Invisible Fat Women on ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and ‘The Big Bang Theory’

Several sitcoms, however, rely not on the on-screen presence of a so-called “unruly body,” but rather on the imagined image on an off-screen one.

The casts of CBS’s How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory
The casts of CBS’s How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory

 


This guest post by Stephanie Brown appears as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.


Trevor Noah, heir to The Daily Show throne, recently came under fire for some fat jokes, (among others) that he made on Twitter, demonstrating once again that fat jokes, especially about women, have long been a staple of the comedy writer’s toolbox. Critics of Noah seem to forget that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have been making jokes about Chris Christie’s weight for years, a disturbing trend that NPR’s Linda Holmes beautifully addressed in an essay last year. You would think Christie’s policies and actions as governor would provide more than enough material for satire, but comics have found that using fatness as a punch line is a reliable way to get cheap laughs.

Sitcoms, too, have frequently been guilty of using “fat” as a punch line. From Monica’s fat-suit flashbacks on Friends, to Mike and Molly’s poking fun at its main characters, to the Seavers’ constant ribbing of Carol about her weight on Growing Pains (made more disturbing by the fact that Tracy Gold suffered from a serious eating disorder), sitcoms have long made fun of characters for taking up too much space on screen. Often characterized as a moral failing, fatness is policed through ridicule. Such jokes tend to rely on the mere presence of an overweight character to generate laughs.

Courtney Cox in her “Monica fat-suit.”
Courtney Cox in her “Monica fat-suit.”

 

Several sitcoms, however, rely not on the on-screen presence of a so-called “unruly body,” but rather on the imagined image on an off-screen one. For instance, on NBC’s Will and Grace, Grace’s sidekick Karen consistently rattles off one-liners about her obese husband Stan. CBS’s The Big Bang Theory (2007-) continues in this tradition with its recurring jokes and storylines about Howard Wolowitz’s mother.

Howard Wolowitz in his signature colors
Howard Wolowitz in his signature colors

 

Howard is an engineer turned astronaut who lives for a majority of the series with his overbearing mother. The difference between Stan and Mrs. Wolowitz is, of course, that we hear Howard’s mother, played by the recently deceased actress Carol Ann Susi. Howard obviously loves his mother, despite their constant bickering, and the show deals with the death of both the actress and the character very poignantly. Regardless of any underlying affection toward Mrs. Wolowitz, though, the show generally mines humor from descriptions of her unseen obesity.

Throughout the course of the The Big Bang Theory, Mrs. Wolowitz’s weight provides an easy punch line for Howard and his friends. In “The Hawking Excitation” (5.21), Sheldon apparently sprains his wrist helping Howard’s mom into a dress when he takes her clothes shopping. Earlier in the series in “The Engagement Reaction”(4.23), Penny reacts with disbelief to Howard’s story of lifting his mother in order to take her to the hospital, joking that Mrs. Wolowitz’s own legs could barely lift her up. Not only is Mrs. Wolowitz characterized by her weight, she is also described as an overbearing, gluttonous nag. In her character we see the ways in which obesity is tied to morality and humanity, or rather, a lack thereof. And, because she never appears on screen, the audience is free to imagine an even more extreme version of this stereotypical character.

Notably, Mrs. Wolowitz appears briefly on screen during “The Spoiler Alert Segmentation” (6.15), walking back and forth through a doorway behind Raj while he sits in the dining room. Her appearance is meant to work as a sight gag not only because the audience has never seen her, but also because the mere presence of an overweight body is reason enough to laugh.

A faceless Mrs. Wolowitz appears behind Raj as he eats dinner.
A faceless Mrs. Wolowitz appears behind Raj as he eats dinner.

 

While CBS’s How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) doesn’t have a defined invisible fat character to use as a punching bag, the show is similarly permeated by fatphobia. The series, centering on a group of five friends in New York City navigating their late 20s and early 30s, is told from the perspective of the show’s main character, Ted Mosby. For a show that was often wonderfully smart, funny, and sweet, the writers’ strange obsession with making fun of fat women was often infuriating and frequently baffling, as others have noticed and written at length about.

While most of the show’s characters get in a “fat chick” joke at some point during the show’s run, most of the fat panic stems from Barney, the show’s resident bro-y bachelor. While the audience was likely originally meant to read Barney as an entitled, misogynist jerk, because he’s played by likeable human Neil Patrick Harris, the argument that we’re meant to be disgusted by Barney’s behavior rings hollow. Indeed, this site has previously written about the show’s unsettling misogynistic streak.

Barney demonstrates his notoriously icky “Crazy/Hot” Scale.
Barney demonstrates his notoriously icky “Crazy/Hot” Scale.

 

Like his misogyny, Barney’s fat jokes span the entirely of the series. He feels the need to constantly assert that he doesn’t have sex with fat women, in one instance making his friends swear a “broath” not to interfere with his life unless “unless it is a matter of health, national security or I’m about to get up on a fattie” (“The Broath,” 7.19). He also feels the need to warn his friends not to have sex with fat women. In the season three episode “Third Wheel” (3.3), he makes sure the combined weight of the ladies Ted is about to have a threesome with is “under 400 pounds.” If that weren’t enough, he frequently makes proclamations that no one should have sex with fat women:

Minister: If you want to get married in my church, you’ll stop breaking the ninth commandment.

Barney: Uh, no fat chicks?

Minister: Thou shalt not lie!

Barney: With fat chicks?

(“Knight Vision, “ 9.06)

Rather than punish him for his sociopathic, misogynistic conduct, the show rewards Barney with clever one-liners and fancy suits.

Just one of Barney’s many proclamations of his own awesomeness.
Just one of Barney’s many proclamations of his own awesomeness.

