Jennifer Aniston on people finding Friends offensive: We can’t take ourselves too seriously

Jennifer Aniston is currently busy promoting her Netflix film Murder Mystery 2 as she spoke about the changing landscape of entertainment and how there are more filters before content reaches its final stage and is finally consumed by the audience. Addressing how people find a lot of things offensive or discriminatory today and if her popular sitcom Friends would be as well received if it would have been made in today’s timeline. 

Jennifer Aniston rose to fame with the sitcom show Friends which launched in 1994. With Murder Mystery 2 now up for the premiere, Jennifer reflected on how comedy as a genre has revolutionised in these 30 years. “Comedy has evolved,” said Aniston on it becoming trickier for writers as audiences are more woke and sensitive than ever before. 

“Now it’s a little tricky because you have to be very careful, which makes it really hard for comedians, because the beauty of comedy is that we make fun of ourselves, make fun of life,” Aniston said. “[In the past] you could joke about a bigot and have a laugh — that was hysterical. And it was about educating people on how ridiculous people were. And now we’re not allowed to do that.”

“There’s a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of ‘Friends’ and find them offensive,” Aniston added. “There were things that were never intentional and others… well, we should have thought it through — but I don’t think there was a sensitivity like there is now.”

 “Everybody needs something funny! The world needs humour! We can’t take ourselves too seriously. Especially in the United States. Everyone is far too divided,”added Jennifer Aniston 

Friends has been called out several times in recent years for its lack of diversity and being “so white”.  All six main characters on the show were white, and it rarely featured actors of colour in prominent roles across 10 seasons.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Aniston’s Murder Mystery 2, co-starring Adam Sandler, will release on March 31 on Netflix.

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