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Lesbian “Friends”: Legacy of a Sitcom

This week when Friends ends its ten-year reign on NBC, it leaves behind a complicated, ground-breaking, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately positive contribution to lesbian visibility.

At first glance, a sitcom about six heterosexuals in their mid-20’s ? massage therapist Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), waitress-turned-fashion maven Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), chef Monica (Courteney Cox), her brother and paleontologist Ross (David Schwimmer), actor Joey (Matt LeBlanc), and Chandler (Matthew Perry), the guy whose job no one could ever remember ? didn’t seem a likely candidate to influence lesbian visibility.

But somehow, the topic of lesbianism or bisexuality managed to slip into at least a few episodes of almost every season, and over time, the show served as a barometer of America’s mixed feelings about women who sleep with other women.

We learn in the very first episode in 1994 that Ross has a lesbian ex-wife, Carol (played in the first few episodes by Anita Barone, then beginning in Episode 1.8 by Jane Sibbett), who left him after several years of marriage for her friend Susan (Jessica Hecht). The relationship between Carol and Susan is seen primarily through Ross’ eyes, especially in the beginning, as he embodies the uneasiness many straight men have with lesbians and lesbian relationships.

Denial and confusion over how to refer to and explain lesbian relationships is humorously explored in Episode 1.16 when Ross, Susan, and Carol attend their first lamaze class together:

ROSS: Hi, um, I’m err, (clears his throat) I’m Ross Geller, and err ah…(pats Carol’s stomach)…that’s, that’s my boy in there, and uh, (points) this is Carol Willick, and this… is Susan Bunch. Susan is um Carol’s, just, com… (embarrassment finally overwhelms him, until he finally says)…who’s next?

TEACHER: I’m sorry, I didn’t get… Susan is?

ROSS: Susan is Carol’s, Carol’s, Carol’s, friend…

CAROL: Life partner.

ROSS: Like buddies.

SUSAN: Like lovers.

ROSS: You know how close women can get.

(The teacher smiles, but her eyebrows go up. Susan and Carol pat each other affectionately.)

Carol: Susan and I live together.

ROSS: Although I was married to her.

SUSAN: Carol, not me.

ROSS: Err, right.

CAROL: It’s a little complicated.

ROSS: A little.

SUSAN: But we’re fine

At Susan and Carol’s apartment to pick up Ben in Episode 1.12, Ross sees a photo of Carol and Susan with a friend, and innocently asks “Hey when did you and Susan meet Huey Lewis?” then looks embarrassed when she tells him it’s their friend Tanya.

The audience are meant to laugh at this both because of Ross’s naivete, and because women who look like men are funny.

When Carol then asks Ross “Don’t you want to know about the sex?” (meaning the sex of the baby), he misunderstands and responds with a nervous laugh, “I’m having enough trouble with the image of you and Susan together, when you throw in Tanya ? ”

Besides just laughing at Ross’ mistake, the audience is also meant to identify with Ross’ confusion over and discomfort with what two women do in bed together (especially when one of them is his ex-wife).

Although the writers wring laughs from Ross’s ongoing discomfort with Carol and Susan’s relationship, they also arguably give voice to Ross’s fears in order to dismantle them, to show how silly they ultimately are.

In Episode 1.23, Phoebe acts as this Voice of Reason in a scene when she, Susan and Ross accidentally get locked in a hospital closet together while Carol is giving birth down the hall:

ROSS: No no no, believe me. No one has been waiting for this as much as I have, ok? And you know what the funny thing is? When this day is over, you get to go home with the baby, ok? Where does that leave me?

SUSAN: You get to be the baby’s father. Everyone knows who you are. Who am I? There’s Mother’s Day, there’s Father’s Day, there’s no… Lesbian Lover Day.

ROSS: Every day is Lesbian Lover Day.

PHOEBE: This is so great.

ROSS: You wanna explain that?

PHOEBE: I mean, well, ’cause when I was growing up, you know my dad left, and my mother died, and my stepfather went to jail, so I barely had enough pieces of parents to make one whole one. And here’s this little baby who has like three whole parents who care about it so much that they’re fighting over who gets to love it the most. And it’s not even born yet. It’s just, it’s just the luckiest baby in the whole world. (pause) I’m sorry, you were fighting.

