Kathleen Turner – aka Chandler’s dad in Friends – admits the show’s storylines haven’t aged well
Friends’ storylines have been branded problematic (Picture: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Ev..
Ever since Friends landed on Netflix, viewers have been finding its storylines more and more problematic.
From the fat-shaming of young Monica to the jokes about gay people, the iconic sitcom has come under the microscope as many people realise that a lot of the plots were… well, not very ok hun.
Now, one of its stars has admitted that Friends hasn’t aged very well.
Kathleen Turner, who played Chandler Bing’s father on the show, has addressed the storylines of the show, including that of Charles, whose trans identity was never really talked about.
The 63-year-old told the Gay Times: ‘I don’t think it’s aged well. It was a 30 minute sitcom. It became a phenomenon, but no one ever took it seriously as a social comment.’
Kathleen played Charles Bing, who had a drag show called Viva Las Gaygas in which she went by the name Helena Handbasket.
She said: ‘How they approached with me with it, was “would you like to be the first woman playing a man playing a woman?” I said yes, because there weren’t many drag/trans people on television at the time.’
However, the show portrayed Charles as a gay man who did drag, rather than someone living their life as a woman, with Kathleen agreeing: ‘Yeah, people thought Charles was just dressing up.’
This comes after Matt Le Blanc defended the show.
The actor, who played Joey Tribbiani, told the BBC: ‘I’ve heard those rumours too about people taking pot shots at Friends, but I don’t want to get into that. I disagree with all that.
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‘On Friends we steered clear of that kind of thing, too. Friends was about themes that stand the test of time – trust, love, relationships, betrayal, family and things like that.’
While the show did feature a prominent lesbian couple in Carol and Susan – quite groundbreaking for the time – the pair’s wedding didn’t even feature a kiss.
Jane Sibbett told Metro.co.uk: ‘We weren’t allowed to kiss, and we were disappointed by that.
‘It wasn’t not allowed, it just wasn’t filmed, that segment of the wedding. People were worried that that was going to happen and maybe they pulled back on that a little bit.’
All ten series of Friends are available to stream on Netflix.
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