Jennifer Aniston: A ‘whole generation’ finds Friends ‘offensive’ today

The actress has opened up about the hit series that made her famous, admitting there were scenes they should have “thought through” a bit more.

Jennifer Aniston is reflecting on the changing world of comedy – and admitted Friends probably wouldn’t be deemed prime time friendly today.

“There’s a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of Friends and find them offensive,” the Murder Mystery 2 star said in an AFP interview while promoting her new film in Paris.

Friends aired from 1994 to 2004 and has been criticised in recent years for its absence of diversity in casting and storylines, New York Post reports.

Throughout its 10-year run, the sitcom rarely featured characters of colour. Friends only introduced two recurring characters of colour, both who were short-lived love interests for Ross.

“There were things that were never intentional and others … well, we should have thought it through, but I don’t think there was a sensitivity like there is now,” Aniston, 54, said about some of the show’s more controversial plot lines that would likely fall prey to “cancel culture” in 2023.

“Comedy has evolved; movies have evolved,” the Emmy-winning Morning Show star said. “Now, it’s a little tricky because you have to be very careful, which makes it really hard for comedians, because the beauty of comedy is that we make fun of ourselves, make fun of life.”

Many of the series’ jokes have been criticised in recent years.

She went on to recall how comedians “could joke about a bigot and have a laugh” back in the day. “That was hysterical,” she said, “and it was about educating people on how ridiculous people were, and now we’re not allowed to do that.”

Aniston also believes that the world would be a much sadder place without humour. “Everybody needs funny,” she said. “We can’t take ourselves too seriously. Especially in the United States. Everyone is far too divided.”

David Schwimmer (who played Ross) and Aniston as Rachel.

As for the lack of diversity present in Friends, star Lisa Kudrow got candid about how the show’s writers struggled with including characters of colour during the 10-season run.

Kudrow, 59, told the Daily Beast last year how series creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman did not have the resources or the knowledge to write stories about people of different races.

“Well, I feel like it was a show created by two people who went to Brandeis [a US university] and wrote about their lives after college,” Kudrow said.

“And for shows, especially when it’s going to be a comedy that’s character-driven, you write what you know. They have no business writing stories about the experiences of being a person of colour.”

However, an “embarrassed” Kauffman, 66, attempted to make amends in 2022 with a $US4 million donation to her alma mater, Brandeis University, to fund an endowed chair in the school’s African and African American studies department, one of the oldest in the country.

Along with millions of other Americans, the writer-producer said the 2020 murder of George Floyd pushed her to reckon with the country’s racist past and her own part in perpetuating systems of racism.

“I knew then I needed to course-correct,” she said at the time.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was republished with permission