.

Ash.J.Williams

_Dara_ wrote: »

I’ve watched and loved a lot of comedies down the years, including some critical darlings and IMO classic Friends holds its own with most of them. I understand that some people just don’t like the show but there is, and always has been, a sniffiness towards the show from many, an implication that if you find it funny, you’re unsophisticated. I genuinely think a lot of these people haven’t even given the show a chance or would never admit to finding it funny. Some people just don’t want think that something can be simultaneously hugely popular AND good.

I think it's just so mainstream that most comedy fans would give it a miss or at least pretend to

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGesyvKfAOA

Greyfox

You have to watch a full episode of something to have an opinion on it as your not going to "get" what a character is about after 5 mins. In fairness to friends they will be still showing repeats in 20 years time as most of the episodes are about relationship situations that will still be relevant for a long long time.

ancapailldorcha

jimgoose wrote: »

I should like The Big Bang Theory, but I can't. I don't get it. What exactly are they trying to do with Sheldon Cooper? Is he autistic? Or more of a sort of a Mr. Humphries for the 21st century?

I reckon so but it seems that rather than do anything truly original or present rounded human characters, the creators have opted to offer up a rebranding of the same slop we've seen countless times before. It could have been a really interesting way to present the difficulties someone with Aspergers or HFA has to deal with but, well... I don't know. Maybe the BBC will make something that'll do that.

Ralf and Florian

Suspiciously transphobic sounding tweet from our Sam.

https://twitter.com/samrboland/status/953295043984535552

gormdubhgorm

Ralf and Florian wrote: »

So say Millenials and SJWs.



http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/friends-netflix-sexist-racist-transphobic-problematic-millenials-watch-a8154626.html





https://twitter.com/samrboland/status/952957719757099008

I feel this you-tube video sums up this thread neatly.
Ironically it was filmed in 1992 just two years before the friends tv show

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Actually, if you watch MWC you will notice Al complaining about political correctness a lot.
He truly was a visionary.

That would be because at the time the show was made the US was going through a rather similar time to today. People often say "political correctness" emerged in the early 90s, died down for a while, and reemerged in this decade. South Park references this in its 'PC Principal' storyline. It's also why a movie called 'PCU' came out in the 90s.

_Dara_

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I reckon so but it seems that rather than do anything truly original or present rounded human characters, the creators have opted to offer up a rebranding of the same slop we've seen countless times before. It could have been a really interesting way to present the difficulties someone with Aspergers or HFA has to deal with but, well... I don't know. Maybe the BBC will make something that'll do that.

I agree. I feel like TBBT did have potential but I just don’t feel that the writing was strong enough. And I think the premise was too restrictive. But in the hands of better writers, a sitcom about nerdy scientists could have been great.

Tea Shock

Think Friends suffers from the effects of very very over rated historical US sitcoms like Cheers and The Cosby Show.

I honestly don't know how Friends lasted 10 years. Whatever about the last 3-5 years, the first 3-5 years were utterly, utterly dreadful!

_Dara_

Tea Shock wrote: »

Think Friends suffers from the effects of very very over rated historical US sitcoms like Cheers and The Cosby Show.

I honestly don't know how Friends lasted 10 years. Whatever about the last 3-5 years, the first 3-5 years were utterly, utterly dreadful!

I presume you mean the last five were terrible, not the first five? The first five seasons were, if not to everyone’s taste, high quality.

I think six series would have been enough personally. There’s a reason why Ricky Gervais was adamant he was done with The Office after two series and a Christmas special and why Linehan and Mathews felt the same way about Father Ted. There comes a time when a group’s tale is told. Anything after that leads to caricutures, flanderisation or shark-jumping.

bnt

jimgoose wrote: »

I should like The Big Bang Theory, but I can't. I don't get it. What exactly are they trying to do with Sheldon Cooper? Is he autistic? Or more of a sort of a Mr. Humphries for the 21st century?

I'm not sure the makers / writers really knew either. They took a risk in having a main character who's genuinely at odds with the world. Though they don't explicitly say so, Sheldon clearly has some form of high-functioning autism (HFA) such as Asperger Syndrome. It's not as if he's bothered by that - he things he's normal and everyone else is stupid and/or crazy.

I think the show is at its best when Sheldon questions the assumptions we all make and the things we "just do" because they're "normal". The other characters have their flaws too. But overall, the show is about how the characters change over time, and now even Sheldon is becoming more conventional. You can find online articles and videos complaining about how the characters are bigoted in various ways - racist, sexist, misogynistic, and generally immature - which may have been true at the start, the story being about how they're growing up to become better people.

dr.fuzzenstein

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I reckon so but it seems that rather than do anything truly original or present rounded human characters, the creators have opted to offer up a rebranding of the same slop we've seen countless times before. It could have been a really interesting way to present the difficulties someone with Aspergers or HFA has to deal with but, well... I don't know. Maybe the BBC will make something that'll do that.

