Unconventional Motherhood on Friends
ABOUT THE EPISODE
I started Season 2 of The Motherscope Podcast back in March knowing that I had to do an episode on the TV show ‘Friends’ for a lot of reasons. I know it's still a show that many people watch reruns of over and over again and it also addressed motherhood in direct ways throughout its tenure. However, it's taken me months for me to figure out what more I want to say about it that hasn’t already been said. I've been taking notes and refreshing my memory by rewatching old scenes. I also reached out on social media to hear from ‘Friends’ fans, asking them to share their thoughts on the motherhood arcs throughout the series.
With that, here's what I plan on covering in the episode: my relationship with Friends to include my reaction to the 2021 reunion special on HBO, a couple of my “hot take” opinions about the show and its characters, I'm going to dive into the characters’ relationships with their mothers (which I haven't seen a lot written about), and I will review the road to motherhood for its three central characters. Enjoy!
TOPICS DISCUSSED
How disorganization has activated my writer’s guilt this week and an overview of all that’s offered through Motherscope.
What I enjoyed about the TV show ‘Friends’ as a teen and young adult
The hard to ignore things that stood out to me during a recent re-watch of the show
My reaction the Friends reunion on HBO and why it left me feeling more sad than nostalgic
The disappearing baby problem on ‘Friends’
Analyzing each character’s complicated relationships with their mothers, and the way these mother-child relationships mirror the common dynamics portrayed in Disney movies
The different ways motherhood and fatherhood is represented on the show
How ‘Friends’ chose a more progressive storyline (for its time) by making Rachel a single mother and how they missed an opportunity to portray that in an honest way
The ways Monica and Chandler’s infertility storyline could have been more hurtful than helpful, and how male writers and directors could be the reason for the misrepresentations featured in these episodes
Pointing out the lack of nuance and variety in the birth experiences depicted on the show and the absence of scenes showcasing honest postpartum recovery
Comparing ‘Friends’ to ‘Living Single’ and the revelation that the premise for ‘Friends’ was essentially stolen from Black creators
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Extended Reading
Recommendations - Better “Friends” Shows
WRITING PROMPT
Write a story about a friendship or friendship group that’s been influential in your life.
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Jackie Leonard 00:00
I went into the season back in March, knowing that I was going to have to do an episode on the TV show Friends, for lots of reasons. I know, it's still a show that many people go back and watch reruns of over and over again, it's that kind of comfort show for a lot of people pique anastasija For those of us who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s, and also a show that addresses motherhood in a direct way throughout its tenure series run. So for all those reasons, and more, I knew I was going to do an episode on friends. And yet, it's taken me months to sit down and really figure out what I want to say about it. Because especially in recent years, I feel like so much has been said about this show that I feel a little tired of it, to be honest. So as I've been taking notes, and refreshing my memory and rewatching old scenes that felt pertaining to this episode, I also reached out on social media and asked people to share if they loved friends, and why and what their thoughts were on the motherhood arcs throughout the series. And the community definitely came through because you guys reminded me of certain things that I had forgotten, and also highlighted areas that I want to dive into beyond the obvious so that what I share, it feels a little bit outside of what you've already heard about the show Friends, and also honors, what's good about it, while addressing some of the things that have not aged well, in the almost 30 years since the show aired in 1994. So here's what I plan on covering, I'll do a quick little share about my relationship with friends and my thoughts on the recent reunion that happened on HBO. A couple of my hot take opinions about the show and the characters, I'm going to dive into the characters relationships with their mothers, which I haven't seen a lot written about. I will also go through the road to motherhood for its three central characters. For today's media literacy segments, I'm going to share three resources that detail things about the show that are inaccurate, relatively unknown, or controversial. After that, I'll share three TV shows that I personally have watched and really enjoyed that I feel, in some ways are better friendship represented stories on TV, and that are still comedic and sitcom format. But first, I will share what I'm feeling guilty of today. And I'm going to take a little bit of a departure from talking about my mom guilt, which is always ever present. But today, I felt poignant for me to shed some of my Writers Guild, which is also very real, if you are a writer, my guild right now became glaring when I was trying to find some notes that I knew I took for this episode a week or so ago. And I couldn't find it. I looked in my Google Docs for different email addresses, I looked in my notes app on my phone, I looked in a journal that I have on my desk right now. I looked all over and I couldn't find it. And I knew that I wrote something down somewhere. And as I'm searching for it, it brought up very familiar feelings for me of just not being organized with my writing. I try all the time to have a dedicated space where I keep my writing so that I can always find it when I need to. And save myself time because I spend a lot of time throughout my day trying to retrace where I wrote something. And remember if I wrote it down at all, because as you may relates, sometimes I don't write it down even though I think I did. So I just navigated that whole rabbit hole of just trying to find my writing and beating myself up over it. I did eventually find the notes. And it actually, of all places was in an email draft. So I either was going to email it to myself or I just took the notes and didn't even think about what I would do with them later. And I guess I don't really have a lot to say to soften the guilt. I do want to offer just some grace to myself and anybody else who is like this, and a mom because I know that in a perfect world. Even without being a mom, I struggled with this. But in a perfect world. I would always write down my notes in the right spot or if I was on the go and didn't have it I could transfer it where it needed to be. But it's really difficult to would be organized digitally, let alone trying to consolidate digital writing, with handwritten writing and, and figuring out a good way to organize things that are creative. Because I can have a planner for my schedule, I can have, you know, a place where I keep all of the bills that I've paid.