 

His friends make half-hearted attempts at condemning his behavior, but even they join in on the show’s the panoply of fatphobia, like when Marshall tells Barney that he “sounds like a fat girl on Valentine’s Day” (“Not Father’s Day,” 4.7). Even Lily and Robin often join in gleefully mocking other women. This includes, of course, making fun of the mere idea of fat women. Robin joins in with Marshall and Barney in this lovely exchange after Ted tells them about a wealthy architecture client:

Marshall: He’s rich? Please tell me he wrote you a big, fat check. A check so fat, it doesn’t its shirt off when it goes swimming.

Barney: That is a big, fat check. A check so fat, after you have sex with it, you don’t tell your buddies about it.

Robin: A check so fat, when it sits next to you on an airplane, you ask yourself if it should have bought two seats.

(“Fast As She Can,” 4.23).

Like the characters in The Big Bang Theory, Barney and his friends don’t direct their cruelty at a visible person. They don’t direct their jokes at any specific person at all, but rather at all fat women. Their jokes construct fat women not as people with feelings let alone family, friends, or lovers. They’re either a joke or a disembodied threat to the main characters’ sexual pride.   Nameless, faceless, and bodiless, these imagined, invisible women are, like Mrs. Wolowitz, treated as less than human.

An addendum to this point is the way the show treats one of the only fat characters, Robin’s co-worker Patrice. Patrice’s main function on the show was to be yelled at by Robin for no reason and, eventually, to act as Barney’s fake girlfriend so he can convince Robin that he has changed his philandering ways and is now marriage material.

Barney talks to Patrice as Robin, Ted, and Lily try to discern the true nature of their relationship.
Barney talks to Patrice as Robin, Ted, and Lily try to discern the true nature of their relationship.

 

This particular storyline shows us, once again, that a fat character’s only function is to act as comic relief and to help the traditionally attractive main characters find love. She may be visible, but her visibility is conditional on performing the one-dimensional supportive friend that so many underdeveloped, potentially interesting fat characters have before been relegated. As Michael Arbieter of Hollywood.com noted about the storyline:

“We can’t be left to forgive Barney and How I Met Your Mother, to subjugate and marginalize Patrice. The fact that we’re asked to do this so cavalierly is frightening.”

Indeed, the casualness and frequency with which the characters make fat jokes on The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, two series that frequently deal with themes of friendship and belonging, imbues them both with an unnecessary cruelty. While fat jokes are often wielded as a way police on-screen bodies, the ridiculing of absent bodies even further objectifies fat people. By not even giving the audience a chance to identify with the character or characters being ridiculed, all subjectivity is, in essence, taken away. Such erasure tells the audience, yet again, that thinness is the price of admission to our television sets. Not only are these characters deserving of ridicule based on their appearance, their appearance is so distasteful as to be banished from the screen.

As we’re reminded by anonymous online harassment or something as simple as talking badly about an absent friend, distance and invisibility often enable cruelty.

Barney just about sums it up.
Barney just about sums it up.

 

While film and television have historically mistreated and relegated fat characters to supporting status, How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory push their fat characters completely off screen. Such distancing brings the process of dehumanization to its natural conclusion, allowing fat-phobia to rage unchallenged.

As Lily once tells Ted, “If there’s one thing you never do, it’s call a woman fat right to her face!” (“The Mermaid Theory,” 6.11). Otherwise, you might actually have to take responsibility for those words.

 


Stephanie Brown is a television, comedy, and podcast enthusiaist working on her doctorate in media studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

 

 

Unlikable Women: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts for our Unlikable Women Theme Week here.

Dolores Jane Umbridge: Page, Screen, and Stage by Jackson Adler

Umbridge works as Undersecretary to Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge. Through her position in the patriarchal wizarding government, Umbridge enables job discrimination, segregation, incarceration and harsh sentencing, and physical violence and genocide against marginalized people. She not only politically supports these efforts, but personally enacts violence against marginalized people and their allies, including children.


Never Fear: Unlikable Black Women on Orange Is the New Black and Luther by Rachel Wortherly

When I searched my mental rolodex for Black female characters in film or television who are unlikable my mind continued to circle. I was lost.


“I’m Not Bad, I’m Just Drawn That Way”: The Exceptionally Beautiful Anti-Heroine by Jessica Carbone

And if you’re anything like me, every reader of this site wants the same thing: to see more portrayals of women on film, televisions, and beyond that reflect their complexities, strengths and weakness alike. We want a greater range of body types, a greater representation of lifestyle choices, a broader world of occupations and skill sets and backstories and destinies.


Evil-Lyn: Fantasy’s Underrated Icon by Robert Aldrich

A character with few rivals and even fewer scruples, Evil-Lyn was arguably one of the better developed villains in the show. And in the annals of females from sci-fi/fantasy, her name should be spoken of in the same breath as Wonder Woman and Princess Leia.


A Fine Frenzy: With an Outspoken Anti-Heroine and a Feminist Lens, Young Adult Is Excellent by Megan Kearns

In this witty, hilarious and bittersweet dramedy, Theron plays Mavis Gary, an author of young adult books living in Minneapolis. Mavis’ life is a hot mess. She’s divorced, drinks her life away and the book series she writes is coming to an end. She was the popular mean girl in high school who escaped to the big city. Mavis returns to her small hometown in Minnesota full of Taco Bells and KFCs intending to reclaim her old glory days and her ex-boyfriend, who’s happily married with a new baby. As she fucks up, she eventually questions what she wants out of life.


Political Humor and Humanity in HBO’s VEEP by Rachel Redfern

She’s a toxic political figure, a creator of monumental gaffes and inappropriate situations who doesn’t even have the excuse of good intentions. Her intentions are always self-serving and she treats her staff atrociously, often assigning them the blame for her mistakes.


Bad Girls and (Not-So)-Guilty Pleasures in The Bling Ring by Amy Woolsey

Coppola’s refusal to condemn, explain or apologize for her characters makes for a rather opaque experience. To state the obvious, these are not likable individuals. They exhibit no visible remorse for their crimes, seemingly oblivious to the concept of personal boundaries, and think about little besides fashion and D-list celebrities.


