A New Reason to Hate Ross from ‘Friends’ Just Dropped

This month marks the 30th anniversary of Friends, the beloved NBC sitcom/vast repository of ‘90s cringe. Despite the fact that this news will presumably make a lot of people feel very, very old, Warner Bros. Television is celebrating the show’s milestone by selling off a bunch of old Friends crap that’s apparently just been lying around in storage for the past three decades.

Yes, the company has partnered with Julien’s Auctions for a “live and online auction” that will give fans a chance to bid on “wardrobe items, furniture and other memorabilia from the show.” 

While Marcel’s taxidermied corpse doesn’t seem to be among the items up for sale, they are getting rid of one of Rachel’s sweaters, one of Ben Geller’s bicycles, and a dress shirt worn by “Paul Stevens,” the character played by Bruce Willis. The winning bidder could always cover the shirt in fake blood and tell their friends that he wore it in one of the Die Hard movies.

The auction also features the iconic Friends couch — although it’s a studio reproduction, not the original, so you don’t have to worry about it having any coffee stains or Billy Crystal vibes. 

One of the 100 percent original props included in the auction is Ross Geller’s personal… phrenology head?

According to the listing, the “ceramic phrenology head” sat “on Ross’ desk in his third apartment, where he lived from Season Five until the end of the series.”

Phrenology is, of course, the debunked pseudoscientific practice, popularized in the 19th century, which used the “size and shape of skulls” to evaluate mental attributes. This bullshit was famously used to promote “sexist stereotypes” and prop up false theories of racial superiority to “justify colonialism and slavery.”

The phrenology head did become a trendy kitsch item. Urban Outfitters once sold posters and jewelry stands modeled after the original antique bust. On Etsy right now, in fact, you can buy phrenology tote bags and even phrenology head bubble bath. Which is deeply strange. 

But why did Ross have what appears to be a replica of an antique phrenology head on his desk? He’s a paleontologist, supposedly a man of science, yet he decorates his apartment with knick-knacks rooted in ignorance and institutional racism? 

This is the same character who became enraged at Phoebe’s doubts about evolution, so much so that he brought home a whole briefcase full of fossils just to prove her wrong.

The phrenology head in Ross’ apartment is, most likely, just further evidence of how little the people making Friends actually cared about Ross’ job. The show previously seemed to get paleontology mixed up with anthropology, as his job at one point seemed focused on “cave people” while he was working at the improbably named “New York Museum of Prehistoric History.” 

So presumably, some set decorator threw in the phrenology head because it looked vaguely science-y. Maybe they were “on a break” from giving a crap whether it made sense or not.

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