Ok so I was literally obsessed with Friends. I have seen all 10 seasons and somewhere near the end I realized "oh my fricking god this show is so wrong." Because I am me, I still finished the show and it only supported my initial thought of how sexist this show actually is and how it blindly follows the stereotypes we try to avoid.

Now don't get me wrong. I enjoyed watching the show. It made me laugh and since that's the point, major props for that. But ever since I have had this certain epiphany, I just cannot look at "Friends" the same way anymore.

First of all, the characters in this show (primarily Ross, Chandler, and Joey) are extremely uncomfortable with being effeminate in any way. Take Chandler, for example. The classic male lead who is scared of commitment and completely incapable of dealing with adult emotions and situations. This lack of backbone marks Chandler as the most effeminate man. Because he is weak and sometimes dresses girly (not really but that's how it's considered in the show) he is almost always mistaken for gay and made fun of by his friends. I get that Friends was made primarily in the 90s (and not 2015 where an internet s***storm would have attacked the writers for this stereotypical gay nature) but honestly, stop equating weak with "gay" or "feminine". It's wrong and offensive. And honestly, has anyone ever realized how awful Chandler is? Trist me, I get his appeal. He was my favorite character. But he is such a coward. When he got sent to Tulsa, I was honestly in shock about how ridiculous it was. He totally became a whipping boy. He should've told his boss the truth. He fell asleep and committed to a project he wouldn't be able to do and it would be unfair of them to force him into it. Then apologize for falling asleep and offer some other service.

Second, Joey Tribbiani. Do I even have to explain? His character is sexist towards women and men alike. He views each women as a potential conquest and we as the audience laugh at this and make light of it. At first glance, it doesn't seem like that much of a big deal. That's just the way Joey is. It's okay, right? Wrong. It's not and never will be. Characters always manage to be idolized somehow. Joey's friends don't seem to care about how awful he acts towards women, though I'm sure all three women have experienced being stood up in some way or another at some point. Furthermore, not only does Joey have meaningless one night stands, he doesn't even have the guts to break it to the girls themselves, usually leaving the duty to his roommate. In the show, Joey cares about two things: sex and food. This is degrading to men as well. Joey is considered to be the manliest of his friends and he follows the stereotype that men are dumb, sex-crazed pigs. As for stereotypes, he's an actor but also extremely dumb. This is a common stereotype that actors are not intelligent or people that can't amount to anything turn to acting. Where's the character that's an actor who went to a good college and writes interesting blog posts in his free time? But...there's more. Even though all the men are uncomfortable with being labeled homosexual, Joey has no problem of trying to make each situation with two females turn into some lesbian make out. This is something that is a common problem even today. People that hate on gays have no problem watching lesbian porn in their free time. Sorry to break it you Joey, there's more to being a man than how many girls you sleep with and how much pizza you can eat.

Next, we have Ross Geller. Oh Ross. Stop trying to possess every woman that you date. Ross has extremely clear ideas on what a relationship should be and these ideas are extremely traditional and old fashioned. Ross' divorces are considered a joke throughout the show which only come from him trying to propose, marry, and possess every woman he dates. When he is an relationship with Rachel, he does not want her to have any male friends or a social life or to excel in her career without him. We all remember his cringe-worthy jealousy of Mark. Ross you have to chill seriously. Rachel is woman capable of making her own decisions and honestly you only bring her down. He loves telling Rachel that it's always been her and he was in love with her since highshcool, overlooking the three years he was married to another woman. This poses the question that many people have already been asking. Is Ross actually in love with (insert name) or is he in love with marriage? I think I've gone a pretty impressive amount without completely flipping out about the fact that Ross stopped Rachel from going to Paris. I don't think I can even begin to explain how disgusting this is. Rachel pretty much got offered the job of her dreams in a city we all know she would thrive in. Nothing appalled me more than when Ross realized he was still in love with Rachel and his friends told him to go get her and tell her. He had to make her stay!! At this point I was literally yelling at the laptop screen, "How could you do this? How can you put her in this awful position? She got the job of her dreams in the city of her dreams! Why are you trying to stop her??" A popular line in all romance is "I just want you to be happy." Apparently, that sentence has no meaning to Ross. "I just want me to be happy" is what Ross is thinking, followed by "If I'm happy then everyone affected by this will be too." No, Ross, honestly just shut up. He put Rachel in the position of choosing between her dream job or her dream guy, except the dream job would go away but if she and Ross were truly meant to be, he would wait for her. Out of the three guys, Ross is definitely the most uncomfortable with anything even slightly feminine. I'm pretty sure we all hated Ross just a little when we saw his reaction to the male nanny. Grow up, Ross. He's a dude who is good with kids. It's not that crazy.

