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Lesbian
Friends:
Legacy of a Sitcom (page 4)
by Sarah Warn, May 2004
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In
Episode 4.10, after comforting Rachel about her single
status, Chandler asks her out of the blue "Have you ever
been with a woman?" When Rachel protests the question, Chandler
mutters wonderingly to himself, "So there is no
good time to ask that question." Then in Episode 4.14, a
recently-dumped Chandler visits a strip club with Rachel, Monica
and Phoebe, but finds that still isn't helping him get out of
his depression and advance to "Phase Three" of the recovery
process--until the women start discussing the strippers afterwards:
CHANDLER:
Look, forget it. We tried, but Phase Three is a lost cause,
Okay? Those strippers were insanely hot, and I couldn’t
picture myself with any of them.
MONICA: They really were pretty, weren’t they?
PHOEBE: Yeah, I really liked that fighter pilot one.
MONICA: Oh, Candy! She was so spunky!
PHOEBE: Yeah.
MONICA: Y’know, I think if I were going to be with a
woman. It’d, it’d be with someone like Michelle,
she was so oh, she was so petite.
RACHEL: See, I don’t know, for me it would have to Chantal.
MONICA: Oh, Chantal!
RACHEL: Oh my goodness, she had the smoothest skin! I mean
when I stuck that dollar bill in her g-string and grazed her
thigh…
CHANDLER (jumping up): Phase Three! Phase Three!
In
Episode 9.12, Rachel and Ross hire a nanny named Molly (Melissa
George), whom Joey and Chandler quickly dub The Hot Nanny.
Joey starts to fall for her and is preparing to ask her out
when Molly's girlfriend Tabitha (Carly Thomas) shows up after
work one day, and the two share a kiss that proves they're
more than friends.
Chandler
turns to Joey and remarks, "I guess you've got a problem,"
but Joey grins and responds "It's like my favorite fairy
tale come true! The princess, the stable boy and the lesbian!"
Clearly he doesn't think Molly and Tabitha's relationship
is an obstacle to his pursuit of Molly.
Joey
and Chandler's obsession with lesbianism was unusual at the
time it was introduced in the mid-90's: although other series
had hinted at it, never before had a television show so explicitly
(or so frequently) explored this topic. Their constant jokes
and innuendo trivialize lesbianism and lesbian relationships
by presenting them as fodder for male fantasies, but it's
hard to argue that this doesn't reflect the reality of the
way many men view lesbianism in real life.
But
while many straight men fantasize about two women
together, there is also an underlying fear that the women
might like it too much, and consequently the male
role might be diminished or even rendered unnecessary. In
a flashback in Episode 3.6 to right after Ross finds out that
Susan is gay, he tells Phoebe "I'm an idiot. Carol and
I'd be out and she'd, she'd see some beautiful woman, and,
and she'd be Ross y'know look at her, and I'd think, God,
my wife is cool!"
This
male fear of displacement surfaces again in Episode 6.15 when
we see a flashback to what might have been if Ross and Carol
had stayed married. In this fantasy/flashback, Ross suggests
he and Carol try a threesome in order to spice up their sex
life, a suggestion to which Carol all-too-readily agrees,
inviting her friend Susan, who shows up for the threesome
and completely ignores Ross. "My part seemed to be over
pretty quickly," Ross confessed later to Joey, "and
then there was a lot of waiting around."
Here
again we see that women who are attracted to other women are
cool--unless they actually take that attraction seriously.
The
straight women on the series are alternately mystified,
amused, and exasperated by this male obsession with lesbianism,
and frequently exploit it to their own advantage.
In
Episode 4.19, when Monica and Rachel are desperate to get their
apartment back after losing it to Joey and Chandler in a bet,
they finally make the guys an offer they can't refuse: the two
women will kiss for one minute. The kiss is not shown on-camera,
but afterwards we see Joey and Chandler making a beeline for their
separate bedrooms with the comment that "that was totally
worth it."
We
then see the women snickering in their newly-returned apartment,
as Monica comments "Men are such idiots." Rachel smiles
and agrees, saying "Yeah, can you believe something that
stupid actually got us our apartment back?" In Episode 5.22
when Monica's straddling Rachel on the floor trying to force her
to put medicinal drops in her eyes, Rachel quips "wow, y'know
if Joey and Chandler walked in right now, we could make a fortune!"
These
scenes are consistent with the women's overall matter-of-fact
treatment of lesbianism on Friends; although Rachel,
Monica and Phoebe are all clearly heterosexual, they are neither
overly fascinated with nor bothered by women who aren't.
Monica
is very supportive of Carol and Susan's wedding early in the series,
for example, pushing Ross to accept it, and when, in Episode 8.10,
Phoebe discovers one of Ben's classmates is Sting's son, she impersonates
Susan to try and get the teacher to give up his contact info.
"I am one of Ben's mothers," she tells the teacher,
then blurts out "I'm a lesbian. It was...it was difficult
coming out to my parents."
Then
she asks for another copy of the contact sheet, because "Carol
threw it out, she lost ours. She's such a scatterbrain, but man
what a hot piece of ass!"
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