In Episode 4.18, both Ross’s friends and Carol challenge Ross when he fears that Susan might convert his new girlfriend Emily while she is showing Susan around London.

“They’re going to the gym together!” he complains to his friends. “Two women! Stretching! Y’know they-they take a steam together! Things get a little playful ? didn’t you see Personal Best?”

His friends point out that unlike his ex-wife, Emily is straight, but that doesn’t calm the once-burned Ross, who then confronts Carol with his suspicions:

ROSS: So umm, any word from Susan?

CAROL: Ooh, yeah! She said she’s having sooo much fun with Emily.

ROSS: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh, by the by, did it uh, did it ever occur to you that, I don’t know, maybe they might be having a little too much fun?

CAROL: What’s too much fun?

ROSS: Y’know, the kind of fun, you and Susan had when we were married.

CAROL: Oh my God, you are so paranoid!

ROSS: Am I?!

CAROL: Yes!

ROSS:Am I?!

CAROL: I can’t speak for Emily, but Susan is in a loving, committed relationship.

ROSS: Uh-huh, Carol, so were we. All right, just-just imagine for a moment, Susan meets someone and-and they really hit it off. Y’know? Say-say they’re coming back from the theatre, and they-they stop at a pub for a couple of drinks, they’re laughing, y’know, someone innocently touches someone else… There’s electricity, it’s new. It’s exciting. Are you telling me there isn’t even the slightest possibility of something happening?

CAROL: Maybe.

Ross: OH MY GOD!! I didn’t really believe it until you just said it!!

But of course nothing happens between Carol and Emily, and when Ross gleefully notes to Carol “no tongue, that’s a good sign!” when they go to pick up Carol and Emily at the airport and see Emily and Susan hug goodbye, we’re meant to laugh along with Carol as she rolls her eyes at Ross.

This is one of the many moments over the lifetime of the series where the audience is invited to identify with the lesbian character instead of the straight man. In Episode 3.17 when Ross barges in on Carol in a dressy outfit while she’s preparing a romantic dinner for her and Susan, we sympathize with Carol’s distress and Ross’s insensitivity as he drones on about his problems with Rachel and begins eating the supper Carol has prepared for Susan.

But Carol is presented the most sympathetically in Episode 2.11, the 1995 episode which featured the first lesbian wedding on television.

When Ross learns that Carol and Susan have decided to get married, he is initially upset at the news, asking petulantly “They already live together, why do they need to get married?”

But Monica chastises him, reminding him (and the audience) that Carol and Susan’s relationship functions similarly to heterosexual relationships and deserves the same respect: “They love each other, and they wanna celebrate that love with the people that are close with them.”

Ross finally comes around when Carol shows up in tears seeking his advice after a fallout with Susan:

ROSS: Carol, what’s the matter? What happened?

CAROL: My parents called this afternoon to say they weren’t coming.

ROSS: Oh my god.

CAROL: I mean, I knew they were having trouble with this whole thing, but they’re my parents. They’re supposed to give me away and everything.

ROSS: It’s ok. I’m sorry.

CAROL: And then Susan and I got in this big fight because I said maybe we should call off the wedding, and she said we weren’t doing it for them, we were doing it for us, and if I couldn’t see that, then maybe we should call off the wedding. I don’t know what to do.

ROSS: I uh can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but I think Susan’s right.

CAROL: You do?

ROSS: Look, do you love her? And you don’t have to be too emphatic about this.

CAROL: Of course I do.

ROSS: Well then that’s it. And if George and Adelaide can’t accept that, then the hell with them. Look, if my parents didn’t want me to marry you, no way that would have stopped me. Look, this is your wedding. Do it.

CAROL: You’re right. Of course you’re right.

MONICA: So we’re back on?

CAROL: We’re back on

The audience is invited here to sympathize and identify with Carol’s hurt at her parents’ rejection, which is posited as cruel and unjust. Ross’ statement that “if my parents didn’t want me to marry you, no way that would have stopped me” also puts Carol and Susan’s relationship on par with heterosexual ones.