Why Maxine from Being John Malkovich Is The Best by Sara Century

Maxine is a perfect character. She stands up for herself, takes no guff off of anyone, and goes for what she wants while issuing remarkable and hilarious ultimatums to those around her. I don’t just like Maxine. I don’t just love Maxine. I am Maxine.


American Mary: In Praise of the Amoral Final Girl by Mychael Blinde

Directed by the Soska sisters, American Mary features a complicated female protagonist who starts out as a likable badass but ends up as an amoral psycho. The film celebrates the power of bodily autonomy and depicts the horror of taking it away.


Reclaiming Conch: In Defense of Ursula, Fairy Octomother by Brigit McCone

Ursula’s show-stopper, “Poor, Unfortunate Souls,” presents case studies of mermen and mermaids made miserable by culture. What this song really teaches is that internalizing cultural messages is a fatal weakness, and rejecting cultural conditioning is a source of great power. Small wonder that Ursula had to die the most gruesome onscreen death in all of Disney.


Bad Girls Go to Heaven: Hollywood’s Feminist Rebels by Emanuela Betti

Hollywood has produced some of the most memorable bad girls and wicked women on-screen—from silent era’s infamous vamps to film noir’s femme fatales—but bad women do more than just entertain, particularly if we’re talking about the sweepingly emotional and excessively dramatic world of woman’s melodrama.


Why We Love Janice and Why We Love to Hate Janice by Artemis Linhart

Is Chandler going somewhere, just minding his own business? Chances are that Janice is just around the corner. As Janice once put it, “You seek me out. Something deep in your soul calls out to me like a foghorn. Jaaa-nice. Jaaa-nice.”


Cristina Yang As Feminist by Scarlett Harris

As people, no matter what gender, it is seemingly second nature to want others to like us and to portray our best selves to them. Just look at the ritual of the date or the job interview. That Cristina defied this action (though we have seen her star-struck when meeting surgeons like Tom Evans and Preston Burke) made her not just a feminist character, but a truly human(ist) one.


Triumphing Mad Men’s Peggy Olson by Sarah Smyth

What exactly, then, makes a character “unlikeable”? How can we define this complex term? Broadly, a character is unlikeable when they behave in an amoral or unethical way (which, of course, depends upon our individual morals and ethics), particularly when their motivations are unclear. However, when it comes to female characters, this term seems to diversify and pluralize.


Hate to Love Her: The Lasting Allure of Blair Waldorf by Vanessa Willoughby

In an interview with the New York Times, Gillian Flynn says, “The likability thing, especially in Hollywood, is a constant conversation, and they’re really underrating their audience when they have that conversation. What I read and what I go to the movies for is not to find a best friend, not to find inspirations…It’s to be involved with characters that are maybe incredibly different from me, that may be incredibly bad but that feel authentic.”


Young Adult‘s Mavis Gary Is “Crazy” Unlikable by Diane Shipley

Mavis is truly transgressive. Not only is her plan against most people’s moral code, it shows no solidarity for the sisterhood and no respect for the institutions women are most conditioned to aspire to: marriage and motherhood. Mavis alienates feminists and traditionalists alike. Not that she cares–she only wants to appeal to men. And she has done so, seemingly effortlessly, for a long time.


Ruthless, Pragmatic Feminism in House of Cards by Leigh Kolb

Claire is a horrible human being for many, many reasons–but her abortions aren’t included in those reasons. The show makes that clear.


Top 10 Villainesses Who Deserve Their Own Movies by Amanda Rodriguez

While villainesses often work at cross-purposes with our heroes and heroines, we love to hate these women. They’re always morally complicated with dark pasts and often powerful and assertive women with an indomitable streak of independence.


Stephanie McMahon Helmsley: The Real Power in the Realm by Robert Aldrich

She’s proven herself to be as diabolical as she is brilliant, manipulating wrestlers against one another and circumventing any and all rules to reach the ends of her choosing. She’s pit wrestlers in matches with their jobs on the line, or the jobs of their spouses (in the case of a short-lived feud with Total Divas darling Brie Bella), added heinous stipulations to matches, or just flat-out fired anyone who disagreed with her.


Suzanne Stone: Frankenstein of Fame by Rachael Johnson

The would-be news anchor is not only an extraordinarily unlikable–though entertaining–protagonist; she also embodies certain pathological tendencies in the American cultural psyche.


King Vidor’s Stella Dallas and the Utter Gracelessness of Grace by Rebecca Willoughby

These repeated conflicts make for a number of scenes in the film that, as Basinger has also asserted, are painful to watch. Our emotions are in conflict: Stella’s aims are noble, her execution hopelessly flawed. It’s hard to like her when she’s so inept, impossible not to sympathize because her purpose is so noble.


The Complex, Unlikable Women of House of Cards by Leigh Kolb

These women are complex, if not likable, and that’s a good thing.


Summer: Portrait of a Recognizable Human by Ren Jender

When the family sits down to eat, a platter full of pork chops is placed in the center of the table just as Delphine announces she is a vegetarian. As the others interrogate her (a tedious line of questions familiar to many vegetarians) and one of the men even offers her a plate full of rose petals to feast on, she tries to walk the tightrope many women do–in all sorts of conversations–of not wanting to be seen as a “bother,” but still trying to stick up for her own beliefs.


Anne Boleyn: Queen Bee of The Tudors by Emma Kat Richardson

Anne Boleyn was considered by many contemporaries to be the very living, breathing definition of an unlikable woman. And perhaps “unlikable” is too soft a term here – at points in the 16th century, following her execution on trumped up charges of adultery and treason, Anne was so widely reviled that very few of her own words, actions, or even accurate portraits remain today, thanks to Henry’s redoubtable efforts to wipe her off the record completely.


Patterns in Poor Parenting: The Babadook and Mommy by Dierdre Crimmins

This is not to say that Amelia and Die are not sympathetic characters. Both want to do the best for their sons, but neither can handle the stress and actual responsibility of disciplining them. I do not mean for this to seem like an attack on Die and Amelia’s parenting skills, but rather a way to look at the sudden appearance of women in film who are not good at parenting.


