Or in friends, those repeated transphobic episodes AND gay jokes
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2025
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The biggest mistake here is watching Friends in the first place. What a shitty TV show.
I've always hated friends. I hate it so much I can't even understand how someone can enjoy it. It's just as bad as The Big Bang Theory.
yepppp
had a roommate once who watched it nonstop, so I had the chance to be exposed to it properly. never appealed to me
even big bang theory appealed to me at first, a little bit
Big Bang Theory got a little better when I found out there's a fan theory that Sheldon accidentally destroys the universe in an infinite chain of causality based on the equations in the backgrounds of the episodes but not enough to actually watch them
Ok, ill reframe. What horrible comments were made in friends?
Pretty much any joke about Ross's ex wife begins and ends at "lol lesbian"
Yeah? It's pretty funny that the vaguely religious character that really care what his Jewish parents think of him marrying a bisexual. I don't find it mean spirited or anything. Especially given the time it was released. If anything it brought knowledge to people that had never met or seen a gay person.
I remember a commentary track from the DVDs where the creators of the show said there were two words that ALWAYS got a laugh from the studio audience: Nipple, and Lesbian. I think the same commentary track they talked about how they were allowed to say "penis" for the first few seasons of the show, then they weren't allowed, then they were allowed again.
Might be because Americans are so prude repressing everything connected with sexuality that they bashful laugh when hearing these words.
I mean, let's be real here. Nipples are funny and male nipples are hilarious.
As for "lesbian"...Ross being a sad sack because his wife left him for another woman is one of the very first character details the show establishes. It happens right at the 2 minute mark of the pilot episode, before any of the main cast's names are spoken and before Rachel even appears on screen. So, to the audience of Friends, the word "lesbian" is almost always spoken in a context of kicking Ross in the stomach again, especially when it comes out of his mouth. Not because lesbian funny or lesbian bad, but because lesbian = his first divorce. If she'd joined a convent the word "nun" would have played similarly.
The harshest I can think of is probably "Hello, Charles" or "Don't you have too much penis to be wearing a dress like that?" Both spoken by Chandler's mother to Chandler's father.
I don't think a prime time sitcom writer's room in 1996 had the vocabulary to articulate what they were trying to do. Chandler's father is referred to in dialog for most of the show as a "gay drag queen" whose antics were 1. played for laughs, 2. given as a source of trauma for Chandler which was 3. also played for laughs. When we finally meet this character, we find "Helena Handbasket" played by Kathleen Turner. The depiction rests somewhere between drag queen and trans woman written by writers who may not have known the difference.
Most of the actual jokes are at the expense of the awkwardness of the straight folks, like Monica trying and failing to find the right pronouns for the waitstaff at the drag show, or Monica's father outright asking Chandler's mother if she was his mother or father, saying "I've never seen one before!" and lamenting "I didn't even get a chance to act like I was okay with it." So we've got a homophobe/transphobe who is at least self aware and trying very badly to work around it as the butt of the joke.
But Chandler's parents interacting with each other is outright nastiness. "He" slutshames her, she deadnames "him", the audience laughs at each salvo...thing is, it's something of an echo of Ross and Carol. Both Ross and Nora find themselves divorced and raising a child in a broken home after their spouses and coparents come out as LGBTQ. That's hard and that's painful. We see it happen in real time with Ross and Carol, that it's very painful for Ross and rather uncomfortable for Carol. Ross loves the woman he married and wants to remain married to her; Carol doesn't dislike Ross, I think she still loves him, but isn't sexually attracted to him anymore if she ever was, so the marriage can't stand. It sucks and it hurts. With Chandler's parents, simply being in each other's presence is reopening those old wounds, and they lash out at each other.
I guess thats the one episode mentioned in the meme. I just became baffled by the example of friends being guilty of some crime against decency, about 25 years after the fact. I wonder if you are gonna look back at the things you like now and cringe in 25 years.
fucking so so many, mostly surrounding chandler (which can be funny rarely if you can find the funny side of stereotyping in the 90s) and his mum (which are not even close to anything but transphobic 100% of the time)
I don't know. I thought they were pretty funny.
I also found it hilarious that Lisa kudrow read the script for Chandler and thought "oh, how nice! They wrote a gay character!"
There's an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast where the guest makes a transphobic joke and Space Ghost just stares at them, which is his default behavior given the nature of the animation, but I choose to interpret it as disapproval.
I recently encountered it in 90210, IASIP, and countless movies (ace ventura 🤮)
No wonder trans people have it so shit. People grew up with this nonsense.
