Why Does Jennifer Aniston Want ‘Friends’ to Be Canceled?
Even the most devoted of Friends buffs missed “The One Where The Woke Mob Burns Down Central Perk With The Cast Trapped Inside.”
For reasons known only to God and Jennifer Aniston, the Murder Mystery 2 star recently declared that Friends is under attack. While on the press tour for the Adam Sandler vehicle, Aniston told ATP that, “There's a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of Friends and find them offensive.” Though streaming platforms have notably made the decision to censor old episodes of sitcoms deemed “problematic” in recent years, we don’t recall Friends ever making a blackface episode a la 30 Rock that would call for scrubbing, unless you count Ross’ tanning incident. Also, we’re struggling to find any evidence that the entirety of Gen Z is now demanding that Friends atone for its notoriously boundary-pushing humor — in fact, sources say that the zoomers love Friends as much as their parents did.
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“(In the past) you could joke about a bigot and have a laugh — that was hysterical,” Aniston said of The Good Old Days™, “And it was about educating people on how ridiculous people were. And now we’re not allowed to do that.” Well, we'll politely suggest that point would hold more water if Friends had ever addressed bigotry and wonder aloud if she's ever seen It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia?
"Comedy has evolved, movies have evolved," Aniston began, "Now it's a little tricky because you have to be very careful, which makes it really hard for comedians, because the beauty of comedy is that we make fun of ourselves, make fun of life."
On the topic of Friends’ “problematic” moments, Aniston said, "There were things that were never intentional and others... well, we should have thought it through — but I don't think there was a sensitivity like there is now." To her point, there are definitely aspects of 1990s humor that haven’t aged gracefully for modern audiences — fat jokes at Monica’s expense, gay jokes at Chandler’s expense and the general dearth of characters of color certainly stand out — but the part that’s missing from Aniston’s outrage equation is the complaints of “a whole generation of people.”
"Everybody needs funny! The world needs humor! We can't take ourselves too seriously. Especially in the United States. Everyone is far too divided," said Aniston. Luckily our inter-American acrimony is about to end with the arrival of another Adam Sandler sequel.