The Real Hated Housewives of TV by Caroline Madden

Naturally, we are all on these anti-heroes’ sides, despite their bad deeds. And Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Walter White all have an antagonist: their wives. They call their husbands out on their lies, moral failings, and oppose them. Thus, they are seen as the nagging wife that everyone hates.

 

Why We Love Janice and Why We Love to Hate Janice

Is Chandler going somewhere, just minding his own business? Chances are that Janice is just around the corner. As Janice once put it, “You seek me out. Something deep in your soul calls out to me like a foghorn. Jaaa-nice. Jaaa-nice.”


This guest post by Artemis Linhart appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.


You can hear her presence from a distance. If it isn’t the laugh that tips you off, it might just be her nasal, loud voice – the stuff that Chandler’s nightmares are made of. As a viewer, you can also feel her presence from a distance. Is Chandler going somewhere, just minding his own business? Chances are that Janice is just around the corner. As Janice once put it, “You seek me out. Something deep in your soul calls out to me like a foghorn. Jaaa-nice. Jaaa-nice.”

This holds true for all 10 seasons of Friends. Just when you thought she was out… they pull her back in.

The thing about Janice though, is that she is more than a running gag. What is established early on in the first season as the on-again, off-again love interest and general catchphrase provider, the inescapable fate of Chandler Bing’s love life, is in fact a statement about our – the fans’ – loyalty and commitment to the characters of the show.

Clearly, it’s a Love Hate Thing. The character evokes in the viewer split feelings of sympathy with both Chandler and Janice herself.

Why We Love Janice

She’s fun.

janice-gif-2

She may be whiny, but Janice is up for all sorts of fun stuff. Spending a day with her seems like a great thing to do – even though “Joey and Janice’s Day Of Fun” did nothing to change Joey’s feelings about her. Phoebe may be the only one to genuinely like her, but Janice truly cares about all six of the Friends and shows that she’s a fun person to be around.


She’s confident.

janice-gif-3

Not only is Janice confident when it comes to her style – she pulls off bold fashion choices with ease and, while others might be amused by her outfits, she wears them with pride – but she also never fails to show how strong a person she is. Janice knows what she wants and is not afraid to go ahead and get it.

When she hears about Joey hating her, instead of being offended or shamed, she confronts him and wants to make things right.

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She has a good heart.

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Janice is loyal to Chandler despite all the pain he has caused her. She truly cares about him. Remember the customized candy hearts and the Bullwinkle socks she gave him for Valentine’s Day? Those were gifts that really showed how thoughtful she is.

Forget lobsters! – Janice is the Bullwinkle sock to Chandler’s pair of Rockys. She might get lost in the sock drawer at times, but she’s sure to resurface every once in a while for Chandler to mix and match.


She’s supportive.

janice-gif-1

When Chandler pretend-moved to Yemen, she helped pack, bring his luggage to the airport and, on top of it all, agreed to a long-distance relationship.


At one point, she did actually make Chandler happy.

janice-image-2

And we love a happy Chandler.


It is always fun to see Chandler’s pitiful tries to break up with her.

janice-image-1

New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, you name it. Chandler may be the worst breaker-upper there ever was.


Why We Love to Hate Janice

We feel the pain.

90s-best-beyonce-chandler-bing-Favim.com-2057916

Empathy, folks. We’ve got it.


It’s not just Chandler who suffers.

tumblr_kvswxmKHek1qzczc7o1_500

tumblr_kwvaba1ep41qzczc7o1_1280

Joey, Rachel and Ross also get their fair share of Janice-induced agony.


We are protective of Monica and Chandler’s romance.

For Monica, there might even be a hint of jealousy involved. After all, Mon/Chan is the One True Pairing.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CZiZiBF7YQ”]


It makes us part of the group.

We love our Friends. They hate Janice. We know Janice is awesome, but we love to be on their side and hate Janice together.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLgpoSYVTx4″]


Oh… My… God.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNjjeZO2AZ4″]

Admittedly, she is quite a bit irritating.


In conclusion, this video pretty much sums it all up:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rhoZrJXxsI”]

 


Artemis Linhart is a true Friends geek. She works and watches in Vienna, Austria.

Read This Before You Rewatch ‘Friends’

The complete series of ‘Friends’ is coming to Netflix Jan. 1, 2015, and I’m sure many of you are planning to spend your NYE hangover with the old gang. Lucky for you, I started my personal ‘Friends’ series rewatch in September, and finished last night, just in time to warn you of some of the pitfalls you may experience over the coming months.

The cast of 'Friends'
The cast of Friends

 

The complete series of Friends is coming to Netflix Jan. 1, 2015, and I’m sure many of you are planning to spend your NYE hangover with the old gang.  Lucky for you, I started my personal Friends series rewatch in September, and finished last night, just in time to warn you of some of the pitfalls you may experience over the coming months:

1. Watching Friends means confronting 10 years of fashion mistakes.

Sadly this was not a trend.
Sadly this was not a trend.

“The Rachel” is only the beginning of this fashion shame. From the denim vests and cropped sweaters of season one to the handkerchief dresses of season 10, it is a whirlwind of everything you ever tried to pull off but could not. If you are like me, however, this is not so much of a warning as a promise. I especially liked being reminded of trends I’d forgotten, like those shirts with a pointless seam above the boobs, or that year when hard nipples were the must-have accessory.

2. The writers fail Phoebe time and time again.

Phoebe Buffay is a really cool person
Phoebe Buffay is a really cool person

Phoebe Buffay is a classic sitcom weird-o, and Lisa Kudrow is maybe the most talented member of the cast of Friends, but the writers didn’t know what to do with her other than make her say kooky things. The other characters get storylines and character arcs and romances and career changes and she gets to sing “Smelly Cat” a bunch of times. The best plot Phoebe gets is having triplets as a surrogate for her brother, and that was brought about by Kudrow’s real-life pregnancy. As the series winds down, it seems the writers suddenly realized that Phoebe’s been under-served, so they “make up for it” by quickly marrying her off to Paul Rudd. Because nothing says “character development” like filing joint tax returns.