As this episode illustrates, Ross gradually overcomes his initial hostility to Carol and Susan’s relationship, particularly as his attention shifts from his ex-wife to Rachel, but he never does come to like Susan. Because Susan is presented as a likeable person in general, however, a woman whom everyone but Ross seems to get along with, Ross and Susan’s mutual dislike is positioned as deriving more from their sense of competition than from any major personality flaws in either of them.

The fact that Ross ends up giving Carol away in the wedding ceremony despite his general unease with his ex-wife’s lesbian relationship and his dislike of Susan, sending the message that while he might not fully understand Susan and Carol’s relationship, he will support it because he cares about Carol and wants her to be happy.

This message is further reinforced when we see all the friends at the wedding, mingling with the obviously-lesbian guests and celebrating Carol and Susan’s relationship.

Carol and Susan are always firmly marked as Lesbians in the series, however. While the heterosexual characters on Friends are not constantly defined by their sexuality, the lesbians cannot escape it.

This is most clearly and humorously illustrated in Episode 7.16 when Ross asks Rachel what Carol’s last name is, and she responds “Carol…Lesbian?” but it is also referenced or subtly implied in little ways throughout the series.

In Episode 2.14, for example, when Ross is visiting his parents and mentions that Ben is with Carol and Susan today, Mr. Geller quips, “A woman in my office is a lesbian.” To the blank stares, he shrugs “I’m just saying.” (Mr. Geller’s non sequitur also humorously reflects the way straight people so often respond to the news that someone is gay ? by mentioning someone else they know who is gay.)

Despite generally being limited the role of The Lesbians on the show, however, the women are occasionally shown having a life, as when we see Carol preparing the romantic dinner for her and Susan, and in episode 2.20, where we see Susan and Carol briefly as they’re dropping off Ben with Ross on their way to visit a college friend of Susan’s who just became the first female blacksmith in Colonial Williamsburg.

The show also consistently reinforces the connection between lesbianism and feminism, as it does by mentioning that Susan’s friend is the first female blacksmith, and in Episode 3.4 when Ross freaks out that Carol and Susan are letting his son is playing with a Barbie doll. Although Rachel backs Carol and Susan up, saying “Ross, you are so pathetic. Why can’t your son just play with his doll?” the issue still is raised by The Lesbians, not the straight woman.

Feminist issues on Friends are frequently raised by The Lesbians, in fact, or somehow associated with them.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this, except that it tends to reinforce the idea that feminism ? or challenging the conventional roles assigned to women ? is primarily the domain of lesbians, not straight women.

This simultaneously short-changes feminist straight women, and reinforces the stereotype of lesbians as trouble-makers.

Friends perhaps more than any other show has popularized the fascination many straight men have with the idea of women having sex with each other. Rarely did more than one or two episodes go by without one of the male characters (usually Joey) making sexually suggestive comments about one of the female characters with another woman.

In Episode 3.06, for example, when Chandler’s then-girlfriend Janice (Meghan Wheeler) asks the group if any of them have ever hooked up, Joey replies “Well, there was that one time that Monica and Rachel got together.” When Rachel and Monica protest, saying “there was no time!” Joey leers “Okay, but let’s say there was. How might that go?”

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!”

Unlike the men, who live in a constant state of fear that someone will think they’re gay (as evidenced by many moments where they quickly pull out of hugs, or make jokes about Chandler’s perceived homosexuality), the straight women of Friends have no problem with anyone thinking they’re gay or bisexual (unless that person mistakenly thinks they’re interested in a relationship with them, as we’ll see in the example below).

All three of the female Friends kiss other women at some point during the series, and even Rachel’s temporarily single mother gets into the act at one point, enthusing at Carol and Susan’s wedding, “I just danced with a wonderfully large woman. And three other girls made eyes at me over the buffet. Oh, I’m not saying it’s something I wanna pursue, but it’s nice to know I have options.”