I don't think we should expect TBBT to be a serious program that delves deeply into various social and psychological aspects of various near autistic conditions and their effects on the individual concerned and the people around them.
Maybe I'm the only one, but somehow that doesn't seem to fit in with the format.

And the Brits wouldn't be that much different. To me the equivalent if TBBT would have been the IT Crowd. All the characters are just crazy, one dimensional caricatures with zero development and there was no delving into their deeper psyche.
And it was absolutely fcuking great. Just humor for the sake of it without edgy or gritty storylines and deeper personal drama.
Why can't comedy just be fcuking comedy sometimes. Doesn't have to be Purlitzer price winning high brow literature.

Ash.J.Williams

if we can look back 20 years and think wtf were we like that means we live in an evolving society and that's good (although I think we're evolving towards extinction)

jimgoose

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

...Why can't comedy just be fcuking comedy sometimes. Doesn't have to be Purlitzer price winning high brow literature.

Oh yeah, I agree - I love the IT Crowd, I just can't get TBBT.

sbsquarepants

Relikk wrote: »

Each to their own and all that, but I genuinely feel a little sorry for people who think Friends is one of the funniest T.V. shows they've ever seen.

Any chance of that show recommendation, no?

Foxhound38

Identity politics is absolute poison.

These easily offended eejits want to chisel down acceptable expression until all we are left with for entertainment is this sort of shyte...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTBfYWezDd4

ancapailldorcha

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

I don't think we should expect TBBT to be a serious program that delves deeply into various social and psychological aspects of various near autistic conditions and their effects on the individual concerned and the people around them.
Maybe I'm the only one, but somehow that doesn't seem to fit in with the format.

And the Brits wouldn't be that much different. To me the equivalent if TBBT would have been the IT Crowd. All the characters are just crazy, one dimensional caricatures with zero development and there was no delving into their deeper psyche.
And it was absolutely fcuking great. Just humor for the sake of it without edgy or gritty storylines and deeper personal drama.
Why can't comedy just be fcuking comedy sometimes. Doesn't have to be Purlitzer price winning high brow literature.

You're missing my point. There's no reason whatsoever that a comedy can't be hilarious while having rounded characters. Only Fools and Horses is a great example of this.

Sonics2k

From having a depressingly long look through Twitter, I could find a lot more people complaining about people being offended by Friends, rather than actual people claiming to be offended by Friends.

It's a total non-story designed to get clicks on to crappy news sites.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Sonics2k wrote: »

From having a depressingly long look through Twitter, I could find a lot more people complaining about people being offended by Friends, rather than actual people claiming to be offended by Friends.

It's a total non-story designed to get clicks on to crappy news sites.

This is pretty much it. A lot of the people complaining about people getting offended certainly love getting offended themselves.

OldNotWIse

Snowflakes in retrospective offence shocker :pac:

vetinari

Seriously, people giving out about Snowflakes / SJW are the biggest moaners ever.
All it takes is about 5 people on twitter saying Friends is a bit racist to trigger them.
Why are such people so defensive?
I think it's fair to say the jokes about Ross's lesbian ex wife haven't aged too well.
You can still enjoy the show though. No one is stopping anyone watching it.

OldNotWIse

People moaning about people moaning about snowflakes - now there is a growing army. It's exponential! :P

vetinari

Well, there seems to be far more people moaning about snowflakes than actual snowflakes.
As Sonics2k mentioned, there's an army of people ready to just jump into outrage mode if they come across something they perceive too PC on twitter. I see a lot more of those threads than people actually posting about something offending them.

bnt

There's a decent op-ed in The Guardian that defies the usual Guardian party line: it defends Friends againt the current wave of revisionist criticism. Extract:

In one of the most lambasted episodes, the ever-annoying Ross takes issue with a male nanny, asking if he’s gay, refusing to hire him, and mocking him to his friends. In i-D magazine, millennials interviewed read this as homophobic, which I’d agree with. What they omit, though, is that Ross later reveals that this is caused by his own issues with toxic masculinity, a struggle many men still face. How are we to progress into an educated, truthful place if we swap comedic dialogue for a monologue of prescribed rhetoric?

Ken.

I see that netflix have now removed friends and the snowflakes have moved on to Only fools and horses.

darkdubh

That Channel 4 show It Was Allright In The 70's was a prime example of taking advantage of retrospective snowflakeism. Picking out the most politically incorrect clips they can find from 70's sitcoms and showing them to easily triggered millenials to gauge their reactions. It felt like a cynical enterprise.

The_Valeyard

Conspectus wrote: »

I see that netflix have now removed friends and the snowflakes have moved on to Only fools and horses.

You serious????

Netflix are a bunch of cowards