3. Could this show BE any more homophobic?

It is funny because they are dudes and they are touching.
It is funny because they are dudes and they are touching.

The very concept of homosexuality apparently topped the writers “never not funny” list. Ross’s ex-wife left him for a woman. EDGY! THIS AIN’T YOUR GRANDMA’S SITCOM! Everyone thinks Chandler is gay when they first meet him. HILARS! Joey and Chandler’s friendship resembles a romantic relationship. HEE HAW. Chandler’s dad is a gay drag performer in Las Vegas. CAST KATHLEEN TURNER IN THE ROLE! BRILLIANT!

The gay “humor” on the show is probably its most dated aspect (and that includes all the denim vests!) and it’s more pervasive than I would have thought (especially in the earlier seasons). If you hate the idea of homosexuality as an alleged punchline, don’t rewatch Friends.

4. It is even whiter than you remember.

It's pretty much just Aisha Tyler's Charlie, and she's in nine episodes. In the last two seasons.
There’s pretty much just Aisha Tyler’s Charlie, and she’s in nine episodes. In the last two seasons.

“Drink every time a person of color appears on Friends” is a drinking game that is safe for pregnant women.

5. You will be forced to care about Ross and Rachel.

Ross and Rachel kiss.
Ross and Rachel kiss.

I have flames on the sides of my face level hate for Ross Geller. I was a tender girl of 12 when he first uttered the words “We were on a break,” and that was when I stopped believing in fairytale romance. Watching the show as an adult, you can see from the start there is no fairytale. Ross is a “Nice Guy” who makes himself feel better about being the reacher in his relationship with Rachel by putting her down for her intelligence. Their relationship falls apart entirely because of his jealousy, ostensibly of Rachel’s co-worker Mark, but he’s clearly most threatened by Rachel’s career. It’s a bad relationship. And Ross is pretty much a bad dude.

And watching Friends means signing up to ride this rollercoaster of toxic romance for 10 seasons. And you will get caught up in that ride sometimes, and you’ll hate yourself for it. The near-romance between Rachel and Joey was the only thing that had the chance to break the spell, but it was thrown under the bus so Joey could be single for his spinoff. Getting married couldn’t keep Ross and Rachel together. Having a baby couldn’t keep Ross and Rachel together. But the power of a series finale could.

6. It’s still really good.

Friends clapping!
Friends clapping!

If you can handle the above, then you’ll have a lot of good to take with the bad. The chemistry between the cast is as magical as you remember it, the writing takes sitcom tropes to their zenith, and now you’ll have a nice side of nostalgia to go along with it. So as you enjoy/tolerate the holidays, keep in mind that Friends is waiting for you on the other side of the New Year.

Happy viewing!
Happy viewing!

 


Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, South Africa. Her favorite friend is Joey.

Ross and Rachel’s Caustic Rom-Com Conventions

Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) after the infamous drunk-dial

I recently indulged in some Friends-related nostalgia with a good pal of mine over a rainy weekend. We took fifteen episodes over two days and I was reminded why I was obsessed with this show during my first two years in high school. I loved Chandler, Lisa Kudrow, the chemistry among the cast members, Chandler, the way the show made typical sitcom cliches seem original and funny, the “comfort food” nature of the show, and Chandler. 

One thing I did NOT love was the aspect of Friends that most people were obsessed with: the on-again, off-again relationship of the TV sitcom supercouple, Ross and Rachel.

I’ve spent some time looking at different romantic comedies and the cliches that are used and re-used in cookie-cutter scripts, and I finally pinpointed the reason why Ross and Rachel always bothered me as a couple: over ten years (seriously, ten years!) of a will-they-or-won’t-they relationship, they managed to cover almost every single one of my least favorite rom-com cliches.

“WE WERE ON A BREAK!” in five, four, three…

He loves her. She’s oblivious until he’s with someone else, and then he’s oblivious. In the pilot episode of the series, Ross tells Rachel that he had a crush on her since high school, and she admits that she already knew. He asks her if he could ask her out sometime, and she seems receptive to the idea, and it’s a cute moment between them.

But we can’t have something as simple as a man asking out a woman in episode two, her saying yes, and seeing the two of them date over time and eventually fall in love, now can we? No, we must insert drama and other complications. In this case, this drama results in Rachel conveniently forgetting that Ross liked her and becoming completely oblivious while he mooned after her for an entire season, making her look stupid and unobservant and him look pathetic. When she re-learns that he has a crush on her, she decides that she likes him too, but whoops – he’s moved onto someone else, and now, instead of a season of Ross whining, we’re treated to six episodes of Rachel being jealous and bratty to his new girlfriend.

When Ross is pining for Rachel, he’s a whiner. When Rachel is pining for Ross, she’s a jealous brat. Why am I supposed to root for them to get together?

Rachel hangs up the phone while Ross is talking to Julie

“We’re still in love (during season premieres and season finales).” Unfortunately, this “we only like each other when we’re with other people” trend doesn’t end after the second season. Ross and Rachel finally date, and then they break up, and then Rachel realizes that she’s still in love with Ross when he moves onto Phoebe’s friend Bonnie. Then she realizes she’s still in love with Ross, again, at the end of the fourth season and runs off to ruin his wedding. She tells him she still loves him at the beginning of season five, but then gets over it for some reason. Then they get married in Las Vegas at the end of the fifth season, and Ross doesn’t annul the marriage because it’s implied that he still has feelings for Rachel, but then conveniently forgets about those renewed feelings at around episode six. Then they have a baby together at the end of season eight, and they consider getting back together at the beginning of season nine, but that desire is forgotten by episode two.

Is there something about the months of May and September that make Ross and Rachel fall back in love? Or is there something wrong with my suspension of disbelief, as I simply don’t buy that the same two people can fall in and out of love with each other that many times? 