Jackie Leonard 05:22
My creativity doesn't always fit into a box, or it doesn't have a place that makes the most sense for it to go versus something else. And so that's definitely something that I'm still reconciling and trying to figure out the best approach for it. If you have any suggestions for me, I'm all ears, I try to be organized, there are some places that I have been really good about making sure my writing goes, if I have a plan for it, but my writing that is more on the cuff or inspiration strikes, and I just go and do it. It can honestly go anywhere. And what I will say about Google Docs that is especially nice is it saves the document no matter what. And hopefully, as long as I can remember, a word that I wrote down, I usually can pull it up pretty quickly. Before I get into friends, I did want to take a few minutes to talk about another scope and some of the things that I offer within the community and platform that you may not be familiar with if you're not on social media, or if you have strictly been a listener to this podcast and haven't engaged with our website or anything like that. So in a nutshell, I created mother's scope because I wanted to create a space for mothers to write and share their own stories. And in the years since I kicked off that idea, I have created a platform that shares stories every week, by contributors all over the world via our online journal. Every Monday and Thursday, a new story or poem that is featured on our website. As you know, the podcast is an extension of mother's scope and has episodes out every Tuesday. So that is the story portion of mother's scope. Mother's scope is also a writing community. And so it is a core tenant of Mother scope that writing support is provided and offered for moms who write and that is where the community comes in. Our writing community is the mother scope writers Club, which is a subscription based community that offers weekly zooms all with the purpose of helping support providing accountability, and community for writers who are mothers. In addition to occupying the online space mother scope also releases a magazine once a year, which is a collection of stories submitted around a particular theme. In the next month or so I'm gearing up to launch our fifth issue which is all about postpartum stories titled this is postpartum presale will be available for that in the next few weeks. I'll let you know once that is available for pre order which should be available hopefully by end of October early November. So the best way to get all of the information I just shared is to simply go to mother scope.com. If you're on Instagram, I'd love for you to also follow at Mother scope. But the main thing that I wanted to highlight is our mailing list because that is where I share any of the special announcements with mother scope. That's where you get weekly reminders of our podcast episodes, the stories that have gone live on the website, and various events that we may be hosting. And being on the mailing list is the best way that you can be sure that you will know what's going on within the mother scope community. All right, so let's dive into friends now Challis. I would describe my relationship with the show friends to be this it was definitely the show that I when I was a kid I mean, I was probably in middle school when I started watching episodes. I think by this time, it had been on the air for a number of years and reruns were showing on a different channel. While the show was still airing new episodes on NBC. At the time, it was that show that I watched that I wasn't technically allowed to watch but was able to kind of sneak around and catch an episode here and there and I just thought it was so funny. It was very cool to watch the show about adults who are all friends and hanging out. I think the style of the show lends itself to be really attractive to teenagers and young adults because that is the kind of thing that is very aspirational. Living in New York City and an apartment with your friends and living close by to the guys that just seemed like the dream. And I think high school was really the only time that I can recall having friendships like that where I was seeing the same people on a regular basis. And I had friend groups like that. And so the show had that interesting mix of being very relatable in some ways, or there were things that are related with it, even as a young teenager, while also having things about it that I dreamed about for my adulthood, and probably set me up to be very disappointed in the future. But it definitely seemed to represent something that I aspired to for my future as an adult. At the time, I think I really loved the friendship between Chandler and Joey actually. And I also really liked and related to the character of Monica. I love to Monica and Chandler's relationship as a couple. And I think I definitely was also somebody who cheered for or wanted Ross and Rachel to be back together in all the times that they were separated. So the last season of friends aired in 2004. And that actually was the year I graduated from high school. And so there must be something also about the show that feels like a time capsule for me, an ending of my childhood in a way. And I think the fact that I watched the finale, the last episode of the show, in a movie theater in Palm Springs, where I grew up, there was like the special events
Jackie Leonard 11:43
that they had, where they sold tickets, and I don't think I'd ever seen a TV show in a movie theater in that way. Before ever since really, something was so cool about that, and really helped kind of memorialize and celebrate this show. That was something really special for me. So yeah, I get to I got to go watch. The last episode at the movie theater, it was this awesome events, just a lot of energy and excitement. I think they also aired like a special like, tribute to friends before the finale and, and so it was this experience that I won't ever forget, and that I will always associate with the show. I just recently actually found the ticket stub for that. So. So that was that's my relationship with friends. Obviously, I was a big fan growing up. And even in my early adulthood, it became that show that I would occasionally watch reruns of and enjoy as a comfort in recent years that has worn off. Honestly, I did a full rewatch of the entire series A few years ago, probably around the time when they were saying it was going to come off of Netflix. And I realized that I had never really watched probably the last two to three seasons. And I realized that there were some episodes that I had missed altogether. So it was an interesting experience to watch it all the way through. And I found myself really enjoying the humor still. And the characters while also realizing that there were some things about the show that we're definitely problematic. The fat phobia for me was definitely something that in hindsight, I was aware of. But that was just a punch line. And I didn't realize how pervasive it was throughout the series. In addition to its homophobia, those were definitely things that stood out to me in my rewatch other criticisms of the show up and that it was very white show the cast is all whites. I just read actually that in their Rolling Stone cover story, which was a very big profile to launch and promote the show when it first aired. They did address the race issue with David Schwimmer saying, Listen, the fact is that we could be more diverse, but it doesn't necessarily bother me. You can't do everything to please everybody. And I know that in casting, they did look at all sorts of different people. This just happens to be the group they ended up with. So I mean, yeah, that's the kind of answer he gave in 1994. I do. I was thinking about it recently, like how might the show have handled a more diverse cast? And in some ways, I'm kind of glad that they didn't do it more, because the way that jokes were dealt throughout the show, I just, I just don't know that they would have handled it. Very well. To be honest, that is definitely not to say that the creators get a pass that response by David Schwimmer is very on par with the responses. I've read from other productions, which essentially imply that the best people got hired regardless of color and we just No, that that's that's not true. So the criticisms of the show could take up a whole episode, I'm not going to dive into that too heavily. But at the end of the episode, I am going to share something that I was surprised to learn in my research. But that I think is a pretty damning indictment on the creation of the show friends that you may not know of. So listen to the end for that, if you would like to know more. Okay, so I just covered one thing on my list so far, but I'll go through these next ones pretty quickly.
