Like We’ve Been Here Before: The “Friends” Reunion.

From I To We: The selfishness of “Friends” Joey, Chandler, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe and Ross was an absolutely crucial aspect of the iconic 1990s series’ success. Most of the humour of “Friends” is derived from the ever-so-slightly fucked-up self-absorption of the principal characters. Just as most of the series’ dramatic power derives from the six friends’ constant collision with the core truth that, in spite of everything we’ve been told, we can’t actually make it on our own.

I’VE NEVER BEEN a big fan of reunions. All they seem to reaffirm is the wisdom of Heraclitus. Heraclitus? Yes, the ancient Greek philosopher who wrote: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

Now, it’s an open questions as to whether Ross, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, Monica and Rachel were ever great readers of Heraclitus (although, you know, Ross was a pretty academic kind of guy). What’s even more doubtful, of course, is whether the actors who played these most famous of friends ever dabbled in ancient Greek philosophy. That being the case, it was probably a bit hopeful to expect them to turn down the huge money involved in bringing all the characters back together for one, last “reunion” episode.

Mind you, they were a pretty remarkable ensemble, and they did manage to stamp a whole decade with their very own brand of cultural ink. So, you know, why not?

Why not! Seriously? Because the politico-cultural river has flowed on so far from that first episode of “Friends”, screened way back in 1994. In those days, it was still possible to gather together three white guys and three white girls from the suburbs of Middle America and drop them into a quirky “twenty-something” sitcom without being accused of unforgiveable cultural myopia and unconscious racism.

Not anymore.

Judging from the intensity of the Twitterstorm which the “Friends” reunion has generated, there’s a whole generation out there which feels deeply embarrassed by the enjoyment their younger selves derived from following the trials and tribulations of Ross, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, Monica and Rachel. Long before they made it to college and learned all about white male privilege, cis sexuality, and systemic racism, “Friends” represented something pretty close to the ideal of how they wanted to live. Sure, the series celebrated independence, discovery and adventure – but always within the context of the unconditional emotional support endlessly available from these all-too-human explorers of young adulthood.

As Chandler might have put it: “Could anyone have possibly BEEN more selfish?”

Well, no. Not really. But that selfishness was an absolutely crucial aspect of the 1990s zeitgeist. Most of the humour of “Friends” is derived from the ever-so-slightly fucked-up self-absorption of the principal characters. Just as most of the series’ dramatic power derives from the six friends’ constant collision with the core truth that, in spite of everything we’ve been told, we can’t actually make it on our own.

The other reason for “Friends” extraordinary success was the way it taught a whole generation of white, well-educated, middle-class Americans how to negotiate the hazards of neoliberal society. Not an easy project, and one that would be rendered instantly impossible if any considerations other than those of how to be a member in good standing of the professional-managerial class had been introduced to the self-contained world of the Central Perk.

Seriously, what the hell would Ross, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, Monica and Rachel have done if they had witnessed the murder of a black man by a dead-eyed cop? How would a hopeless methamphetamine addict have been received by Gunther? How would rape, domestic violence and gross economic exploitation have fitted into the comedic schema of “Friends”? How long would the friends of “Friends” have remained friends if these sorts of issues had suddenly become the main topics of conversation over all those café lattés? There aren’t a lot of laughs in injustice. At least, not a lot of laughs for liberals.

And yet, and yet, it had something – didn’t it? “Friends” had a human warmth and a core of decency that, through all the jokes and ridiculous personal crises (We were on a break!”) served a consistently uplifting didactic purpose. Not the least important of these lessons was that it is actually okay to hang out with people of the same age, sexuality, ethnicity and social class. It’s what humans have done pretty much since there were humans. In a capitalist society, where the advertisers’ dollars pay for everything from Chandler’s shirts to Phoebe’s guitar, it’s simply not reasonable to expect intersectional purity on every page of the script.

At least, it didn’t used to be reasonable. Nowadays, with “colour-blind casting” (an Indian Nicholas Nickleby anyone?) and every cast carefully sifted through the sieves of gender, ethnicity, sexuality and class (does anyone actually watch “The Irregulars”?) one is moved to wonder whether profit is even the point anymore. The thing to remember, however, is that didacticism only works when you cease to be aware that you are being taught.

“Friends” taught us about the importance of companionship in the perilous straits of early adulthood. But, it did not achieve this entirely worthy objective by hitting us over the head with the sledgehammer of fashionable ideology. It did it by making us laugh and, on occasion, cry. The millions and millions of people who watched (and still watch) “Friends” did so, and do so, because they saw/see themselves in the characters. Even people who aren’t well-educated, white and middle-class are somehow able to do this. How? Because Ross, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, Monica and Rachel are recognisably human types.

If the writers of “Friends”, David Crane and Marta Kauffman, had made Joey black, but not vain; and Monica a lesbian, but not neurotic; would we have laughed so loudly? Hell, would we have laughed at all?