They had a KID together. A KID. And still didn’t get back together for two stinking years.

Jealousy is romantic. The worst thing that Ross ever did in his relationship with Rachel was become a jealous, possessive jerk after she got a new job. (I consider that worse than his sleeping with the copy-shop girl when he and Rachel “were on a break”). The worst thing that Rachel ever did in her relationship with Ross was run off to England to stop his wedding even though he had happily moved on to someone else.

To be fair, Friends was initially honest about these issues and showed why the characters were in the wrong. Monica criticized Ross for being jealous, and his inability to get over his jealousy cost him his relationship with Rachel. Phoebe (and Hugh Laurie, in a great guest appearance) criticized Rachel for being selfish and wanting to end Ross’s wedding.

But then Ross says Rachel’s name at the altar. And at the end of the series, Rachel chooses Ross over a great new career opportunity in Paris with no apparent job to fall back on.

In the end, it doesn’t matter that Ross lost Rachel when he was jealous, or that Rachel realized it was wrong to break up his wedding. In the end, Ross wins Rachel over her career, and Rachel gets to be with Ross instead of watching him marry someone else. Getting them together in the end seems to retroactively reward them for their previous bad behavior, justifying their actions as okay because they were really in love the whole time!

Ross is jealous. This is a natural state of his.

“Uh-oh. The placeholder love interest is more likable than the endgame couple. I know – we’ll turn them into jerks!” I can’t be the only one who thought Emily was a much better match for Ross than Rachel was. Ross and Emily had more in common than Ross and Rachel and he was more likable when he was around Emily – more genuinely romantic, more energetic, and she seemed to appreciate his geeky side more than Rachel did.

This was not a good thing for the Friends writers, apparently. Ross and Rachel were meant to be the endgame couple no matter what. The only thing to nip the Ross/Emily relationship in the bud was to turn Emily into a jerk who made him stay away from Rachel and move out of his apartment.

Rachel watches Ross and Emily (Helen Baxendale)

Why did they like each other, anyway? What did Ross and Rachel have in common, aside from being two decent human beings who have the same friends? He had no respect or interest in her career and she had no respect or interest in his. He thought she was selfish and spoiled and she thought he was a geek and an intellectual snob. Yes, opposites sometimes attract, but sometimes I didn’t know why they even liked each other, much less loved each other.

Ross in his tiny T-shirt.

The chase to the airport. They actually had a chase to the airport in the last episode. I mean, really?

“Oh, wait a minute,” you might be saying. “You’re telling me that you weren’t moved by the last scene where they got back together for real?”

Well, of course I was moved. I’m not made of stone, people. She got off the plane!

Yes, I “aww” and I tear up at their last scene together, as ridiculous as it is. To me, that’s a testament to how much Schwimmer and Aniston sold every step of the relationship. No matter how contrived the writing was, they committed to those romantic moments. Sometimes they made me forget how much their relationship got on my nerves. But when I’m re-watching old Friends episodes and indulging in some nostalgia, I tend to fast-forward the dramatic Ross and Rachel scenes, because those are too many cliches for me to handle with one couple.

Chandler and Monica, on the other hand – that’s where the magic was.

They got together – and STAYED together – with very little bullshit! How refreshing.

Lady T is an aspiring writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at The Funny Feminist, where she picks apart entertainment and reviews movies she hasn’t seen.

Ross and Rachel’s Caustic Rom-Com Conventions

Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) after the infamous drunk-dial

I recently indulged in some Friends-related nostalgia with a good pal of mine over a rainy weekend. We took fifteen episodes over two days and I was reminded why I was obsessed with this show during my first two years in high school. I loved Chandler, Lisa Kudrow, the chemistry among the cast members, Chandler, the way the show made typical sitcom cliches seem original and funny, the “comfort food” nature of the show, and Chandler. 

One thing I did NOT love was the aspect of Friends that most people were obsessed with: the on-again, off-again relationship of the TV sitcom supercouple, Ross and Rachel.

I’ve spent some time looking at different romantic comedies and the cliches that are used and re-used in cookie-cutter scripts, and I finally pinpointed the reason why Ross and Rachel always bothered me as a couple: over ten years (seriously, ten years!) of a will-they-or-won’t-they relationship, they managed to cover almost every single one of my least favorite rom-com cliches.

“WE WERE ON A BREAK!” in five, four, three…

He loves her. She’s oblivious until he’s with someone else, and then he’s oblivious. In the pilot episode of the series, Ross tells Rachel that he had a crush on her since high school, and she admits that she already knew. He asks her if he could ask her out sometime, and she seems receptive to the idea, and it’s a cute moment between them.

But we can’t have something as simple as a man asking out a woman in episode two, her saying yes, and seeing the two of them date over time and eventually fall in love, now can we? No, we must insert drama and other complications. In this case, this drama results in Rachel conveniently forgetting that Ross liked her and becoming completely oblivious while he mooned after her for an entire season, making her look stupid and unobservant and him look pathetic. When she re-learns that he has a crush on her, she decides that she likes him too, but whoops – he’s moved onto someone else, and now, instead of a season of Ross whining, we’re treated to six episodes of Rachel being jealous and bratty to his new girlfriend.

When Ross is pining for Rachel, he’s a whiner. When Rachel is pining for Ross, she’s a jealous brat. Why am I supposed to root for them to get together?

Rachel hangs up the phone while Ross is talking to Julie

“We’re still in love (during season premieres and season finales).” Unfortunately, this “we only like each other when we’re with other people” trend doesn’t end after the second season. Ross and Rachel finally date, and then they break up, and then Rachel realizes that she’s still in love with Ross when he moves onto Phoebe’s friend Bonnie. Then she realizes she’s still in love with Ross, again, at the end of the fourth season and runs off to ruin his wedding. She tells him she still loves him at the beginning of season five, but then gets over it for some reason. Then they get married in Las Vegas at the end of the fifth season, and Ross doesn’t annul the marriage because it’s implied that he still has feelings for Rachel, but then conveniently forgets about those renewed feelings at around episode six. Then they have a baby together at the end of season eight, and they consider getting back together at the beginning of season nine, but that desire is forgotten by episode two.

