Stereotypes in 90s television: Attitudes towards the representation of gender and sexuality in Friends

“You know, I’m just not that comfortable with a guy who is as sensitive as you” (Crane et al., 2002). This is one of many lines in the TV Show Friends, expressing ideas of toxic masculinity, and opening up a conversation about the often inappropriate representation of gender and sexuality in the show. Generally, television carries many beliefs and values that we often forget to recognize and sometimes those values can be problematic and questionable. This is especially true in television content that was produced years ago, within different social and political contexts from today. This essay will focus specifically on Marta Kauffman and David Crane’s 1994-2004 TV Show Friends, due to its persistent popularity with today’s viewers and a rather mainstream concept, relevant to a wide audience. This analysis will explore particularly how the changing societal landscape affects the audience’s attitudes towards the stereotypical representation and humor concerning gender and sexuality in the 90s TV show Friends. The show’s storyline showcases six adults, who are going through their everyday lives, figuring out relationships, social life, and work. These topics often end up opening the way to sexist and homophobic remarks as well as stereotypical representations of gender and sexuality. This essay aims to argue that in recent years, extensive education and awareness regarding gender and sexuality and the evolving societal mindset, have influenced what is seen as appropriate by the audience, in regards to those topics. This includes perceiving the stereotypical representation of gender and sexuality in the TV show as unacceptable and outdated, which highlights the importance of having a forward-moving mindset and enlightening people about the evolving acceptability of humor.

The social context of the '90s and early 2000s featured a decline in the popularity of feminist beliefs, due to the emergence of the postfeminist ideas. Postfeminism went against the progress made toward gender equality and women's empowerment during the second wave of feminism (Lotz, 2001). This halted media texts from challenging the conventional representation of women and feminism, leading to stereotypical female portrayals. The majority of female characters in the TV show Friends are white and skinny with no obvious imperfections. In addition to promoting the ideas of unrealistic beauty standards, this also caused them to be heavily sexualized through their outfits and the ways they were treated by the male characters. The three female leads - Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe, each have a relatively basic storyline, in terms of the societal expectations for women. They all have jobs in stereotypically feminine fields - fashion, culinary, and wellness, respectively, which offer a very one-dimensional representation, that lacks variety. The lead women on the show are also portrayed as if they are “longing for a man to complete them” (McCabe, Akass, 2006, p.115) which is seen through their actively seeking long-term romantic relationships at almost all times. This indicates not only their desire for a partner but also an ultimate goal to realize themselves in a domestic family setting. This role is especially prominently pushed upon Monica - next to “her intense desire to couple” (Hamad, 2018, p.6) one of her main character traits is her “obsessive desire for domestic bliss” and “domestic tranquility.” (Rockler, 2006, p.252) This portrays how the representation of women characters is shallow and minimized to the context of relationships and family, with the lack of independence and women's empowerment.

Limiting women to only particular roles in society and the family is considered especially controversial in today’s context, where women are encouraged to break the engraved stereotypes with the help of various women empowerment initiatives such as “Lean In” and “The Global Fund for Women”. They portray the importance of supporting women and granting proper representation, framing the humor and stereotypes around females in Friends as outdated and unacceptable. The beauty standards portrayed in the show are also being heavily challenged in present-day society, with even the fashion and modeling industry becoming more inclusive and highlighting models with unique looks. Furthermore, there has been a huge development in contemporary television, with it retracting from using one-dimensional female characters, which are prominent in shows like Friends. Newly emerged series and movies nowadays are presenting more nuanced female characters, which encompass a range of women’s experiences. An example of this is the 2013 TV Show “Orange is the new black", which portrays “complex [female] characters that do not fit strictly into certain stereotypes” (Jović, 2021, p.44). This show breaking out of the usual stereotypical representation reflects the changing societal landscape and audience attitudes toward outdated portrayals. These factors have consecutively influenced TV writers to improve women’s representation on-screen and create multi-dimensional female characters.

The postfeminism movement in the '90s and early 2000s not only rejected feminist ideas but consecutively also perpetuated the notion of ‘traditional’ gender roles, including ideas of toxic masculinity. These ideas were then picked up by the 90s shows, such as Friends. In this show, all three male leads are portrayed in a gender-stereotypical way: “a misogynistic, chauvinist who is somewhat lazy (Joey), the funny one, who uses humor as a shield (Chandler) and a nerd with a love for science (Ross).“ (Gender stereotypes in Friends, 2015) In addition, most of the male characters are presented as hyper-heterosexual, uncomfortably obsessed with women, and prone to objectifying and sexualizing them. This is evident through their attempts to go out with almost every woman that they see and through their desire for an intimate physical relationship. This perpetuates the expectation for men to be hypersexual and shows relationships with women as a tool for them to feel powerful and accomplished. The show reinforces the heterosexual norms with many humoristic references about the male characters being homosexual, which are usually followed by shock and disgust. In one of the episodes Joey and Ross nap on each other, and the rest of the episode showcases them freaking out about why it felt so comfortable to nap together. Such indirect mentions of the LGBTQ community highlight it as something that, especially for men, should be avoided and feared.

