The fourth main character in this unit of Friends is ‘Ross’. His role is not that of the ‘norm’. Ross has been married several times before; his first marriage was with a lesbian called Ben, with whom he had a child. In this episode Ross is playing father to his and ‘Rachel’s’ new born baby. Ross has an obsessive interest in history and dinosaurs. He has a proud business-like manner similar to Chandler, also, like Chandler he feels easily threatened.
Ross has strong views about things but, in fact he is quite a weak individual. Ross is Monica’s older brother. Monica is often jealous of Ross’s good relationship with his parents as she and her mum are not so close. Ross and Monica are very competitive with one another, but are also very close as they have the same circle of friends. Monica’s best friend is ‘Rachel’, who is the mother of Ross’s baby.
‘Rachel’ is the fifth main character. Rachel is the ‘emotional woman’ when she can’t deal with something, then everyone will know. Rachel does not always take things seriously until she is hit with the consequences. She, compared with Monica, is quite the slob. It is almost certain that Rachel, without Monica would be a mess. Monica is almost her mother figure.
Rachel is a weak character unlike the next main character ‘Phoebe’. Phoebe is different from everybody else in the sitcom. Phoebe is a vegetarian who has strong morals and feelings about certain things that few of the group do not really understand to any great degree. For example: she would not cut down a tree, even if it was dead. Phoebe is an identical twin. Occasionally her twin will make an appearance, but the two of them have some issues between them.
Phoebe is quite a closed in person. If something is bothering her, she tends not to cry or to discuss it in any great depth with the others, but will wait it out on her own accord. She is an independent woman who has her own apartment.
In this episode, there are several stories running at once. The equilibriums are the following:
- Chandler being centre of attention with his humour
- Ross and Rachel are with a baby, but without a nanny
- Phoebe is with her boyfriend Mike
The disequilibrium’s are the following:
- Monica informs Chandler that there is a man funnier than him, and she and he are working together.
- Ross and Rachel find a nanny, but Ross has issues because he is male.
- Phoebe is still with Mike, but kisses David who is from a past relationship
The Resolution’s are the following:
- Monica pretends that the man offended her with a sexist joke, and so now is no longer funny to her
- Ross fires the nanny and Ross and Rachel are nanny-less
- David goes back to Minx and Phoebe and Mike make up
The Monica and Chandler issue is taken out of proportion purely for the benefit of humour. This shows that men need humouring when they are upset; they require attention the same as children would. This issue has a comic mode of address, created by verbal humour. It is dramatic irony. Everybody has to try and sooth him by laughing at everything Chandler says to calm his insecurities.
The topic of Ross and Rachel is a little more complex, due to the fact that a child is involved. The whole base-line for these two characters is the baby. In understanding the issue, the viewer needs to be able to relate to Ross. Ross and Rachel hire a male nanny, much to Ross’s annoyance. The nanny was expected to be a woman with the name ‘Sandy’, but instead turned out to be a man who was very comfortable with his feminine side; which made Ross increasingly uncomfortable.
The nanny ‘Sandy’ is a man doing a stereotypical woman’s job (caring for children). Ross is clearly threatened by ‘Sandy’ being in his home and caring for his child. Ross gets so wrapped up in the idea that it is wrong for a man to do a feminine job that he and Rachel (who absolutely adores Sandy) argue and become very tense around one another. Ross obsesses over the way Sandy presents himself and the way he talks, in the belief that he is homosexual.
It is humorous for the viewer when watching Ross, because his jealousy of Sandy is so strong that, after a short time, it is all that he can talk about. Sandy is very emotional, much like Rachel. Moreover, they get on well for the reason that they have a lot in common, since Sandy is so womanly. Ross is so threatened by Sandy’s understanding of women’s needs and his sensitivity that he feels he has to fire him. Ross gets so infuriated by everybody’s love of the nanny that he storms out of the flat, portraying childish behaviour. This is an indexical signifier of the spoilt child within.
The issues for Phoebe are problems that are stereotypically thought of as a male’s situation. Phoebe is with a partner ‘Mike’, in a fairly happy relationship. They are at the point of exchanging house keys, which is symbolic and is an indexical signifier of their love and commitment to each other. Then an old ex- boyfriend of Phoebe’s comes along and they kiss. The kiss stirs up some competitive tension between the two men. The ex-boyfriend’s name is ‘David’. He is supposed to represent Phoebe’s ‘night in shining armour’; because he has come a long way to see her to save her commencing a serious relationship to which she is not entirely sure she is committed. Her reluctance to exchanging flat keys is an example of her lack of commitment. The fact that Phoebe does reluctantly exchange keys, indicates that she is not entirely ready to share her life with someone else. Usually Phoebe would be regarded as a hegemonic individual; she speaks her own mind and often is positioned ‘leader’; although it appears that her boyfriend is the hegemonic one with a certain power in this relationship. This is opposite of Phoebe’s usual actions.
‘Friends’ in this episode has used the stereotypes of males and females and changed them around for nearly everybody; so as to create humour for the audience through a shock effect that touches on some sensitive subjects, such as homosexuality. It is by no mean’s offensive.
