Sunday 23 October 2016

Is Joey Tribbiani Masculine...Because He's Not?

I made a post a while ago talking about how weird and hypocritical it is that Friends constantly mocks non-masculine men, despite the fact the male characters themselves are not very manly. Well I've been thinking about this recently and how the men aren't portrayed as very masculine...except for Joey. Usually Joey is written as the only guy who behaves manly, constantly enforcing that he's tough and brave and other traditional enforced manly traits. But he's also the most sensitive and feminine of the guys? Unless...that was the idea?

Was this Friends commentary all along? That the one man who is truly okay with himself and non-judgemental of others is the only one who gets to be seen as "a man". Think about it, after he and Ross take a nap together, he's the one that suggests doing it again. When they find out Ross & Rachel hired a male nanny, everyone else mocks, Joey's over there playing the flute with him. When he auditions for the role of a gay man, he wants to practise kissing a dude and has no shame in it, unlike Ross or Chandler. When Janine starts "girling up" the apartment, he's resistant at first, but soon learns that he likes art and making potpourri, it's not until Chandler comes in and mocks him for it that he starts to feel ashamed. Was this intentional? Was this David Crane and Marta Kaufman's way of commenting on masculinity? By making the only man who is completely secure in his manhood the manliest one there?

-Danny

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