I doubt it. That version of “Friends” would have been a very different river.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 28 May 2021.

The Warning Bells Of Absurdity.

Noises Off: This is the nightmare quality of current events. That, beyond the wafer-thin screens of normality, vast beasts go prowling in the dark. We can hear them barking and roaring: sometimes far away; sometimes frighteningly close. There’s a skittering of claws on marble floors. Eyes glowing green in the shadows. And, try as we may, we cannot wake up. Painting by Otto Dix.

HOW CAN YOU TELL when a system is falling apart? That the load-bearing walls of everyday reality are beginning to weaken? The simple answer is absurdity. Words spoken and positions taken that simply make no sense. Behaviour that raises suspicion of complete madness. Sums that stubbornly refuse to add up.

Think about the extraordinary display put on by Australia’s governing party, the Liberal Party. What was that all about? For some time the party has been declining in the polls. So, what does it do? It convulses itself in a bloody and ultimately pointless bout of political fratricide. Hurling aside an urbane, accomplished and highly intelligent politician, Malcolm Turnbull, and replacing him with an intellectually stunted and morally vacuous religious zealot whose primary political accomplishments have been the persecution of refugees and the punishment of the poor. Entirely unsurprisingly, the Liberal’s primary vote has sunk to record lows.

Then there is the ongoing campaign by the United Kingdom’s liberal establishment to destroy Jeremy Corbyn. Unable to counter the Labour leader’s policies: for fear of exposing their unshakeable allegiance to the “loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires” (thank you Paul Simon) that constitutes the actual government of the world; these ostensibly “progressive” politicians and journalists have embarked upon a barking-mad effort to paint Corbyn and his allies in the Labour Party as “antisemites”. By which they mean opponents of the State of Israel.

Now anyone who knows anything about Jeremy Corbyn (which includes the people who are levelling the charge of antisemitism against him) cannot possibly believe that he is prejudiced against Jews simply because they are Jews. Corbyn’s quarrel is with the ideology of Zionism, and with the unjust and often downright murderous actions of the Israeli state: a stance he has maintained with admirable consistency for more than thirty years.

Clearly, the prospect of such a man being just one general election away from No. 10 Downing Street is of profound concern to right-wing Israeli politicians and supporters of Zionism all around the world. That such people are attempting to undermine Corbyn is perfectly understandable. But, the campaign being waged against him on the pages of The Guardian isn’t about Israel – or Jewish people. It’s about something else; something all the more unnerving for being unspoken. It’s about who is entitled to govern the UK and who is not.

Corbyn constitutes an existential threat to the UK’s governing elites, whose formerly vice-like grip on the nation’s political and cultural institutions has been seriously weakened by a bottom-up political insurgency from the left of UK politics for which the veteran left-wing MP has acted as a lightning-rod. They are calling Corbyn an antisemite because they can’t plausibly call him a paedophile and because they are not yet desperate enough to call for his assassination.

That’s why it all sounds so mad. Like the accusations which Stalin levelled against the old Bolsheviks in the Moscow show-trials of the 1930s. They are lies – obvious and terrible lies – but with the power of the apparatus behind them they risk acquiring the character of Truth. So we go on reading the articles in The Guardian: noting the rising pitch of hysteria between every line; and the world lurches sideways under our feet.

And then we look at Donald Trump’s America, and Corbyn’s woes fade – overwhelmed by the dazzling image of the planet’s most powerful nation spontaneously combusting.

It’s all about race, of course. The whole history of the United States has been about race. About being white, or, more accurately about not being red, black, yellow or brown. The history of the United States of America is a series of evermore urgent reiterations of a consistent ruling-class strategy of making sure that the consciousness of class oppression is forever being displaced by the awareness of racial privilege.

The election of Barack Obama was the trigger. A black man in the White House was the ultimate symbol of white decline. From that moment on, a majority of white Americans were seized by a racial distemper that rotted their brains and inflamed their spleens. Though Trump has yet to speak or tweet the words explicitly, “Making America Great Again” has the ring of a genocidal call-to-arms. What else could it be? When demographic trends threaten to submerge white Americans in a diverse, multicultural morass?

When Trump talks about “draining the swamp” the assumption has always been that he is talking about cleaning up Washington DC. But what if he means draining away or diverting the waters that are lapping at the feet of white Americans? What if he intends to leave white America high and dry by simply getting rid of all those forces that are threatening to swamp it?

This is the nightmare quality of current events. That, beyond the wafer-thin screens of normality, vast beasts go prowling in the dark. We can hear them barking and roaring: sometimes far away; sometimes frighteningly close. There’s a skittering of claws on marble floors. Eyes glowing green in the shadows. And, try as we may, we cannot wake up.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 30 August 2018.