The F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Conundrum

I love Friends. And no, I don’t mean the generic noun for a group of close people, but the show, F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Anyone who knows me, knows that. I commonly refer to scenes from the show to explain or understand something. I love those six characters - often more than people in my real life. One of my favourite possessions for several years was a poster from the show. And I’ve watched and re-watched all the episodes about a dozen times (and also made my mom watch them alongside me).

But in the last few years, I’ve found other emotions cropping up when I talk about the show: emotions that are not just enjoyment or love. There are scenes - many of them - at which I earlier used to laugh unabashedly, but now find myself cringing uncomfortably. And now, when I explain my love for the show to someone who has never seen it, it’s with an apologetic rider: look, some aspects of the show aren’t very....well, nice.

After all, there’s a definite current of homophobia that is often used as the primary source of entertainment, which we can see in the interactions between the guys. And also a decent amount of fat-shaming, through Monica’s character and her earlier overweight self. As someone who considers herself to be a strong ally of people with any sexual orientation, and someone who crusades against societal standards of beauty being used to stump people's confidence, these aren’t easy things to overlook.

And so, I find myself facing two very different kinds of emotions emanating from the same source. A part of me really still loves the show (as I was telling a friend recently, two decades worth of love isn’t going to suddenly disappear). But on the other hand, the current me finds myself disapproving of many of the scenes and ideas shown in the episodes.

And my conundrum is that I don’t quite know how to reconcile this. Can you really claim to love something if part of it makes you cringe deeply and feel apologetic?

In a world where everything is so polarized, it seems like the answer should be no. I have to choose: I have to either be on the side of the show, or against it. There isn’t a middle ground, because a middle ground would mean compromising on my values. If I love the show, then I should love it wholeheartedly, accepting every single bit of it. If I consider myself someone who believes in equality and dignity of all people, then I should shun any show that tries to ridicule this belief, including this one.

A part of me gets it. Given how chaotic our world seems to be, it seems almost easier to clutch at something and stick with it. To have at least one thing in our life that is clear and dependable. Maybe that’s why we’re getting split into more and more camps each day: to find some kind of certainty and not give in to opposing ideas.

But the remaining part of me just can’t reconcile. Because choosing any one side means denying the other, which means denying a part of myself. If I say I love this show no matter what, then I’m denying my own growth over the years as I’ve become a person who is a lot more open and understanding of differences in this world. If I say I hate this show because it goes against some of my beliefs, I’m denying the fact that the show was (and to an extent, still is) a huge part of my life and is intertwined with so many of my best memories. Both of these aspects are part of me, so it doesn’t feel right to deny either one.

So where does that leave me? In the murky, gray area in between. It’s the one without clean boundaries, right in the centre of chaos. It’s where I reject the notion that we have all been raised with, that 'there is only good or bad, right or wrong, and we have to choose between them'. Reality does not exist in binaries; rather, it exists in the hazy complexities in between these binaries. And that’s exactly where I am.

I’ve spent far too long feeling stuck in the middle, struggling to choose between the two extremes. So now, I’m giving a shot to a different approach: one where I don’t choose. Of course I loved this show. It has given me countless moments of laughter and joy, and it is still something I occasionally turn to when looking for a light moment. And of course there are parts of it that are problematic, parts where I won’t laugh, parts that I’ll call out as discriminatory.

The two contradictions exist, and maybe the point is, to let them, and accept them both.