‘Friends’ Musings: Two Scrappy Friends
As an 80s-baby fresh off of her own maternity leave, I’ve recently consumed a supersizing amount of ‘Friends’ episodes. I must have watched the series at least 3 three times in 2018 alone, between Hulu and TBS reruns all day long from Tuesday to Friday. With all of this quirky, coffee-savoring, prime Manhattan real estate, white-washed, Gen-X’er content fresh in my mind, here is one lesson I learned from ‘Friends’ — Pheobe and Joey add oft-overlooked balance as the hard-working, scrappier friends.
The show’s cast of characters are often generalized as privileged — understandably so based on the lifestyle they showcase on the series. But upon closer inspection, both Pheobe and Joey come from humble beginnings, and the differences between their childhoods and those of their friends are common themes throughout the series.
Everyone remembers Pheobe’s knack for terrifying people with outbursts recounting her past — from a homeless man spitting into her mouth to living in a van after her mom killed herself — her perspective is wildly unique and not at all privileged like her Long Island-bred counterparts.
While Joey did not live in a van, and both his parents are still alive, he did grow up in a small apartment in Queens with seven sisters and working-class parents. It is revealed that he refused to follow in his father’s footsteps and take over the family pipe fitting business. He was criticized for his choice to become an actor and is constantly working to prove to his family that acting was the right choice. This is clear in his sensitivities about his bottom-of-the-barrel acting gigs to his constant search for approval from his family, like his nonna, who barely understands English but knows that she loves her ‘big fat Joey star.’
Despite these glaring differences between Pheobe, Joey, and the rest of the gang, the issue of income discrepancies isn’t addressed head-on until the fifth episode of the second season, also known as “The One with Five Steaks and an Eggplant.” In this episode, Rachel joins Pheobe and Joey in their financial insecurities, still freshly independent from her father and working hard as a waitress at the coffee shop, where she is still wondering, “who is FICA and why is he getting all my money?”
The pinnacle of the episode is when the group has a few very awkward conversations about how Ross, Monica, and Chandler make more money than the rest of the group and are unaware of the differences in lifestyles they can each afford. In the end, Monica is fired from her new job for taking a kickback from a vendor in the form of five steaks and an eggplant, which she brings home to cook for her friends as an attempt to apologize for the incredibly awkward money conversations that make up this episode. The way that the focus shifts from their awkward money conversation to Monica being fired shows that it’s often not a good experience to talk to your friends about money, but life goes on. Hopefully, your friendships can survive the awkwardness.
