She's been a Hollywood A-lister for about three decades, with a long resume of memorable performances, but Jennifer Aniston's most famous role by far remains the one that first made her famous: Rachel Green on Friends. And while that NBC sitcom remains enormously popular in syndication and on streaming, it's not without its detractors, she says — particularly among younger viewers. (See Jennifer support a real-life bestie from the show in a touching reunion below.)
"There's a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of Friends and find them offensive," Jennifer, 54, told AFP (an international French press agency) while promoting Murder Mystery 2. In recent years, Friends, depicting an all-white, straight and affluent group of pals has been called out for its questionable handling of race, gender, sexuality, and class.
"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," she continued.
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The byproduct of this, she says, is a shortage of comedy on TV and in film . "Everybody needs funny! The world needs humor!" Jennifer points out. "We can't take ourselves too seriously. Especially in the United States. Everyone is far too divided."
"The beauty of comedy is that we make fun of ourselves, make fun of life," she continued. Back in the day, "you could joke about a bigot and have a laugh -- that was hysterical," she said. "And it was about educating people on how ridiculous people were. And now we're not allowed to do that."
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Aniston co-starred with Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer on the show from 1994 to 2004, and the principals were famously paid $1 million dollars each per episode at the end of the hit's run.
Aniston and another super-famous costar, Adam Sandler, recently reunited to film Murder Mystery 2, the sequel to the 2019 Netflix hit. MM2 debuted on the platform last Friday.
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