Jackie Leonard 15:33
My thoughts on the reunion, the reunion episode aired in 2021. This came after like years of the cast, vehemently denying that they would ever do a reunion of any kind. Then it was announced, I think, in 2019, that they had agreed to do one and it was going to be in 2020. And then obviously, the pandemic happens. And they decided to hold off on it until they could all get together in the room. It was a big payout for this reunion. So I'm pretty sure HBO wanted to make sure it was a live type of event. I think when people were talking about a reunion for a long time, they wanted a reunion of the characters. And the actual reunion that happened was really the cast or getting back together for the first time on TV and talking about the show in a reflective kind of way. I definitely watched it. I wasn't super excited about it. I wonder how many people in my age group were, I think a lot of the people who were younger and became fans of the show via Netflix, for example, were excited to see the cast come together more than maybe people my age and older. But I could be wrong. It took me a few months to watch it, I
Jackie Leonard 16:54
think. And I remember finishing the rewatch and just being really sad. I don't think all of the actors seem to be in the best place. And there was a bit of a somber vibe to the reunion. I think they the actors tried to sell it as like this exciting thing. They got a little deep. They shared some stories. But it was a little morose. Like it wasn't something that I felt like when I walked away from it. Like I was glad that they did it if that makes sense. I think what makes me happier as somebody who was a fan of the show is when I see the cast, get together and private and have little dinners together and take pictures and post it on social media. Those are the things that make me happy and knowing that they formed some good friendships together through the experience. But that reunion was not something that I felt made me feel good. I guess I've said that a few times. And I'm pretty sure in the months since I've read that some of the actors have even said that they had a bit of a like a vulnerability hangover or just felt really sad. After that reunion, walking through the past, was hard for them and brought up things and I mean, I think we can all relate to what that feels like in our different types of lives different from the friends cast. Of course. The other thing that made the reunion feel a little uncomfortable, is the same reason why I think I struggle with the rewatches. I shared earlier that as a preteen and teenager, even young adult watching friends felt a little aspirational. It was loosely relatable, but more the life that you dream of having as an adult getting to live in New York and a cool apartment and all of that with your friends. And so now that I'm in my mid 30s I'm not sure what to take from it because I'm watching characters who are younger than me. When I used to watch those same characters and in some weird way want to be like them or live their lives and doing the rewatches as a mom with young kids felt even more painful. Because this is their lives pre motherhood and even when they do have children, the children that conveniently disappear when it doesn't serve the story which as we all know is not real life. A couple of hot takes I don't know if this is one that I think a lot of people might relate to me but I in my rewatches definitely am not a fan of the Ross and Rachel relationship. I do not think they had a healthy relationship and did not model a good relationship dynamic or like a really deeply in love. Couple. In a lot of ways it just felt like they wanted each other when they couldn't have each other Are and Ross particularly it was very possessive of her. And that rang even more true in the finale when Rachel decides to basically stay in New York to be with Ross instead of go off to Paris for a job opportunity that really just encapsulated their relationship dynamic. And for that to have been the series finale, the final kind of ultimate decision that she made, felt very sad to say the character of Rachel, to be honest. In my rewatch, I still was a fan of Monica and Chandler's relationship. I remember really liking the evolution of their relationship. That might be my only heartache. I just thought of like the other things I was going to say. And I'm pretty sure that's like more commonly agreed on then a hot take. I hated the Joey and Rachel dating storyline. I'm not the biggest fan of Rachel actually as a character. I think Jennifer Aniston is the breakout star of the show, and just not wasn't that interested in her character. Even though it's prime, I felt like Rachel was the character and Monica and Phoebe kind of were the supporting characters. It felt like I really loved watching Phoebe in the rewatches. And her relationship with Joey, I was glad that it remained platonic, but I just felt like they had a really sweet relationship with one another. As I said, I asked for some feedback on the show from the mother scope community. And a couple of you pointed out the complicated relationships the main characters had with their mothers. And I was starting to think about it but you you gave me some details that I wouldn't have remembered on my own and
Jackie Leonard 21:54
I appreciate specifically the the main ones that came to mind are Ross and Monica's relationship with their mother and how very different they are. Phoebe's relationship with her mother mother's plural, Rachel's relationship with her mom and Chandler's relationship with his mom. All I'll focus mostly on Ross and Monica's relationship with their mother and Chandler's relationship with his mother, just because those are the two that I know of the most off the top of my head. What I find really interesting about Ross and Monica's relationship with their mom is how different they are, and really their relationship with their parents. Ross is kind of presented as the golden child, the one who's accomplished and successful. In the early season, like in the first season, I think they're introduced to us and that dynamic is established and then reiterated throughout the series. Monica is the younger child, to Ross, who grew up basically in the shadow of him. As I shared earlier, she was the fat kid growing up. And so her parents continuously remind her of that and reference her in relation to Ross around what she looked like versus what he looked like and, and their relationships and all kinds of things. And so we saw and Ross kind of somebody who would be the definition of like the mediocre man, who always seemed to think very highly of himself and his actions and often had to be brought down a few pegs to reality. And then you had Monica, who was the overachiever who worked like crazy to prove herself and feel worthy, and was depicted as somebody who was very controlling, who had compulsive tendencies around cleaning, and who struggled in her alleged romantic relationships. Obviously, the parents serve to develop her as a character but I felt like it made her character just feel so much more whole to show what it was like to be Monica with her parents juxtaposed against the way that her parents treated Ross specifically his mother treated Ross in relation to the way their mother treated Monica. Growing up and as adults as adults, we continuously see Monique as mom giving her a hard time for not settling down not being further in her career, and by extension, the impact that has on Monica in her life. And then you have Chandler who goes on to become Monaco's husband and the father of her children also has a complicated relationship with his mother. We see her throughout the series. She's a divorcee, she she divorces Chandler's father because she catches him being intimate with the pool boy and his father's cross dressing and storyline around his sexuality. He is a big punch line on the show but specifically with his mother, we learn that his mom was very absent, neglectful, even she just didn't really have an interest in being a mom.
