Is Joey The True Feminist Male Character in Friends?

Friends is my all time favourite show, I would die for it, it's probably weird how much I love it but honestly i'm past caring about that. Considering i've seen every episode about 100 times and i'm a keen feminist, surely i'm the most qualified to analyse whether Ross or Joey is the true feminist male character?

Alright Ross calm down, this post isn't going to get many people liking you. The thing is, when I was a kid I thought that Ross was the most respectful of women. He was the quirky nerdy type, had barely dated any women and was awkward with them so he must be a super nice guy right? Wrong. Watching the episodes back as a grown woman and from a feminist perspective I have really realised that Ross was an absolute idiot.

Now of course Friends was created in the early 90's and considering the velocity of the social justice movement and the growth of feminism, it's bound to be behind the times when analysing it from a modern perspective, however Ross particularly is so behind the times he belongs in a dinosaur museum. GET IT!? okay fine, sorry...

Let's start with the beginning of the show, his wife cheats on him with a woman and they have to get divorced. Now pushing aside how awful it is to be cheated on and how devastating it must have been for him to have a marriage collapse around him, you don't feel sorry for him for long. Just the quick jokes and way he treats his ex-wife Carol afterwards are pretty dicky. Of course no ones gonna love their ex after cheating on them, but considering she's carrying his child AND every time he jokes about her it's about her sexuality, he doesn't handle it very well. He makes several homophobic comments, degrades her and starts to show the possesiveness of his personality.

He dates several women in the show, one of which is main character Rachel. Their relationship is rocky as he cheats on her. Now it's up for debate whether this was actual cheating considering Ross thought they were on a break, however even if they were he goes and sleeps with someone hours after they decide to take a break, which is pretty shitty if you ask me.

Before they break up, Rachel after working her arse off gets an incredible job at Bloomingdales and Ross becomes incredibly jealous, manipulative and controlling when confronting her about her colleague Mark who is happily in a relationship and not interested in Rachel romantically. He tries to control how often she sees him and tries to 'mark his territory' over rachel by showering her in embarassing gifts at her desk to show Mark up whilst she's very busy. He doesn't listen to her when she says she's too busy to go on dates and instead becomes incredibly pushy and rude.

Moving on from the disaster that was their relationship, we can go to Emily, his english Fiance. They date very quickly, fall madly in love and Ross proposes, making this his second marriage. They plan a fast wedding and at the alter he says the wrong name, saying Rachel in his vows instead of Emily. Rightly she becomes furious and runs from the wedding.

Honestly there's so much more I could say to highlight how much of an idiot Ross was and how disrespectful he was towards women, but I only have so much time. Instead let's focus on one of my favourite characters, Joey and let me explain why I think he's a much better Feminist than Ross.

So, Joey where do I start. When I was a kid I loved him but would never have guessed he was the most respectful of women. He is known for sleeping with lots of women and proudly associates himself with the casual 'one night stand.' But what I didn't realise as a kid was, that whilst he does sleep with a lot of women, he is straight forward and honest about the kind of guy he is and this doesn't make him a douche.

He remains loyal, kind and compassionate to the female friends supporting them through job loss, break ups and bad experiences. He would do anything to help them. He grew up with 8 sisters and says many things in support of women and equal rights.

 

Whilst he's not perfect and may say problematic things, they stem from him not knowing any better rather than from spite like Ross. He's an unapologetically nice guy, who just loves pizza and sex. And in my humble opinion, he is a far more progressive and feminist male character than Ross.

Hope you enjoyed, Speak soon!

Molly
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