IASIP is honestly incredible for the trans rep it has though, especially for 20 years ago. It shows Carmen living a happy and fulfilling life as an absolutely gorgeous woman, contrasted against the Gang being miserable and shitty, it's basically some of the best rep in a sitcom IMO. As is the case with IASIP, the joke isn't at the expense of the minority, but at the Gang for being pieces of shit. They're not telling you to laugh with them when they're like "Omg woman with a penis!", you're laughing at them for how incredibly shitty they're being to this person. I find Lily Simpson's breakdown pretty great.
This reminds me of the regular problem with these kind of comedies, that has been analyzed to death by essays on the internet. Shitty people have no self awareness or media literacy. So they don't notice when the show is making fun of them, and usually misinterpret the jokes as support for their shit POV. People who identify with George Constanta of Seinfeld, or bojack horseman, etc. They don't realize that the show is calling them out. They are not heroes, they're the butt of the joke.
There's people who think Bojack is aspirational?
Always Sunny goes out of their way to play really shitty human beings. And then flip the script so they're always seen as shitty human beings.
Anyone who thinks the Gang is behavior you should emulate is really missing the point.
It's so over the top and everyone in it was such a cartoonish piece of shit I couldn't really handle watching it as a series. Everyone just annoyed me way too much. All Gas No Brakes for that works for some, just not so much me; hard when there's zero redeeming qualities for characters.
Ive heard that argument before and, ok sure i can see its validity - she's gorgeous! But as soon as they started misgendering her i was like nope im out.
The Sunny episode isn't really anti-trans though
"Is that a hate crime? I think that's a hate crime"
There's reasons the second Ace Ventura movie is more well liked.
To be honest, most of the old sitcoms reproduce gender stereotypes super hard, some series are even based on it.
What if we kissed in the
unlikely situation where me - your old drinking buddy who you haven't seen in ages - transitioned and didn't tell you before we met up again?!
Love boat, is that you?
Weirdly, one show that didn't make fun of the trans person in that one episode was The IT Crowd, even through the creator is a bigoted fucktard in real life.
You may be misremembering. That episode ended up with the trans woman being assaulted, and had a whole run of situational jokes about how she liked typically manly pursuits.
It got so many complaints the episode was pulled, which was the trigger that let him go mask off with his transphobia.
It ended with the trans woman being assaulted
I will say for that scene, at least she won and beat the ever loving piss out of him. Not exactly a silver lining but I did always appreciate the trans woman beating up the transphobe
the sex and the city biphobic episode just fucking wangs you across the brain with no warning.
I saw this recently but wasn't as surprised as I'd like to be. That entire show seems like a prime example of something that pretends to be transgressive while ultimately just upholding core social norms. I'm sure it was more legitimately forward thinking at the time of release, but looking back on it, I'm not sure it really was as much so as it's hyped up to be. It reminds me of how some churches have declared themselves more accepting of homosexuality. It's like, a concession made in exchange for keeping the core doctrines socially viable. In sex and the city, sex positivity feels like a concession, and the core doctrines seem to have a lot to do with gender roles, social hierarchy, consumerism, etc. I've only watched episodes here and there though so I may be off the mark.
The very first line in the first episode of Vampire Diaries is a transphobic joke.
I don't remember a transphobic episode from Scrubs. There's no transphobic episodes in Scrubs, are there???
The main character drinks apple-tinis and is constantly called a girl's name. He's open about his love for his best friend, and refers to himself as a "sensey".
I've re-watched that show more times than I care to admit. There might be a few jokes that didn't age well, but I don't recall anything transphobic.
Phew, thank you for confirming my memories. I would have been pretty bummed out should I have found out that even Scrubs had some problematic episodes as it is still one of my favourite shows
I last watched it about 10 years ago and I do remember there being a few jokes that are pretty cringe, mostly fat jokes IIRC. But overall it’s pretty good. There’s an openly bi/pan character and it’s never part of the jokes about him.
No one can hate The Tod
High five!!!!
I also haven't watched it in 10 years but I still vividly remember most of the show. Still, my memory is starting to fail me and I wanted to be sure about it. Thank you for taking the time to reply <3
I remember Two and a Half Men had an episode with an FTM character, and I vaguely recall it being... fine? I don't remember any of the jokes being mean-spirited, and the character was pretty much just treated like a man. Then again, it's been like 2 decades, probably, since I've seen it.
We hear you’re a transphobe now, father.
I need to rewatch Father Ted
Becker had an episode that handled it pretty well I thought.