Jackie Leonard 25:13
There's a point in the show where it's referenced that Chandler's mom didn't go to his first grade events because she didn't want to. It's a little disappointing that Chandler's mom is this way, and she is depicted as being so distant and attached and neglectful of Chandler as a mom because she is a very accomplished woman. She's a successful graphic adult novelist. She's sold millions of copies of her erotic novels, she encourages Rachel to pursue writing in her career. And I mean, it's very 90s, early 2000s, to have that character be a disconnected, unavailable mother, who is the mother of a child who goes to become an adult who is very self deprecating, insecure, who both struggles with commitment and also doesn't let go of bad relationships. And, again, to echo what I said about Monica, the way his mother is depicted, very much is telling of the character that Shandler is, but like I said, it had to come at the expense of these and supporting problematic mother figures. And as I said, Rachel also has a complicated relationship with her mom that is detailed on the show. Phoebe also has a very complicated relationship with her mom in that she finds out later in life that the woman who she believed to be her birth mother was not her birth mother, the mother who raised her Lily Boothbay, at some point dies by suicide, and Bibi is then raised by her grandmother. As an adult, Phoebe finds out her birth mother as someone else, she gets to know her birth mother later in life. Without getting into the details of the maternal relationships that influenced the baby. I'm not getting into details because I don't know them or have them readily available right now. But even without all that, it's obvious that Phoebe had some instability and suffered from a number of different losses and abandonment throughout her life. So on the whole, the mother child relationships on friends are very similar to what I have criticized about Disney movies, they're either absent or harmful mother figures. With a show that aired for 10 seasons, you would expect that a character or two would go on to become a parents. After that much time has passed. And actually each of the three central characters who are women have children in different ways. So this is where the unconventional motherhood figures from the show friends really manifest in the three characters. To give credit to the Father is on the show, Ross becomes a father in the first season, and Chandler becomes a father at the end of the series, the last episode of season 10. To be specific. By the end of the series, both Joey and Phoebe are the only two who do not have children who they are raising as parents. So I mentioned Ross becoming a father and season one. I do want to briefly address Ross and specifically his first marriage because it is one of the first experiences on the show where we get motherhood related contents through his ex wife, Carol, who leaves him for a woman and that becomes a very long running joke against Ross. And also there's a lot of jokes around the relationship between Carol and her partner, especially because Carol finds out after leaving Ross that she is pregnant. She gives birth later in the show to Ross's first child, Ben. I'll talk about the birth episodes after I'm done with each character.
Jackie Leonard 29:24
The next character who experiences motherhood in a unique way is Phoebe Sophie baby. Fine finds out she has a brother through her father at some point in the show. I can't remember specifically how or when that happens. I know it's in the early seasons. And in season four, her brother and his wife asked baby if she will have their babies. I'm not sure if it starts out directly that way. I think what happens is they share the fertility problems that they're having that his wife cannot have babies. She's all they're much older than him. And she either volunteers or is asked and accepts to be a gestational surrogate for her brother and his wife. And so that becomes a joke throughout the time that she's pregnant is that she's having her brother's baby. But in actuality she is the gestational surrogate, which means that his sperm and his wife's egg created a I keep forgetting the word for it, I had set up an embryo that is implanted into Phoebe, she finds out she's pregnant with triplets, and in season five, their 100th episode she gives birth to her brother's children, her nieces and nephew. And in that episode, where she gives birth, there's this sweet scene where Phoebe talks to the three of the triplets and talks about how she kind of wishes that she could watch them grow up every day, but she'll just be there cool and and that's okay. And I don't know that we really get them much anymore after that. This storyline was written in actually to coincide with Lisa Chhu Droz actual pregnancy. And so it makes sense that if they weren't ready for Phoebe's character to be a mother that they would do this surrogacy thing, so that there was a reason for why the children were gone. We don't get a big motherhood or pregnancy related storyline until season eight, which is when we find out that Rachel has gotten pregnant unexpectedly through a one night stand with her ex Ross. And at the end of season eight is actually the finale, Rachel has their baby named Emma.
