For my second cultural artifact, I chose to watch an hour of Friends. This is a show in which six friends all live together or close to each other and hang out all the time. They each go through their ups and downs, along with lots of comical moments thrown in there.
This artifact doesn't tell very much about human purpose. From what I watched, the main thing it said was that humans are meant to live in community. They are supposed to be with and love people. All the characters show this very well and continue to live with each other, even if they are mad at each other. I think that watching this show makes me realize few things about evil. I realized how often sex is referred to and actually happens in a lot of tv shows and movies. Not only is it Joey, the friend who "dates" lots of women, but every single of the friends in the show have had sex before they are married. I also noticed how all the women in the show that Joey "dates" are beautiful, but very skinny. Actually, almost all the women in the show are skinny. The redemption comes when they are in community. They give each other support and try to help each other do the right things, not only in the episodes that I watched, but in all of them.
Why are there no people of color in the friend group shown? Why is it socially accepted that sex before marriage is okay and can be shown to the younger generations of the world?
What happened in the specific episode you watched? It likely would have helped your analysis to focus on one episode instead of a very general overview of the show.
ReplyDeleteSuggesting that human beings are made to live in community is actually a fairly radical thing in American culture. Most cultural trends are moving us more and more toward individualist ways of living. Do you think the creators of the show were trying to say this? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to explore.
Also: how are the characters' sex lives portrayed? Are the stories about sex truthful? Are there consequences or complications with casual sex? It isn't inappropriate to depict characters doing inappropriate things; it is inappropriate if we glorify poor behavior and depict it unrealistically (without consequence).