Is there something about the months of May and September that make Ross and Rachel fall back in love? Or is there something wrong with my suspension of disbelief, as I simply don’t buy that the same two people can fall in and out of love with each other that many times? 

They had a KID together. A KID. And still didn’t get back together for two stinking years.

Jealousy is romantic. The worst thing that Ross ever did in his relationship with Rachel was become a jealous, possessive jerk after she got a new job. (I consider that worse than his sleeping with the copy-shop girl when he and Rachel “were on a break”). The worst thing that Rachel ever did in her relationship with Ross was run off to England to stop his wedding even though he had happily moved on to someone else.

To be fair, Friends was initially honest about these issues and showed why the characters were in the wrong. Monica criticized Ross for being jealous, and his inability to get over his jealousy cost him his relationship with Rachel. Phoebe (and Hugh Laurie, in a great guest appearance) criticized Rachel for being selfish and wanting to end Ross’s wedding.

But then Ross says Rachel’s name at the altar. And at the end of the series, Rachel chooses Ross over a great new career opportunity in Paris with no apparent job to fall back on.

In the end, it doesn’t matter that Ross lost Rachel when he was jealous, or that Rachel realized it was wrong to break up his wedding. In the end, Ross wins Rachel over her career, and Rachel gets to be with Ross instead of watching him marry someone else. Getting them together in the end seems to retroactively reward them for their previous bad behavior, justifying their actions as okay because they were really in love the whole time!

Ross is jealous. This is a natural state of his.

“Uh-oh. The placeholder love interest is more likable than the endgame couple. I know – we’ll turn them into jerks!” I can’t be the only one who thought Emily was a much better match for Ross than Rachel was. Ross and Emily had more in common than Ross and Rachel and he was more likable when he was around Emily – more genuinely romantic, more energetic, and she seemed to appreciate his geeky side more than Rachel did.

This was not a good thing for the Friends writers, apparently. Ross and Rachel were meant to be the endgame couple no matter what. The only thing to nip the Ross/Emily relationship in the bud was to turn Emily into a jerk who made him stay away from Rachel and move out of his apartment.

Rachel watches Ross and Emily (Helen Baxendale)

Why did they like each other, anyway? What did Ross and Rachel have in common, aside from being two decent human beings who have the same friends? He had no respect or interest in her career and she had no respect or interest in his. He thought she was selfish and spoiled and she thought he was a geek and an intellectual snob. Yes, opposites sometimes attract, but sometimes I didn’t know why they even liked each other, much less loved each other.

Ross in his tiny T-shirt.

The chase to the airport. They actually had a chase to the airport in the last episode. I mean, really?

“Oh, wait a minute,” you might be saying. “You’re telling me that you weren’t moved by the last scene where they got back together for real?”

Well, of course I was moved. I’m not made of stone, people. She got off the plane!

Yes, I “aww” and I tear up at their last scene together, as ridiculous as it is. To me, that’s a testament to how much Schwimmer and Aniston sold every step of the relationship. No matter how contrived the writing was, they committed to those romantic moments. Sometimes they made me forget how much their relationship got on my nerves. But when I’m re-watching old Friends episodes and indulging in some nostalgia, I tend to fast-forward the dramatic Ross and Rachel scenes, because those are too many cliches for me to handle with one couple.

Chandler and Monica, on the other hand – that’s where the magic was.

They got together – and STAYED together – with very little bullshit! How refreshing.

Lady T is a writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at www.theresabasile.com.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Hey, Let’s Do Some Mommy Issues! (Babies Not Required)

