Friends Forever: Bridging Generations Through Sitcoms and Scout Movements

How "Friends" and the Scout Movement Help Close the Generation Gap Between Me and My Daughter

Too many times it seems to me that the generation gap between my daughter and me is widening rapidly, but there are two things in her life that make me feel like time has stood still: one is the scout movement. In Tel Aviv, all the action has centered around the scouts for the past decade. The other is "Friends," the beloved TV series that I used to watch reruns of in the late '90s in New York, and today my daughter knows it by heart.

The popularity of the sitcom about the friendly and good-hearted group isn't limited to Israel. Netflix paid $100 million to Warner Bros. to continue streaming "Friends" in 2019.

Various surveys show it is the second most-watched series on Netflix in the United States, and the most-watched in the British branch of the company.

These facts make me envious as a writer but also raise questions for me as a couple and family therapist. How is it that the idea of six friends who live next to each other and meet all the time still captivates a generation that manages much of its social relationships virtually? And perhaps the answer is in the question itself. To explore this, I gathered three warm-hearted and insightful teenagers aged 14-15, who will be referred to here as Alma, Uri, and Yahel.

Alma: "I watched the entire series, all ten seasons, nine times. That's over two thousand episodes. I can always watch 'Friends' because it's a very light series. It's not something that stirs up intense emotions, but it's fun, you can start watching and fall asleep while it's playing in the background."

Uri: "I think what works is that there's a joke every four seconds, and one out of every five jokes manages to be funny. The humor lasts because they don't rely on the era. It isn't based on technology, the political situation, or the economic situation, and it doesn't even really refer to the fact that they live in New York. The jokes are based on the personalities of the characters and their relationships, so it doesn't get old."

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Uri: "Another problematic thing is that all the actresses are thin and beautiful. They don't really address issues of self-criticism and comparison to other women, which is less realistic. Ignoring these issues is less sympathetic. I can't sympathize with someone like Rachel, who is perfect, very thin, and very beautiful. There are no characters in the series who are examples of non-mainstream beauty. Back then, only white people were on the screen, and today they would cast someone who is fat, someone who is Asian, and someone who is gay.

"On the other hand, they don't talk about this perfection either. The characters in the series neither brag about nor berate themselves. It's just not a very important issue for them. In one scene, Rachel's sister sees Joey with a pizza tray and asks, 'Are you really going to eat all that?' And he replies, 'I'm curvy, and I like it.'"

Alma: "The most significant thing about the series is that everyone is loyal to each other. Even when they fight, they always make up. These six remain cohesive and close, and those who rotate around them are spouses and friends outside the inner circle. Although I can relate to this because I have close friends with whom I feel it doesn't matter if we fight, we'll still be close, but they paint a perfect, unrealistic reality. Not all of my friends are that loyal to me, and certainly not all of my fights with people end within 24 hours."

Switch to Gallery View "Friends" shirts are still in fashion. These six remain united and close, and those who rotate around them are spouses and friends outside the inner circle.

And What Do You Still Like About It?

Yahel: "I like that it's very easy to identify with the characters. The situations they encounter are familiar to everyone and can happen to anyone. The humor helps build this identification. For example, Ross is in love with Rachel, and when she finds out, he's already gone to another country for two weeks. She wants to pick him up from the airport and brings a bouquet of flowers but finds out that he's back with a friend he met there. She has no reason to hate her, but you can completely understand her feeling. Many times, it happens that we don't like people, and the appearance of this matter in such a series confirms and normalizes its existence. Yes, it happens, even Rachel can hate someone for no reason."

"A central motif in the series is what we call 'soul mates.' The viewers know that Ross and Rachel, for example, are meant for each other. He's her lobster, so to speak, and in the end, they will be together. This also applies to friendships that always have great love and to the romantic side. I think it's also related to the excellent chemistry between the actors. If they didn't really like each other, it would work much less well."

Uri: "Another cute thing in the series is the relationship between men and women. There are friendships with sweet moments of bonding when someone has a crisis, and all the couples were created from friendships that turned into something else. For example, Joey and Phoebe are good friends, and there is never anything romantic between them. But in one of the episodes, Phoebe says she has a list of things she wants to do by the age of 30, then discovers she got her birth date confused and is actually already 31.

"The list for this age is completely different, and one of the goals listed on it is to kiss someone of a certain ethnicity. Joey kisses her and says, 'That's it, you can cross that off your list.' It's a real kiss, but it's done in a friendly way. I feel that I can understand it because, at my age, friendships often walk the line between something romantic and something friendly. It happens a lot, so I can relate to it."

What picture emerges when you connect all the dots? I think what emerges from the conversation is that the popularity of the series "Friends" is based on the longing of young people today, as it was 25 years ago, to find comfort and security in their intimate relationships with their friends. Between the ages of 14 and 24 (and this is a conservative estimate), everything changes: the world becomes more challenging, scary, and exciting. The family of origin reveals all its flaws, and the generation gap grows, while the nuclear family we will build for ourselves is still just a wish.

In practice, for most of us, relationships at these ages are not a safe support system. Therefore, the increase in challenges and the decrease in resources increase our clinging to friends. A TV show that assures us that our friends will always be there, that our fights with them will be over within 24 hours, and that our uncomfortable feelings towards them are normal (hey, even Rachel feels this way!) offers significant emotional comfort. And when it's well written and well performed, you can even forgive the recorded laughter in the background.