Jennifer Aniston has spoken out about modern-day comedy and suggested a whole generation of people now finds Friends offensive.
The Hollywood actress, who rose to fame after appearing in the beloved American sitcom Friends, admitted that the TV show is now deemed as “offensive” by many even though the original team that worked on it never intended to cause any harm.
“There’s a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of Friends and find them offensive,” she told AFP in a Paris interview.
“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 also claimed that working in the world of comedy is nowadays much harder because people often take jokes too seriously.
“Comedy has evolved, movies have evolved. 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,” she added.
“You could joke about a bigot and have a laugh — that was hysterical. And it was about educating people on how ridiculous people were. And now we’re not allowed to do that.”
Among other major criticism the show received in recent years is the alleged fatphobia related to Courteney Cox wearing a fat suit and alleged transphobia related to the story surrounding Chandler’s drag queen father.
Recently, viewers also called out the producers over a number of s*xist jokes and references to harassment in the workplace.
As Jennifer insisted, however, everybody should have fun without taking things too seriously.
“Everybody needs funny! The world needs humor! We can’t take ourselves too seriously. Especially in the United States. Everyone is far too divided,” she concluded.
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