Thinking, as always, about the 90s, Seinfeld, and Friends

Seinfeld specifically was a back-to-the city premise – it’s a place where clever adults always have something to talk about – and an exposition of Larry David’s vision of secular Judaism as a model of urbanity – rabbinically arguing, testing, hair-splitting over everyday life, with Festivus as a feast of the Ordeal of Civilization, where we drop our social facades (airing of grievances) and engage in primal contest (feats of strength)

Friends still the city as setting for the new life stage it’s about

I talk about how Ross is supposed to come off as behind the times, the point is that he never intended to live this life, he expected to be married in the suburbs until his wife broke off their engagement (citing a newly realized lesbianism, which means a 90s sensibility of seeking your true self is the thing that disrupted his happy ending, but also that he really needs to develop a better sense of who would be a good match for him)

Rachel’s marriage was more intended for her than by her, in rejecting it she becomes the 90s spirit of seeking your true self as a disruptive force. Which is what powers the Ross/Rachel central spine, ending, as comedies must, with a wedding.

But afer the curtain falls, once they don’t need a stream of new people to date how long do the married Ross and Rachel stay in Manhattan? Joey went to LA, right, (I guess Mad About You was the married-having-kids version of the back to the city show)

And what about the show has to be in Manhattan? The offscreen recurring joke guy they can see naked in his apartment in the next building? I suppose even a coffee shop hosting uh, coffeehouse musicians was pretty novel in the early 90s. (Cappuccino in wide cups used to have some of the symbolic significance lattes do now but calling back the beatniks, see also Mike Meyers’ So I Married An Axe Murderer)

I’ve talked before and… that’s the second post today I know I made but can’t find… here! about HIMYM as the updated successor and how Friends’ arc is Ross gets engaged like three times by his early 30s and finally it sticks, Ted Mosby’s is he realized one of his friends was his real soulmate but by the time they get through all their preliminary stuff they’re 50