Is chandler gay
We all know this homosexual couple.Friends
This weekend Friendsfinished filminga reunion episode, slated to appear on HBO Max at some point, which has me thinking about just how close the show came to featuring what could have been the most prominent queer sitcom character in history.
Showrunners came this close to making the Chandler traits gay, only pulling assist after they cast Matthew Perry.
But despite having straightened Chandler out, creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane gave the cast and crew explicit instructions to retain the gay vibe: “write it gay,” they told everyone, “and act it straight.”
I wonder, looking back now, if they had allowed Chandler to be gay — or bi, or any other flavor of queer — would that have been better? Or would it have been a gigantic mess?
When Friends premiered, audiences instantly picked up on the homosexual undertones. I was combing through newspaper archives from the mid-90s, and a surprising amount of the coverage is devoted to slow, patient explanations that Chandler isn’t gay — really, we promise. “We’re not going to say you again,” fumes one entertainment column.
Viewers were picking up on the vestiges of the original design, vestige
TV Legends: Was Chandler on Friends Originally Meant To Be Gay?
TV URBAN LEGEND: The character of Chandler Bing on "Friends" was originally written as a gay character.
It's fascinating to see how time can change our perception of a show's politics so dramatically. When it was on the air, "Friends" was viewed as one of the most linear shows on television, particularly when it came to LGBT issues. Gay-themed publications seemingly ran articles on "Friends" every other month. They had a woman loving woman couple as recurring characters on the show (Ross' wife left him for another woman) and the lesbian couple even got married on the illustrate, which was a very controversial episode at the time.
Now, though, when you look back at the series, it is striking to see how often "gay panic" is displayed on the series, with the three main male characters desperate to make sure that no one ever considers them to be gay (most notably, the season 1 episode where we understand that Chandler's co-workers do believe that he is gay). Like when Chandler freaks out that Joey has a pink pillow on his couch after Rachel moves in with him. Chandler, meanwhile, is also actively cruel to his father, who is part
After 10 seasons, NBC’s “Friends” came to a cover in 2004 with one of its central couples, Chandler Bing and Monica Geller, adopting twins and moving out of Recent York and into the suburbs.
Seattle-based journalist Matt Baume, however, believes the demonstrate could have ended very differently if the innovative team’s original plans for Chandler, played by Matthew Perry, had been executed.
In a new video describe, Baume ― who is the author of the 2015 book “Defining Marriage” and the host of “Culture Cruise,” an acclaimed YouTube series ― delves into thinly sourced but persistent reports that the creators of “Friends” had intended for Chandler to be a gay dude, but changed him to a straight character after Perry was cast. He also breaks down a number of gay jokes ― many of them cringeworthy by modern standards ― presented in the show at the character’s expense as evidence of a defunct plot line.
Speculation about Chandler’s sexuality can be traced back to the show’s earliest seasons. In a 1996 interview with Entertainment Weekly during Season 2, co-creator and executive producer David Crane dismissed such arguments. “No, Chandler isn’t gay,” he said at the period. “Nor will he be gay.
Matthew Perry’s Chandler Did More for Queerness Than We Give Him Credit For
This article has been adapted from a piece originally published in Leo Herrera’s newsletter. You can subscribe here.
There’s a TikTok trend, among Gen Z, roasting how millennials talk on social media: always with the “millennial pause,” as it’s called, at the beginning of videos because we grew up on analog devices that took a second to log, or with the overcome after delivering jokes because we were raised on sitcoms with studio-audience snicker tracks. Millennial humor is marked by self-deprecating jokes (“Can you believe I did a thing?!”) and goofy, cringy sarcasm at the mundane. There are an embarrassing number of these mocking videos, and in every millennial trace, I recognize someone: They’re all doing a variation of Chandler Bing. Matthew Perry’s character in Friends epitomized ’90s snark and self-effacing humor, an evolution of Sam from Cheers and nearly everyone from Seinfeld, but without the cool confidence or sheer shamelessness. The singsong of his quips is part of our dialect now: “Could I be any more tired?”
A few weeks ago, I started watching Friends for the second
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