Jackie Leonard 31:52
Rachel, as we know, it represents a type of mother or entry to motherhood. That is the unexpected pregnancy that is carried out she is single at the time and chooses to have the baby anyway. They both don't seem to be ready or willing to enter a relationship. Rachel doesn't see being pregnant as a reason to get into a relationship. And so for the time, this was, I guess, 2000 to 2003. To have this in, the storyline felt like an unconventional or modern way to represent motherhood to its audience. So Rachel goes on to have the baby. Like I said, at the end of season eight, and season nine and 10. She is living as a mom, a single mom, we see her try to live with Ross after having the baby, I think he really wanted her to be there so he could be involved. And that does not work out for them. We see her move in with Joey, which then leads to complicated romantic feelings for one another. But in any case, she was still a single mom, who is also navigating a growing competitive career. As I said a little bit earlier, the series ends with Rachel choosing to be with Ross, so that they can be a family together, abandoning some of her career prospects as a result. And that's kind of the arc of her character. Something that I think a lot of people pointed out while the show was airing, and have since also noted is a little frustrating is how Emma, the baby disappears pretty significantly throughout the rest of the show, it would have been nice to really depict how difficult it would be for Rachel to be a single mother or show how much her friend group was able to support her. And what was needed for her to be able to continue to work the way she wanted to. I know that there are little moments here and there that show her struggling as a mom or show the baby but it's really not realistically ever present. Once she has the baby, what I've noticed and friends is it's really the pregnancies that we get a lot of the motherhood stuff. And a lot of it is your stereotypical generalizations and achiness around pregnancy. I remember when Rachel is pregnant, there's an episode about the birth tape and they're watching the birth and everybody's kind of grossed out about it. And Rachel is trying to be like, positive about it and then she gets grossed out about it if I remember correctly. And so just like the things you would expect to hear about pregnancy are represented but we don't see like a very accurate rendering of what motherhood looks like for a single parents. That feels a little bit like a missed opportunity in my in my opinion. And then the last character to experience motherhood before the show ends is Monica. Monica and Chandler get married. I think at the end of season seven and in season eight When Rachel is giving birth at the hospital, we see Chandler and Monica talking about potentially having a baby and actually trying to have a baby while at the hospital, and that ushers in their journey to having a baby which we learn in season nine, and throughout season 10 is a road laced with infertility. There's a reference to them trying for a year and not having any luck. And all of this comes to a head at the end of season nine and the episode, the one with fertility tests, this aired in 2003. And Monica and Chandler go to a fertility fertility clinic and are informed that due to the low motility of Chandler sperm, and Monaco's inhospitable environment, they are unlikely to ever conceive for this episode of the podcast because the show Friends is so widely known, I didn't get into the behind the scenes stuff with the show as much I didn't look as deeply into the show runners of the show or its writers or producers, first of all, because it's a show that spanned 10 years, and I felt like there could be a lot of information to unpack. But for this specific episode, I was curious the one with the fertility test. And sure enough, the episode was written by two men, and directed by a man I looked at the subsequent episode, which is about them interviewing a sperm donor. And that one was also written by two men and directed by a man.
Jackie Leonard 36:39
I'll share more about this in my media literacy in just a minute. But a lot of things make sense with regard to be inaccuracies and some of the insulin insensitivity that is given to the storyline. And yet again, like I said, with Rachel's experience with motherhood as a single mother, the infertility storyline for Monica felt like a missed opportunity to go deeper and help its audience that surely included people who were facing similar challenges feel less alone or more heard. The actress who plays Monica, Courtney Cox also experienced infertility. And she may have been somebody who pushed for this storyline. But either way, if it wasn't woven into the sitcom format, in a way that felt like it really was pushing the envelope and taking away some of the shame and misrepresentations of infertility, as it existed back in 2003, and still exists today, Monica and Chandler go on to adopt, they find a birth mother and she chooses them to be the parents to her child. At the series finale, we find out that the birth parent was pregnant with twins and didn't know it, even though her records all say that she was pregnant with twins, which felt like you know, just something that was used for a punchline but just didn't really make any sense. They kind of affairs plays the birth parents, and she portrays this ditzy woman who doesn't realize that she's pregnant for starters, and thought that when the doctors told her, she had two heartbeats that they were talking about her own heartbeat and the baby's heartbeat, so that that took me out a little bit when I rewatched. That scene to be honest, but needless to say, that is how Chandler and Monica become parents to a boy and a girl. So in addition to representing infertility through her character, she also represents an adoptive parents as the way that she was able to become a mother on the show. I didn't mention this earlier. But Monica's quest for motherhood actually extends even further than her infertility journey. And even the point where they decided they wanted to try to have children. Monica in earlier seasons, breaks up with her long term boyfriend, somebody that she very much loved Richard, who was an older man, because he did not want to have any more children. And she knew that she wanted to become a mother. And so she makes the choice to end the relationship because she knew that she wanted to be a mother. And so I'm always really interested in the choice to become a parent being the start of our path to motherhood. And so that's really where Monica story begins. In that decision. Before I get into the media literacy and my recommendations for other shows that depict friendship, I did also want to highlight or talk about briefly the birth scenes that are depicted on the series. Every time somebody has a baby on the show, we've gotten a birth scene in the hospital. So that includes Carol Ross's first wife, Phoebe when she gives birth to the triplets Rachel when she gives birth to Emma. And then at the end of this show, that's final episode,
Jackie Leonard 40:23
