An Ode to Chandler

Revisiting "Friends"

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You will be missed Chandler Bing…

There’s a Gen Z trend on TikTok roasting how millennials talk on social media: the “millennial pause” at the start of videos because we grew up on analog devices that took a second to record, the beat after jokes because we were raised on sitcoms with studio audiences. There are the self-deprecating jokes (“Can you believe I did a thing?!”) and goofy, cringy sarcasm at the mundane. There is an embarrassing number of these videos and in every millennial impression, I recognized someone. They’re all doing a variation of Chandler Bing. Matthew Perry’s character in Friends epitomized '90s snark and self-effacing humor, an evolution of Sam from Cheers and Seinfeld, but without the cool confidence. The sing-song of his quips is part of our dialect now. “Could I be any more tired?”

A few weeks ago, I started watching Friends again as a refuge from the news. Any episode from its peak seasons is as comforting as warm mashed potatoes. There’s been a recent condemnation of the show, think pieces on how white, homophobic, transphobic, fat-phobic it was (and it was all those things), so I wanted to see how it held up for my column on '90s culture. It’s a bummer I finished it as Matthew Perry died at 54.

Friends was one of my first “white shows.” I was too young to understand Cheers (literally, as English is my second language). As I learned English, I gravitated toward shows like Martin and Living Single, the precursor and blueprint for Friends. Seinfeld’s nihilism made me uncomfortable as a sensitive kid though I loved the warm chaos of Married with Children.

As a Mexican immigrant, assimilation meant survival in high school. I had paralyzing social anxiety. I didn’t have many friends in elementary and middle school. I was too Gay for the Brown kids, too Gay and Brown for the white kids. I didn’t watch sports or listen to hip hop, but I soon found that pop culture could be my entry point. I studied it like it was my SATs.

Thursdays, when Friends aired, was my favorite night because the next day I’d have something to start conversations. A line from the show guaranteed a laugh, and Chandler Bing’s zingers were perfect for awkward high school boys. Memory is incredible. Not only can I recite punchlines in episodes I haven’t seen in twenty years, but I can then remember who I talked to about it the next day. I still get a cringey, fuzzy feeling recalling the time I laughed with my popular crush about how Ross rolled over a juice box and Rachel thought he’d ejaculated too early. The adult humor seemed such a big deal to us then.

The very thesis of the show felt fresh: failing at life going into your 30s was OK as long as you had people who loved you. This was a post-Grunge generation examining itself and the greed of the '80s. The show also captured a love for NYC before gentrification made it nearly impossible for a character like Phoebe, a masseuse, to afford a Manhattan apartment (although much has been said about the unrealistically large apartment Monica lived in, it was a family inheritance).

Friends is one of the last great American multi-camera sitcoms, before the format shifted to the mockumentary style of The Office. The chemistry of the cast is unparalleled; any two characters could be left alone and ping-pong their way to huge laughs. Their friendship was aspirational, even off-screen, as their infamous negotiations for record-breaking pay showed.

Watching the show now, there are many issues with it, as with all media of the time. It’s got really problematic moments, but for each of those, there were also progressive politics and Queer solidarity. Friends was one of the first times I saw Gay characters on TV that were not in a “special episode.” The show premiered with Ross being left for a Lesbian and even featured a Gay wedding! It was a revelation to me, and so was his alternative family of raising a child with them.

It's easy to pile on Friends for what it didn’t do, but we also have to give it credit for what it didn’t do. Its Queer characters were usually played as smarter people not villains. The Gay jokes were nothing compared to the violent homophobia of other media at the time. In fact, the subtext of most of the homophobia, such as Chandler’s disgust at the male body and eternal worry about being seen as Gay, was always about insecurity not prejudice. Chandler may not have been fully Queer-coded, but he had a Queer pathos, uncomfortable in his body, traumatized by his dad being Gay and then Trans (his worst Thanksgiving memory was his father sleeping with his Latino housekeeper). That plot conflated Transgender, Drag, and Gay together in a way that was ignorant but not malicious. When the show revealed his “father” as a woman, they were portrayed by Kathleen Turner, an A-list legend, not a mustachioed woman or man in a wig. Phoebe’s bisexuality and radical hippie ethos were effervescent, she preached about radical acceptance and spirituality without becoming a New Age cartoon. Even the same-sex kiss between Ross and Joey (for Joey’s audition practice) was a testament to their bond and not played for disgust. The friends in Friends felt like people who would accept me as a Gay person. Without much direct representation, Queer people in the '90s had to make do with reflected acceptance.

Revisiting media needs to be taken in the context of experience, too, not just to punish its era. We tend to do that a lot now. For someone who never watched Friends when it aired, its problems won’t be balanced by context or memory. I get the jokes differently as an adult. After living in New York, I appreciate what it said about success. As a Queer person, I’m grateful for what it showed me within the limits of the time. Watching Matthew Perry’s addiction become apparent in his face as the seasons progressed, I sympathize because it mirrors so much of the Queer struggle with substances. I don’t have the same yearning behind my laughter at fifteen, but now that Matthew is gone, it reminds me of all the friends I’ve lost too. There is nothing sadder than when a group of friends loses their clown.