As with the female characters, the stereotypical representation of the role of men in society and family is controversial in today’s context, as it perpetuates the idea of only specific roles, characteristics, and emotions applying to men. Movements discussed earlier, encouraging women's empowerment and freedom of choice, have an underlying message that gender should not define societal roles. This consecutively challenges the idea of stereotypical masculine roles, which causes a shift in the audience’s attitudes when nowadays reacting to the male representation used in Friends. The hyper-heterosexual representation of men in the show and the ideas of toxic masculinity, with men being expected to not be emotional, soft, or overly expressive, go against the modern beliefs of challenging these stereotypes. Today’s society is moving towards embracing diverse and multi-dimensional representations of men and masculinity. Some of these contemporary values are evident in men’s mental health initiatives, such as "Boys Do Cry", which encourages men to open up and seek help, instead of staying silent. (Boys Do Cry, 2021) Such initiatives have the power to change the audience’s perceptions of the male representation in Friends, by raising awareness about the harm of stereotypical portrayals and challenging ideas of toxic masculinity. Many of the toxic masculinity ideas perpetuated in the show also encompass homophobic mentions, with men who do not adhere to the masculine stereotypes being ridiculed as belonging to the LGBTQ community. These tendencies are also being challenged by the emergence of various gender-centered initiatives and an overall increase in openness and acceptability.

Even though the 90s in the US started reflecting more awareness around LGBTQ, this topic was still controversial and the LGBTQ community was experiencing many hardships. Same-sex marriage back then was not legal in any of the 50 states (Reuters, 2013), and next to that, in 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was signed into law, which further prevented the recognition of same-sex marriage. (Kelly, 2013) Because of this, there was generally a lack of awareness and education about LGBTQ in society and a lack of proper LGBTQ representation in entertainment media. There are two main LGBTQ centered storylines in Friends - the main character Ross’ ex-wife Carol is homosexual, and another main character, Chandler’s, father Charles is transgender. Chandler’s transgender father is often “used as a ploy for laughs” (Melcher, n.d., p.11), for example, while preparing for their wedding in season 7, Chandler tells his fiance: “Here’s a question you never want to have to ask. My dad just called and wants to know if he can borrow one of your pearl necklaces.” (Crane et al., 2001) The joke itself, together with the fact that Chandler’s father is referred to by the wrong pronouns, illustrates how instead of accepting Charles and representing the transgender community properly, the show creators used the character as a source for humor. The other queer character - Carol, is often fetishized by one of the male leads - Joey, with multiple instances of him openly imagining intimate physical acts involving Carol and another woman.

“In one episode, Ross solemnly says that he is going to go home to think about his ex-wife and her lover, to which Joey excitedly says that they should all do the same”

In addition to that, the love story between Carol and her partner Susan is hardly ever used to actually call attention to them. Instead, it is used to either humor Ross (about how he was married to a homosexual woman), or to “underscore how uncomfortable Ross was with his ex-wife's new relationship.” (Lang, 2023)

Nevertheless, Friends was one of the first TV shows of its time to have so much LGBTQ representation. Yes, in many cases it was distasteful and used as a source of humor; however, it is worth mentioning that it was unusual for the shows of that time to have such a significant LGBTQ storyline as Carol’s. “The visibility of the lesbian community in Friends is certainly noteworthy when visibility of lesbians was not and is still not always present in meaningful ways”. (Melcher, n.d., p.7) Furthermore, the representation of the lesbian couple is not even carried out in the most stereotypical way - the need for a homosexual woman to fit the tomboy characteristic was omitted, with both the women being openly feminine. In addition to Carol and Susan’s and Chandler’s father’s storylines, one of the main characters - Phoebe, is also believed to be a part of the LGBTQ community. The show’s creators had many implicit and indirect clues about Phoebe’s sexuality, but out of all the main characters, she is the only one expressing genuine support and interest in the LGBTQ community and being a part of it. Looking back at the show now, it undeniably deserves some respect for the extent to which it encompassed and represented LGBTQ characters and storylines, while the rest of the television programs didn’t. However, since it was one of the only TV shows at the time covering such topics, Friends had even more responsibility in representing the LGBTQ community correctly. Unfortunately, the representation was problematic, especially when looking at it today and reflecting on the current societal landscape.

Using queer characters in Friends to provide humor objectifies them and the wider LGBTQ community. Fetishizing characters such as Carol diminishes the humane side of the LGBTQ characters limiting them to only their sexual orientation. This yet again offers a very one-dimensional representation of these individuals and reinforces negative stereotypes. Misgendering a trans individual displays a lack of respect for the community and can potentially be triggering to the contemporary audience, by neglecting the credibility and worthiness of the trans community. These negative and homophobic ideas surrounding the LGBTQ community are especially unacceptable in present-day society, due to the increasing awareness and openness to such topics, which is even evident by same-sex marriage currently being legal in all 50 US states, as opposed to only one state (Massachusetts) back in 2003. (Reuters, 2013) This, amongst other LGBTQ awareness initiatives in the US, creates a much more liberal and open societal landscape, which has the power to increase the audience members’ awareness of the harmful and triggering representation of the LGBTQ community in Friends.

The societal landscape and the mindsets of the audiences have evolved significantly since the show first aired in 1994. This is due to general education and awareness, as well as multiple initiatives, movements, and even political reformations. All of this has had a significant impact on how today’s viewers perceive the humor and representation surrounding gender and sexuality in Friends, causing it to be regarded as problematic and outdated. This reinforces the idea of how important it is to keep moving forward with educating society on these topics, to create awareness around what is and is not acceptable, challenge the existing stereotypes, and improve the future portrayal of gender and sexuality in television and beyond.

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