Former Friends star Jennifer Aniston said the hit 90’s sitcom is “offensive” for the current generation of viewers watching reruns.
The actress claimed “comedy has evolved” in an interview with the international AFP news agency in Paris, France promoting Netflix’s Murder Mystery 2 with co-star Adam Sandler. “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.”
“You could joke about a bigot and have a laugh — that was hysterical. And it was about educating people on how ridiculous people were,” she continued. “Now we’re not allowed to do that.”
“There’s a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of Friends and find them offensive,” Aniston said.
Jennifer Aniston: A ‘whole generation’ finds ‘Friends’ ‘offensive’ today https://t.co/fFs2uOn4bc pic.twitter.com/zKuJ4lOUd7
— New York Post (@nypost) March 29, 2023
“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,” Aniston continued. “Everybody needs funny! The world needs humour! We can’t take ourselves too seriously. Especially in the United States. Everyone is far too divided.”
Friends, which aired for ten seasons between 1994 and 2004, has been criticized in recent years for a lack of diversity in casting.
“I feel like it was a show created by two people who went to Brandeis and wrote about their lives after college,” fellow Friends alumni Lisa Kudrow told the Daily Beast last year regarding the show’s production. “And for shows especially, when it’s going to be a comedy that’s character-driven, you write what you know. They have no business writing stories about the experiences of being a person of color.”
Sandler also commented on the evolution of comedy films, noting the genre is expected to look as high quality as blockbusters and dramas.
“Remember when we used to make comedies? They would give you a budget, not too much money, and say: ‘Do whatever you can with that,'” Sandler said. “And now they want us to look pretty awesome. We work harder on that.”
Aniston and Sandler have previously co-starred in 2011’s Just Go With It and 2019’s Murder Mystery.
