Seinfeld, Friends, and Sex and the City
When Friends began in 1994 it sought the hip, knowing, and contemporary territory mapped out since 1989 by Seinfeld, a program it became (misguidedly) fashionable at one time to describe as "postmodern." Friends anchored its six characters in their era: Ross, born in the late 1960s, refers in season 3 (1997) to a video he had made of the hostages returning from Iran (in 1981) and the last episode of M*A*S*H (1983), two events that had marked his youth. This kind of cultural reference, frequent early on, was later excised by writers who presumably realized, as the century ended, that their core audience wasn't even born in 1983. This gradual uprooting of the friends from their context was reinforced over the years by a shift in the characters and plotlines away from realism and subtlety toward infantilism and simplicity. Each character is given a catchphrase and reduced to the status of caricature; Joey regresses to almost preschool levels of ignorance and naivety; Monica turns into a a cartoon monstrosity, half-harridan, half-OCD sufferer (we're supposed to find both hilarious); and the shallow, petulant, immature Rachel becomes the show's normative moral center, her "weird" girlfriends and "admiring" male friends objectified around her. The ensemble structure, offbeat comedic rhythms, and observation of a generation are jettisoned for predictability and story lines that belong in schoolyard, such as jealous fights and tearful reconciliations between the girls. In an episode from season 7 (2000), Ross and Chandler vengefully reveal each other's teenage secrets to Monica; when Chandler tries to respond at one point Ross unironically crows in an exultant, sing-song voice, "Wha-tever dude, you kissed a guy!" forgetting, perhaps, that he's actually a professor. Later seasons also favored flashback episodes to when the characters were young, in the now-absurd 1980s.
By the end the cast members looked about thirty-eight and acted about sixteen, a bizarre composite also inherent to the four women of Sex and the City (1998-2004), who have the interesting and well-paid jobs and consumer lifestyles of their own age group, and the sexual attractiveness and wardrobes of females young enough to be their daughters. They could therefore become objects of fantasy identification for their (junior) high-school viewers as well as for their peers; in one episode Carrie meets some prepubescent fans who treat her writings as a lifestyle guide and is, disingenuously, appalled. Seinfeld, in which early middle-aged characters like Kramer and George dressed, spoke, felt, and behaved pretty much their age, had been left far behind.
ETA: From Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture, by Alan Kirby.
I can't believe I forgot to add my citation! My boyfriend read this and asked "since when do you watch any of these shows?" Well, I'm flattered he thought I actually wrote this ...
It's true I've only seen no more than an episode or two of each show, but most of my friends who did see them tend to like Seinfeld and not the other two. I thought that when they read this they might tell me if this is part of why.
By the end the cast members looked about thirty-eight and acted about sixteen, a bizarre composite also inherent to the four women of Sex and the City (1998-2004), who have the interesting and well-paid jobs and consumer lifestyles of their own age group, and the sexual attractiveness and wardrobes of females young enough to be their daughters. They could therefore become objects of fantasy identification for their (junior) high-school viewers as well as for their peers; in one episode Carrie meets some prepubescent fans who treat her writings as a lifestyle guide and is, disingenuously, appalled. Seinfeld, in which early middle-aged characters like Kramer and George dressed, spoke, felt, and behaved pretty much their age, had been left far behind.
ETA: From Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture, by Alan Kirby.
I can't believe I forgot to add my citation! My boyfriend read this and asked "since when do you watch any of these shows?" Well, I'm flattered he thought I actually wrote this ...
It's true I've only seen no more than an episode or two of each show, but most of my friends who did see them tend to like Seinfeld and not the other two. I thought that when they read this they might tell me if this is part of why.