The comparison sitcom is ‘Coupling’ a British comedy programme which is also based around a group of friends. However, the group of friends in ‘Coupling’ are not such a close unit. Often they are either anxious or flirtatious when with the opposite sex. Again, the sitcom revolves around the lives of six people, three men and three women. The motivation for this sitcom was to make the viewer laugh through references to sex and the males’ lack of understanding of women.
The first main character is ‘Susan’. This character is an attractive blonde, whose appearance meets the stereotype of a ‘bimbo’ although; in fact she is rather bright. Susan is a sophisticated woman, who likes to be wined and dined. She is dating a man called ‘Steve’. Susan is an independent businesswoman and she is most like Rachel from friends. They are both the attractive female, and are generally laid back until pushed. However, the main difference between Susan and Rachel is that Susan is in complete control of her life and is not your typical emotional woman. Susan is more like Phoebe in terms of maturity and independence.
The second main character in this sitcom is ‘Steve’. This character is important, he is Susan’s boyfriend. Steve is mostly dominated by Susan in their relationship unless he feels passionately about something. A good example of this would be, when everybody goes with Susan and Steve to buy a sofa for their house, Susan insists on purchasing cushions; and instead of Steve just allowing her, he stands up to her in front of everyone stating his hatred for the pointless things. Steve noticeably becomes more confident when others are around to listen to his point of view. Steve is a bit like Ross from ‘Friends’, he is the boyfriend of the most attractive female. Steve can become obsessive over things, such as sex and cushions. Steve is rather insecure and confides in his best friend ‘Geoff’; who doesn’t talk any sense at all.
The third main character is ‘Geoff’. This character is an individual who goes to work, but is not very knowledgeable. He works along-side Susan in an office. Geoff has an obsession with sex and women. It is rare if he talks about anything else. Geoff’s character boasts a lot to the other men that he knows so much about women’s minds and how they work etc; he almost becomes the sex guru for the other men. Although, Geoff tends to make up or exaggerate a lot of things, which is where the humour evolves from. He acts very immature by much like a teenager. Things he says and does are just silly and embarrassing.
The fourth main character is ‘Sally’, Susan’s best friend. Sally is somewhat like Monica. Sally instead of liking her home to look obsessively perfect, likes herself to look perfect. Sally is preoccupied with her physical appearance. Reminiscent of many women, she has a large dislike of the shape of her bottom. Sally will discuss it with others and study herself in the mirror constantly. Sally is the type of women who needs constant reassurance about her physical appearance. Sally’s in a sexual relationship with a man named ‘Patrick’.
Patrick is the fifth main character in the unit. He is slightly different from the others. Patrick is a successful businessman and is sophisticated. He is well spoken. However, like the other two men, he also has an obsession with sex. Patrick is known for having a large penis in this sitcom. This is a representation of male power, it is almost patriarchal – a male dominated society. The voyeurism is pleasure in viewing. However, in this episode Patrick has a failure with Sally, and begins to talk in tongues when referring to failure to function adequately. He would try to avoid the real issue of him not being able to get an erection, furthermore instead try to refer it to cars using metaphors; for example,” Big ends gone” . He would become progressively more embarrassed and defensive about the idea of him ‘the big man’ not being practised to even get an erection. Patrick is slightly more distant from the group; he will come and go as he feels like.
The sixth character is ‘Jane’. This entity is the distinctive mental character, she is ‘Friend’s’ equivalent of ‘Phoebe’, but embellished. Jane has an obsessive interest in sex also, some of the comments that she makes are not at all expected of a women. Jane not only likes to look attractive, she believes she is attractive to any man. Jane is moderately similar to Geoff in many ways. The stories she tells are not completely accurate, or they are outrageously exaggerated. Her unsystematic observations are a bit bizarre when sitting with two refined women. Jane perceives herself to be superior to everybody else, and she has no problem expressing that.
The chief locations in ‘Coupling’ are the wine bar; which is associated with the women. This location is an indexical signifier of female sophistication, the pub, which is an indexical and iconic signifier of male non-sophistication.
‘Coupling’ reinforces gender types more than ‘Friends’. In ‘coupling’ the women feel they need a man around to be handy around the house. The humour in ‘Coupling’ sitcoms tended to revolve around gender differences.
The narrative for ‘Coupling’ was more basic and focused on small issues, except blew them out of proportion. There was actually just one storyline to the ‘Coupling’ episode, moreover that was Patrick’s failure had made Sally very self conscious. Steve went around to his girlfriend’s Susan’s place expecting to find Susan there; but much to his surprise Sally, came into the room wearing just a towel after being in the shower. Typically, her towel dropped to the floor, which may perhaps be an indexical signifier for sexual movement. Steve, who was positioned behind her, saw her bottom and there was a slight awkwardness for a short time. Sally’s personality then transformed into a confident, seductive woman who responded well to making Steve complement her on her appearance; she was seeking acceptance as most women do.
In the end everybody found out about Patrick’s failure, because Susan wanted to know why Sally had behaved so appallingly to her boyfriend. Sally’s reasoning was that she felt so self conscious and now she knew that it wasn’t due to her imperfection that Patrick had a malfunction.
‘Friends’ narrative was far more complex, with 3 storylines in the one episode. ‘Friends’ is more glamorised than ‘Coupling’ due to the fact that it is an American sitcom.