when Monica and Chandler's twins are born via the birth parents. I went back and watched each of these birth scenes, or at least did a quick breeze through them. Every one of those birth scenes leads to a vaginal birth, which I found surprising, especially considering we have not just a twin birth represented but a triplet birth. I don't know the statistics on that happening in real life. But I would venture to say that in the late mid to late 90s, and early 2000s, I'm pretty sure C section rates were at an all time high. And so for that not to be represented and one of the births on the series run really surprised me. I just went on and looked to see who wrote or directed the birth episodes. And what I find pretty interesting is, all of the birth episodes on the series were co written by Marta Kauffman, who is one of the show runners have friends. And one of the very few women's names that I've seen associated with the show, also co written by David Crane, who's the other show runner, and all of the birth episodes were directed by men, I wanted to point that out, because I have seen friends too championed a bit of for being a good representation of unconventional motherhood, the different paths that we can take as people to become mothers. And that being a little bit of a progressive thing for a show of its time, I was trying to read and see if there were any quotes or interviews by its creators about why they did that, or the intention behind it if it was a really strong choice. And if there was something behind it that that drove that I haven't found that which I found a little frustrating. It was obviously a choice to have its three characters approach motherhood in different ways. And yet, I still feel like it was a little surface level. I also, as I've pointed out, there were opportunities where they could have said something a little bit more strongly or rubber are represented something more accurately, or in the case of even the birth scenes, I feel like they could have represented how birth can look different in all kinds of ways. Even within a hospital setting. I feel like each of the birth scenes were depicted very similarly, when we all know how varied and different birth experiences can look even from child to child of the same parent. So I think I would have liked to see that played out a little differently. And it was not, not to mention no references to post partum. Really, I
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think we get a little bit with Rachel's character. But I don't think we even get much of an acknowledgement about Phoebe's healing after giving birth to triplets. And that could have provided some really illuminating and still funny scenes. You know, the CO creator of friends, Marta Kauffman, I just looked it up and she does have three children. So I don't want to fall into the trap of making generalizations or assumptions around whether or not she herself gave birth to these children. But if that is the case, she would be familiar with childbirth and postpartum. I am assuming that since she did play a part and writing the episodes that she did feel invested to contribute specifically to these episodes, among others. So I just kind of wonder if these stereotypical traditional childbirth scenes for all of the births on the show are the result of studio heads and productions saying you know, we can't scare people essentially with anything too far from the quote unquote norm to include postpartum there is an episode in the ninth season where Rachel is struggling after bringing home her baby Emma. And there I think the episodes something like the baby won't stop crying or the one where Emma doesn't stop crying. And all three women on the show are struggling to sue the baby and referring to child care books to try to solve the problem and all over them are struggling, right. And that is something that you could say as an example of when they tried to address or just shine a light on the struggles of new parenting. But it was still done in a way that wasn't too controversial or subversive. It didn't really lift the veil on any of the stuff that goes unsaid about new motherhood or the struggles as a new parents. And so, you know,
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I think, for the time, they did do things on their show that people could say were more progressive, in other instances, but as we've seen, with many other shows, honestly addressing and revealing motherhood to include accurately depicting pregnancy and childbirth, and postpartum is still something that especially network television, and mainstream film is not ready to fully lean into. So now for the media literacy portion of the episode. This is again, where I share some extended reading or watching or listening that I think would help inform your understanding of the show, and also serve as a critical analysis of it's just anything that I have found that I think is pertinent to your experience as a viewer. And maybe that's not widely known. So in a little bit, I am going to share some other friendship based sitcoms that I recommend that I think are better friend comedies personally. And in my research, I was just trying to remind myself which ones I've seen, and I wanted to go back to the time period that friends was running, and I came across the show Living Single. This was a show that I remember watching periodically, because it ran rerun episodes on one of the channels that I would regularly watch. You know, back in the day, there was a regular programming on cable and they'd run it the same shows a couple episodes each hour. And that would be how you got caught up on shows that you weren't watching as they're alive, because I know I wasn't watching Living Single and friends living single aired first in 1983. So it would have been like seven but I know I watched some reruns so it must have been either on Fox or some other cable channel that had the syndicated episodes. Anyway, all that to say I was reminded of live Living Single and saw that it aired in 1993. And I thought to myself, Oh, that's interesting, because when you read the synopsis of the show, it reads a lot like friends. It is six friends all spunky 20 Somethings are living together in a vibrant city facing relationship drama, job struggles and wacky high jinks. But no matter what happens, their bond remains strong. The show was set in Brooklyn, New York, and featured in all black cast, the show creator was eventually Bowser. So here I am looking at the timeline and wondering to myself, so Living Single aired first in 1993. And then friends came out in 1994. I wonder if anybody has compare the two or addressed the quite obvious. I don't even know if inspiration is the right word for it plagiarism, copying of Living Single to create friends. And so I went and Google to see if anything had been written about to address this. And I found an article that I will share in the show notes. That article does say that Living Single when it aired was an immediate and unexpected hit, According to Entertainment Weekly in 1994. And I encourage you to read the whole article but I will share a quote from its one of its the show stars Queen Latifah. She made an appearance on Andy Cohen show Watch What Happens Live in 19 No 2017 And she basically said about the show. It was one of those things where it was a guy called Warren Littlefield that used to run NBC. So NBC is where friends ran and Living Single aired on Fox. So she says and they asked him when all the new shows came out. They said if there's any show you could have which one would it be? And he said Living Single and then he created friends. This article gets into what happened to Living Single once friends came out and was a big hit. And how essentially friends led to the downfall of the bus