Continuing on to the next Geller, Monica. Yes, Monica's need for everything to be clean is really funny. I can agree with that. But come on. Maybe the show's intention wasn't sexist, but they could've just as easily made one of the guys have this trait and completely avoided any sexist accusations.

But let's be honest. Their intention was most likely sexist. How do I know? Amaani Lyle, a 26-year-old African American woman, who was hired in 1999 as a writer's assistant to the staff. Lyle’s main job as a writers’ assistant was to transcribe everything the writers said during the work sessions. After six months on the job, she was fired for failing to keep up. According to the sexual harassment suit she filed in 1999 against Warner Brothers, NBC Studios, Bright, Kauffman, Crane Productions, and three of the producer/writers on the staff – Adam Chase, Gregory Malins and Andrew Reich – the content of what Lyle was supposed to speedily transcribe included hour after hour of the male writers’ boasts of their sexual exploits, their jokes about rape and stalking, their detailed descriptions of sex, their use of derogatory words like “b****” and “c***” to describe women they didn’t like, and other sexist as well as racist comments. Adam Chase, Andrew Reich and Greg Malins in particular, Lyle claimed, “would speak about women with complete disrespect."

So back to Monica. We all remember Monica's crazy baby phase. Knowing what the writers were like, it's impossible to play this off as just comedy. This is how they viewed women, how they thought women acted. "Friends" in general greatly advertises the fact that women need a man in their life to be happy. I actually had so much hope in Rachel. I though she was going to surprise me and take the job instead, but as usual I was extremely disappointed. This next thing is obviously not directed towards Monica but her friends. Fat Monica is a running gag between them. The show is obsessed with being skinny and treat fat like a bad or funny thing. I'm not going to lie. Aniston, Cox, and Kudrow all made me super self conscious and I doubt I'm the only one.

I'm sure I don't have to go into much detail about Rachel, right? At first I was so pumped about her. Running away from her marriage, becoming independent of her father, creating a life for herself. Sure I wasn't too crazy about how obsessed she was with shopping (again, given what we know about the writers, there are obviously sexist connotations but I'll overlook it cause it's comedy) and how she returned people's gifts (actually though???). But I was really happy that her character was developing. That is until she decided to stay with Ross in New York. It's as if throughout the whole 10 seasons Rachel was becoming an independent woman and managed to get back right where she started. Needless to say, another disappointment.

The only thing I didn't like about Phoebe was how she totally led on both Mike and Dave. It was just really bad when she told Dave if he had asked her first to marry him before Mike she might've said yes. This is the sign of someone not ready to handle the responsibilities of marriage.

Now for some general things.

When Phoebe proposed to Mike and the whole crowd started 'boo-ing' and making fun of Mike cause the woman was the one asking. Are we living in some different time period? Because I wasn't informed that women can't do the same thing as men??? And because of all the boo-ing Mike and Phoebe didn't even acknowledge the proposal as a real thing until Mike did it.

Another part that stuck out was when Ross accidentally wore Rachel's shirt and people were laughing at him. Again, I get that wasn't 2015 where something like that is normal. But honestly this is just about the general public being jerks and homophobic.

There are many, many more examples of why this show sucks but this will do for now. I would like to restate that as a comedy show, it was great. It was funny and enjoyable. But looking more into it, there are just things that cannot be unseen.