Jennifer Aniston says ‘Friends’ is offensive to new generations

Jennifer Aniston weighs in on the evolution of comedy.

The “Friends” alum talked about how the world has changed since the 1990s sitcom. “There’s a whole generation of people, kids, who now go back to episodes of ‘Friends’ and find them offensive,” Aniston told the Associated Foreign Press. Yahoo!).

“There were things that were never intentional, and others… well, we should have thought it through, but I don’t think there was the sensitivity that there is now,” Aniston added.

“Friends” has been criticized for its lack of diversity. The series was broadcast from 1994 to 2004.

“Comedy has evolved, movies have evolved,” Aniston shared. “Now it’s a bit tricky because you have to be very careful, which makes it very difficult for comedians because the beauty of comedy is to laugh at ourselves, to laugh at life.”

The ‘Murder Mystery 2’ actress said: ‘You can make fun of a bigot and laugh. It was hysterical. And it was about educating people about how ridiculous people are and not doing that now.”

He added: “Everybody needs a funny one! The world needs humor! We can’t take ourselves too seriously. Especially in the US. Everyone is too divided.”

Comedians such as Brett Goldstein, Jerrod Carmichael, John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson and Hannah Einbinder have recently slammed the concept of cancel culture targeting comics. Atkinson said it was particularly “comedy’s job to offend”, while Cleese compared it to “the death of creativity”.

“You can make the work and then criticize it, but you can’t do it at the same time. So if you’re worried about offending people and thinking about it all the time, you’re not going to be very creative. So I think it has a catastrophic effect,” Cleese said in July 2022. “If you go to a Republican convention and make anti-Democrat jokes, you’re going to get a really good response. If you make anti-republican jokes, you won’t. So you have to match your material to your audience to some extent. And that’s part of it… If you go to your grandmother’s house and have tea with her, you don’t start telling her sex jokes. Now that’s not because it’s illegal, it’s just bad manners.”

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