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And the viewership that Living Single had when it first came out. And I guess the argument could be made that a lot of shows start off really big and then kind of fizzle out. But it's very hard to ignore another example of black creators essentially having their ideas stolen and repurposed for a wide audience. So I had never heard about this before until I did my research. And I felt like if I did this episode, I really wanted to make sure everyone was able to read the same article I did and learn about the problematic way that friends came to be. The other two things that I wanted to recommend for some media literacy are around the infertility storyline that Monica and Chandler go through during the show. So I found a YouTube video from a fertility doctor who essentially has made a series of videos where she rewatches episodes or scenes from the show and talks about the misrepresentations and accuracies around infertility and fertility doctors and the different processes that people can take to still have children. And I found it really interesting. I watched her video on the episode, the one with the sperm donor. And it was actually really interesting, because I know I've watched the episode before, but I don't remember questioning it in the same way. But once she pointed out certain things, I was like, Oh my gosh, why did they do that? That makes absolutely no sense. Like in this example, the fertility results that came back for Monica and Chandler I shared earlier were basically that Chandler's sperm had Lomo motility. And Monica's uterus was basically a hostile environment. And yet, for whatever reason, in the next episode, they go to see a fertility expert, and he advises that they could try using a sperm donor to get pregnant, which addresses the low motility of Chandler's sperm, but not the problem of Monica's, how do they say inhospitable environments. So I thought this was a good companion to the storyline on the show about fertility and infertility, because it's such a sensitive subject, it's something that affects so many people. And it obviously was not done in a way that wanted to intentionally create awareness around it. And that's segues into my third and last recommendation. This is an LA Times article that was published back in 2003. So around the time that the episodes were airing live, the headline is infertility feels like a punch, not a punch line. This was written by Suzy Evans, and underneath her name, there's the blurb, sharing that Suzy is a lawyer and doctoral student in history at UC Berkeley, who has a seven month old daughter who was conceived via artificial intra uterine insemination. And this essay, Suzy details a lot of the statistics around infertility. She gives her thoughts on the storylines regarding Monica and Chandler and their journey to parenthood. As well as some of her concerns and hopes for future episodes. This is written like I said in May 2003. And it's when the storyline was airing in real time. And so I found it really interesting to read what was the public understanding back then, as well as the statistics around infertility. And I found her commentary around infertility being used as a source of material in a comedic show to be pretty valuable. So I recommend this read if you're interested. As you might imagine, there's been so much written about the show Friends, dissertations, even I read a few summaries on JSTOR for extended essays, and you know, full published works around different subjects addressed on the show and also just the public response to the show. So literally, if there's something you want to dive into or explore more, and read about that you've always wondered about the show. All you have to do is go out and search it.
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As I shared earlier, I wanted to end with some recommendations of other shows that I wrote in my notes that are better friends shows I do like friends like I've shared I don't have to like go into it. But these are shows that I have that are either more current, or that I've rewatched and felt like they aged better and so if you're just somebody who liked friends and is looking for something new to watch that celebrates friendship, or if you are they're kind of a passive are no longer a big fan of the show can't watch it the same way like me. These are some that I recommend that could be a lot of fun depending on what you're looking for. So the first one is Broad City, Broad City I believe originally aired on Comedy Central, and you can rewatch it now on Hulu. The show is no longer airing. Its first episode aired in 2014. And the final episode was in March 2019. So I think it aired for about four to five seasons. And here's the show's synopsis. Broad City was created by instars, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer as 20 Something best friends who are trying to navigate life in New York. Despite that their adventures always seem to lead down unexpected and bizarre paths. They have very little money, but there are survivors who aren't afraid to throw themselves into sticky situations, no matter how messy the end results may be. So similarities to friends, obviously, you've got 20 Somethings, who are our best friends and trying to make it in New York, the show is a little raunchier than friends, it like I said, it was on Comedy Central. So cable versus network has a different vibe. But I just I, it's one of those shows. I've rewatched it once since I first started watching the show, and there's just a lot of fun, really funny characters, short episodes, just a good time, raunchy humor, drug use just being 20. And irresponsible is kind of the vibe. And it's not something that you would typically see of a comedy starring two women best friends. And so I appreciated that as well. The next show that I recommend for anybody who hasn't watched it, is the Golden Girls. Now, this is a show I probably say it's one of my top favorite shows of all time, as like a feel good show. It's a show that I can watch. And it's just so fun and joyous. And not the type of show that I would ever think I would love except that I have a long history of watching it from my childhood and then into adulthood. I did a rewatch of it. I think I didn't rewatch this of all these things back during the pandemic, to be honest, like 2020 was a time to binge. And I rewatched the Golden Girls from start to finish, and just absolutely loved it. It was so fun. I felt like there was never a bad season. I felt like it's stayed true to itself. Throughout the series. The show ran for seven seasons it first aired in 1985 and its final episode was May 1992. The show synopsis is Golden Girls follows the story of four women who were formerly married living in Miami, Florida. The dim witted but funny rose, the sarcastic and strong willed or the man hungry Southern belle Blanche, and the wisecracking Sicilian immigrant Sophia. Together, the four women live as roommates and struggle through many hardships. But in the end, they've got each other's backs. Obviously with a show that was released in the 80s and early 90s. There are a few things that don't sit well. I think historically, it's been revealed that the actress Bea Arthur who played Dorothy didn't like some of the jokes that were often made at her expense about her appearance. But on the whole, I feel like the show is really solid and the humor is sharp and witty, and I feel like the characters are just so so good. They're so interesting and unique. They're all very different, but they you see how much they love each other and support one another and it feels genuine. There's some other friendship shows where it's marketed