This is a guest post from Glosswitch
Imagine this: 
You are a beautiful single mom. You get on well with your baby’s father – indeed, perhaps you are still in love with him – but you’ve decided it’s not to be. You’ve been offered a dream job on the other side of the Atlantic, in a country where they don’t even speak your language, and you’ve decided to go for it. 
Do you:
a. go through a great deal of soul-searching about uprooting your daughter, taking her away from her father and managing on your own, then stoically board the plane clutching both your child and a ton of crap toys which will keep her entertained for about five seconds on a transatlantic flight.
b. go through a great deal of soul-searching because, basically, you still want to rip the clothes off your baby’s daddy, then stoically board the plane looking cool and stylish. Your daughter is off somewhere or other, maybe already in France with your mom or something. Anyhow, that’s all a bit boring. So boring, in fact, that when you have another change of heart you get off the plane and don’t give a second thought to the fact that little Emma might already be waiting, “Mommy” sign held pluckily aloft, at Charles de Gaulle airport.
Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) from Friends
Did you answer a? If so, we have established that you are not in fact Rachel from Friends. Well done, you (after all, if you were, you’d be all barren and pining for Brad Pitt by now, with all your other rom-com achievements mere ashes at your feet).
Here is another scenario: 
You are a beautiful single mom (again), but this time working in a crime lab. Perhaps you are called Catherine Willows and in another life a woman called Marg Helgenberger will portray you in a biopic of your life. Anyhow, you have a daughter, possibly called Lindsey, and she can, to put it mildly, be a bit of a pain in the ass. 
Do you:
a. use any and every opportunity to remind your colleagues that you’re a mom and therefore understand certain things that only a mom can understand. Stuff like other moms being sad if their kids get murdered, that sort of shit. You know about this because you’re a mom. And also because you finally got rid of that bitch Lindsey by shoving her in some posh private school.
b. tend to shut up about being a mom while you’re in the workplace. It wouldn’t do you any favors come the next round of promotions.
So, what did you pick? Was it b? Me too. That’s why no one’s offered either of us a job in the Las Vegas crime lab to date.
Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) from CSI
Now look, I’m not stupid. I know that TV comedies are meant to be funny, and dramas meant to be dramatic. It isn’t real life. That’s why we don’t see characters needing to take a piss in the middle of an important monologue, or stumbling over their words when pronouncing the dic vead, sorry, the vic dead. It’s all made up. I bet everyone working in the real Las Vegas crime lab is ugly as sin and that they all hate each other and are useless at solving crimes. Actually, that’s probably not true either. It’s probably a lot more boring than that. They probably all just plod along, solving some crimes, not solving others, then go home, watch a bit of TV (not CSI – I’m sure they hate that) and then just go to bed. No one would want to watch that. So why does this unrealistic portrayal of mommies end up annoying me so much?
The thing is, I wouldn’t mind if characters like Rachel and Catherine were just like all the other characters – ridiculously gorgeous and ace at their jobs, yet somehow flawed and kooky at the same time – while also being mommies, albeit ones whose lives aren’t that much impinged on by having a child. I wouldn’t mind that. It’s just that Rachel and Catherine seem to have MOMMY tattooed in big letters across their botoxed foreheads. You can almost hear the sound of scriptwriters patting themselves on the back. “Hey guys, relax! We’ve done the “mommy issues” bit! Now let’s send everyone off to Central Perk.” This creates an environment in which it no longer seems legitimate to assert that motherhood still doesn’t really exist as a theme in our TV programmes. But by and large it doesn’t. You wouldn’t have to do much. You don’t literally have to show shitty diapers or a woman crying her eyes out at 3am with engorged breasts and a howling newborn. It’s just the little things. Perhaps you have women who aren’t able to go to the bar with colleagues at the drop of a hat. Women who don’t always have childcare issues magically resolved by a grumpy ex who’s half new man, half self-pitying passive aggressive bully. Women who work part-time. Women who are, most of the time, in the company of children, not for one “doing the issues” childcare episode, but all the time. You can still have humor and drama in that. Let’s face it, children can be total lunatics; there’s loads of humor and drama in that.
Abby (Maura Tierney) from ER
In ER (yeah, another oldie) Abby has a full-on dramatic birth, followed by lots of trauma caring for a sick child and then gradually going back to work. See, that’s quite good. They sure milked the drama from that. But then she just goes back to being another TV mom with an invisible child. Said child is useful for hostage situations and for making the Abby character “softer” than all the other female leads, but not for affecting the actual structure of the plot itself. That would just be too messy.
I guess that messiness is a big part of the problem. Motherhood is portrayed as a women’s issue – a thing to be picked up, examined then dropped – rather than as something that structures the flow of life and shapes the plots we all live out. This is as true for real life as it is for fiction. Mothers have to fit in around everyone else’s plots, plots in which no one in paid employment really has children and no one who isn’t paid employment is ever believed to be working.
When did you last see a TV programme that treated having a job or having grandparents or being male as an “issue” to be covered? They’re not; they’re just long-term ways of being, which might sometimes be the cause of issues but without being issues in themselves. Being a mom ought to be like that. Instead, it’s “a thing.” A thing that can be covered in a half-hour show, including ad breaks, before Mommy puts her invisible child back in the closet and heads back out to spread the fake mommy wisdom that, thankfully, doesn’t prevent her heading off to an all-night club with friends at the end of the evening.
Lois from Family Guy
In Family Guy we see Lois frequently exploiting the trope of the put-upon Mommy whom no one values. Hey, good issues coverage, guys! The fact that Lois leaves her baby in the care of the family dog whenever it seems appropriate doesn’t even come into it. And yeah, this is a cartoon, and it’s silly and surreal and why should I even bother worrying about that? But the trouble is, we then get the “I am Peter, hear me roar” episode in which Lois ends up taking on hardcore feminist Gloria Ironbox and dramatically asserting her own “choice” to be a mother and homemaker. It’s here that you start to feel the scriptwriters are taking a little too many liberties. How many issues can you squeeze from a portrayal of motherhood that isn’t even remotely realistic? Despite the catfight and the stripping and the sex with Peter at the end, there’s something horribly serious and sanctimonious about Lois’s little outburst. It’s like having Cleveland and Loretta solemnly discussing affirmative action, albeit with them only being permitted to be “actively” black 10% of the time.
Allison from Medium
Of all the shows I’ve seen in (fairly) recent years, the only one where I find the portrayal of motherhood even vaguely satisfactory is Medium. That is, I’ll admit, a little weird. Motherhood, for me, has not yet involved having crazy psychic dreams and then passing “the gift” on to my sons, and them getting all stressed about it, and me having to comfort them because, hey, it’s okay; it might seem distressing now but later on you could solve crime, just like Mommy! No, my experience of motherhood has not been like that. But what I like about that show is that underneath it, there still seems to be quite a lot of “normal” mess. The scriptwriters have allowed motherhood to invade the plot. Alison puts her children to bed and strokes their heads and it’s just what happens, not the chance for some once-in-a-lifetime monologue. Alison goes into the kitchen in the morning and there they are, making a mess of the kitchen table and demanding more food. In normal TV-land, she’d have the kitchen to herself, at least assuming no one was having a psychic crisis at the sight of the Cheerios. I found Medium difficult to watch while pregnant, not because it gave me funny dreams, but because I’d think “Wow! That parenting thing looks like hard work!” In truth, it’s not as bad as all that. It’s probably worse if your nights are interrupted not just by kids, but by pesky dead people. If it were that bad, I’d probably run away to France, just like Rachel. Or shove my kids in some private school, like Catherine. But hey, if I did that, you shouldn’t judge me too harshly. I’d just be following the plot.
Disclaimer: Most of the shows referred to here are from over four years ago. I’m sorry. I had a couple of those “real” babies in the interim. If only I’d had a plot device child, all this would be way more up to date.


Glosswitch is a mother of two living in the UK, hence the unfortunate mixture of US and UK spellings in this piece. She blogs at http://glosswatch.com about feminism, motherhood and anything that annoys her (i.e. anything).