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spaghettimiilk t1_je66569 wrote

There's occasional content (gay jokes come to mind) that probably wouldn't be done today, but not enough to meaningfully alter the dynamic of the show.

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karivara t1_je6elvf wrote

Monica's backstory as a fat girl and Chandler's relationship with his transgender parent would be hard to do humorously now. Other than that I agree, the other possibly offensive plots are mostly b-plots or one off jokes that could be excluded.

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MrBoliNica t1_je7pua3 wrote

IDK, New Girl seemed to do the "i used to be a fat person" storyline with Schmidt, and nobody ever seemed to care lol

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Throwhfx073 t1_je9ipev wrote

Fat men are fair game still. Can’t say anything bad about fat women though, see Lizzo for reference.

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MrBoliNica t1_je9k11v wrote

Lizzo is a real life person, Schmidt and Monica are fictional characters.

Idk, it’s weird that you wanna be mean to fat women. Do you man

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Throwhfx073 t1_jed6uip wrote

It’s the hypocrisy of the double standard. I didn’t say I want to be mean to her, but I don’t think her morbid obesity should be cheered or celebrated either. Hell when she said she was going to go on a diet a year or two ago, she got huge backlash for being “fatphobic” or other such nonsense, just for trying to get healthier.

Being fat is a result of poor food and exercise choices 99% of the time. Yes I know there are fringe cases where there is a medical problem or someone with a disability but the vast majority of people are just lazy and overeat garbage food. It should not be celebrated and promoted because it normalizes it which causes a ton of problems for society, along with severely straining the healthcare system.

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MrBoliNica t1_jeduh1x wrote

Lizzo is celebrated and promoted because she’s an amazing performer, not because of her weight

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zsreport t1_jea9k1q wrote

Both those stories could be done today, but with changes so that the storylines are fleshed out to be more than big punchlines.

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kazh t1_je898z8 wrote

They weren't very humorous back then though. I was a dumb kid and didn't take care about much but even I know a lot of that show's humor was lazy trash when it aired.

It couldn't be done that way today as easily because there are better and funnier writers on other shows that would probably get picked up or renewed instead. People aren't more fragile when you peel away from rando Twitter accounts. People just have more options now.

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AlexTorres96 t1_je73e2j wrote

I cringe at people cringing over stuff from 90s. People with today's eyes condemn it with a passion and that's just bullshit. Things evolve but people apologizing for past work is too much. If they said something back then off screen then its not acceptable. But it's just a toxic debate.

I just hate that people condemn what was accepted back then as if it was still used then. Back then gay jokes were said like hello, now nobody does because they read the lay of the land. But still bitching about the back then stuff today is pointless because it doesn't happen anymore and people learned from it.

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DisturbedNocturne t1_je7bs58 wrote

That's the thing. I don't think Friends would be made any more or less careful today than it was in the '90s. Even then, there were absolutely topics they weren't going to touch or jokes they couldn't make for fear of backlash. Racial jokes that would've been perfectly acceptable a couple decades ago would've had the NAACP up in arms (rightfully) and sponsors pulling out. I'd be extremely surprised if they didn't have a few jokes over the course of the show where there was a debate if it'd be okay to have in the script or not and concern over how audiences would react.

People act like everyone is so sensitive and that "comedy is dead!" now, but the reality is we're just sensitive about different things as understanding and acceptance changes. There have never been jokes that are not seen as crossing a line to some of the audience, and that's a large part of the reason networks have Standards and Practices departments. It's just that whatever is the group that is the common butt of jokes ceases to be once people realize they're, you know, people with feelings, and the people who told those jokes don't want to move on and find something new to joke about, so they whine (sometimes on their sold out comedy tours) instead of finding new material.

And, of course, the whole "comedy is dead" thing is complete nonsense, something provable given how much comedy is readily available on every major streaming platform, written by talented individuals who know how to still be funny even if certain topics become taboo.

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Lordosass67 t1_je6f9tz wrote

Man I was Angel recently and hearing Charisma Carpenters character call her friend a "lesbo" was a wake up call.

There was shit being said in network television during the 1990s-2000s that has essentially been relegated to Alt-Right channels like Rebel News and InfoWars.

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Turqoise-Planet t1_je7blig wrote

Lesbo wasn't considered offensive back then. There are a lot of words that started off inoffensive, but then became considered offensive over time. A century ago "retarded" was considered an actual medical term, and was used in textbooks (it literally means "slow"). Now its very offensive.

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Maninhartsford t1_je7go52 wrote

Through the 80s at least! There's a fantastic episode of the 80s twilight zone by George RR Martin that has a lot of moments land strangely now because of how they're using the word as a medical term. The infamous quantum leap reveal also comes to mind. Though I'm sure the word was already being used as an insult at the time, there simply wasn't another word for it.

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zsreport t1_jeaafja wrote

Back when "Law & Order" was still on TNT, I caught an airing of an episode where a character dropped the N-word, was a bit jarring to hear that on what was originally a network broadcast show.

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