like a friendship show, but you're like, I don't really feel like they're good friends to each other. But this show, you just see that they've all really become a family. There are women who are post marriage, either widowed or divorced, and their children are grown up. And so they have found this new chosen family and come together and are living together and I'm just having a lot of fun along the way. I shared earlier how friends felt like an aspirational show for me as a teenager and young adults. And then didn't really feel the same way. Once I got older. I feel like Golden Girls is that aspirational show where I watch it and I'm like, you know if I am in my 50s and 60s and I'm living my life this way I wouldn't hate it. Like who doesn't want to live with their best friends and eat cheese cake and stay up all night talking about each other's adventures and drama and gossip. If Life finds you later in life alone after your children are grown and your spouse's are gone. That really feels like the best way to live. Golden Girls originally aired on NBC, and is now available to stream on Hulu. The last show I wanted to recommend is actually the most current one it just aired its last episode at the end of 2021. So the show is insecure. This is a comedy drama that aired on HBO, and is still available to stream on HBO Max. The synopsis is created by and starring Issa Rae this comedy series looks at the friendship of two modern day black women, as well as all of their uncomfortable experiences and racy tribulations as they navigate the tricky professional and personal terrain of Los Angeles. Best Friends Issa and Molly faced the challenges of being black women who defy all stereotypes. So for people who are unfamiliar with the show, or Issa Rae, this show was inspired by a web series that Issa Rae created called the Awkward Black Girl. And the show expanded that world. I learned about the show shortly after I left la I left la in 2015. And the show came out. Well, I guess you're a little over a year later. So by then I was feeling a little nostalgic and missing. La and the show is really a love letter to Los Angeles, South LA specifically, which
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is where I worked. Issa and her friends are in their late 20s I believe isa turns 29 On the first episode of the series, and that's about right where I am age wise, or was age wise when it aired. And around that time is when I started to value my friendships with other women a lot more than I had in years prior and really like honest, true friendships with women. And although the show does have a lot of storylines that revolve around dating the trials and tribulations of romantic relationships and whatnot. At its core, I believe even Issa Rae has said as plainly, the true love story of this show is the friendship between ISA and Molly. Their friendship is so dynamic and really grows. Throughout the series. The show addresses Friendship Breakups and fights in a meaningful way, a way that, I think truly only could be done by people who have experienced that. And I really liked the way that was handled. It's a hilarious show. It's so good. And if you really do love the show, I encourage you to read more about the behind the scenes production of it because Issa Rae, and the people who made the show just really went above and beyond to make sure that the stories they told felt authentic to the people who lived in South LA to the communities that they were representing, not just in the writers room, but for everything from the costuming to the locations, to the music, which is excellent. One example of the intention and specificity that they put into the show. And one of the seasons, Molly dates a man who is Korean. And so they went and hired a writer who not only was Korean, but was also dating a black woman, because they wanted to breathe that life into the character in a meaningful way. This is a show that doesn't shy away from hard conversations that uses humor in a way that doesn't punch down. And also that raises awareness around things like depression and mental health disorders. Specifically for men and women in the black community. We see the women going to therapy, we see black men being diagnosed with personality disorders and dealing with both the fallout of that and also getting treatment for it. When one of the women in their friend group gets pregnant. They address it they address pregnancy, the good, the bad, the ugly, they address the black maternal mortality rates and racism in health care. They have a storyline around postpartum depression and the struggles of being a new parent, a single parents, co parenting a newborn with somebody that you're not in a relationship with and what that looks like the parental load between mothers and fathers. Probably the best examples of recent television that I've seen that depicted it in an honest, intentional way, and that handled them seriously. I've covered the show work in mom's in a past episode, I think insecure for the storylines on the episodes that centered on parenthood and motherhood. I feel like if I were to compare, I would say and secure handled them better. And it's a testament to the genre of comedy that they were able to do that. Because often I think the assumption is made that with comedy, we give some leeway, because they don't address serious issues or can't go too deep. And I think insecure have found a way to do that to navigate that in a harmonious way. So obviously, I can't recommend it enough. What I love about each of the three shows that I recommended is that they were all created by women. I didn't even know that for sure about Golden Girls, but I'm not surprised given how well it was done. So to wrap up, let's go back to the show that started this all friends. How would I rate this on a scale of mom guilt, guilty pleasure, or mom advocates? I kind of go back and forth. I've I've been thinking about this the past few days. I kind of want to give it the mom guilt stamp.
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I'm on the cusp of mom guilt and guilty pleasure. I think if I'm specifically looking at the show with regard to the way it handled motherhood, it's on the cusp of both mom guilt and guilty pleasure because I feel like although they made the choice to have its central characters experience motherhood, quote, unquote, in unconventional ways. I'm not sure that they gave the subject matters that these characters were experiencing the seriousness and intention that they deserved. And I feel like because of that, it's prone to trigger emotional responses and guilt and shame from its viewers who are experiencing those things or similar things and might feel like the butt of a joke. As a consequence. I can't give it the outright mom guilt stamp because I do feel like as a viewer myself, I didn't experience those feelings. I think as I watched, I was kind of like, Oh, of course, here we go another birth scene that doesn't ring true. Or here's another example of a TV show character who has kids and then those kids suddenly disappear. That is obviously not something that will make a parents especially a single parents, in Rachel's case feel seen. So for those reasons, and some of the reasons that I've shared that are outside of the motherhood realm, I can't quite call it a guilty pleasure. It's like a far leaning. Guilty pleasure. All right, so before you go, I have your writing prompt for this week. Write a story about a friendship or friendship group that's been influential in your life.