In episode 7.20, Rachel runs into an old friend from college (played by Winona Ryder), with whom “one night, senior year we went to a party, had a lot of sangria and y’know, ended up…kissing for a bit.” Even though she is not gay or even bisexual, Rachel is not ashamed of this brief foray into homosexual activity years ago; she’s even a little proud of it, as she demonstrates here in an exchange with Melissa (Ryder), who initially refuses to acknowledge their lesbian encounter in college:

RACHEL: Look, that night was the one wild thing I have ever done in my entire life, and I’m not gonna let you take that away from me! Okay, so if you don’t remember that, maybe you will remember this! (She grabs Melissa and kisses her on the lips.)

MELISSA: My God! You love me!

RACHEL: (shocked) What?

MELISSA: Of course I remember our kiss. I think about it all the time. I can still hear the coconuts knockin’ together I… (Phoebe is shocked.) I just didn’t want to tell you ’cause I didn’t think that you’d return my love, and now that you have… (Leans in to kiss Rachel.)

RACHEL: (moving away) Whoa! Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa! Whoa! Whoa!

MELISSA: Aww, look who’s being suddenly shy. You can’t tell me you don’t feel what I feel. Nobody can kiss that good and not mean it. (Goes in again.)

RACHEL: (moves away again) I-I-I-I’m just…I’m just a good kisser!

MELISSA: (suddenly frightened) Shut up!

RACHEL: I’m sorry!

MELISSA: (laughs) Oh you don’t have to be (Laughs again) sorry. I’m…I’m obviously kidding. I’m not in love with you. (To Phoebe) I’m not in love with her. I don’t hear coconuts banging together. Yeah, I don’t…picture your face when I make love to my boyfriend. Anyway, I gotta go. Eh…kiss good-bye? (Rachel stares at her stunned.) No? Okay. (Hurries into the cab and drives off.)

Phoebe then unexpectedly kisses Rachel, as well. “What the hell was that?” Rachel asks, to which Phoebe responds, “I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.” “And?” Rachel asks her. “I’ve had better,” Phoebe shrugs.

Scenes like these and the overall ease with which the women on Friends are willing to engage in light homosexual activity (or at least are not afraid of it) tend to reinforce the notion that female sexuality is more fluid than male sexuality, and that women in general are more tolerant of lesbianism and lesbian relationships than men.

Interestingly, however, the show never does introduce or even reference any actual bisexual women, only lesbians or bi-curious straight women.

Carol wasn’t a bisexual woman married to a man who fell in love with another woman, she was a lesbian who just hadn’t realized it yet; similarly, by her last statement about picturing Rachel’s face when having sex with her boyfriend, we are led to believe that Melissa is also a lesbian-in-waiting, rather than bisexual. And Joey’s comments aside, the Hot Nanny doesn’t appear likely to succumb to his advances anytime soon.

This avoidance of the topic of bisexuality or bisexual characters is fairly consistent with the invisibility of bisexual women on television in general, however, a taboo that has only recently begun to be challenged.

Ultimately, the attitude of Friends towards lesbianism and bisexuality is one of tolerance and acceptance, even as it also positions lesbians as outsiders and bisexual women as nonexistent. The straight characters on the show evince contradictory attitudes towards lesbianism and bisexuality, but these fairly accurately reflect the conflicting and evolving feelings of the American public towards this subject in the last decade.

Friends pushed the envelope in terms of lesbian visibility and desensitized viewers to the topic through scenes like Carol and Susan’s wedding in 1995, the repeated use of the word “lesbian” on primetime TV when that was still a rarity, a few lesbian kisses in the latter half of the series, and the debunking of the notion that straight women can be “converted” by lesbians.

Over the lifetime of the series Susan and Carol have remained in a strong, committed relationship, and in the process become one of the longest-running lesbian couples on television, even if their presence diminished significantly over time (they didn’t surface at all in Season 10).

So while the lesbians on Friends may never have been a large part of the series, and the contradictory male attitudes towards lesbianism frustrating at times, the show ultimately made it easier for later television shows to introduce lesbians and lesbian topics ? and gave viewers a humorous and sympathetic glimpse, however fleeting, into the lives of two lesbians and their friends.

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