THE NOSTALGIA OF FRIENDS | LA NOSTALGIA DE AMIGOS

By Casey Manzella, SY’19

ORIGINAL

Uno de mis programas favoritos es Amigos. Es sobre un grupo de amigos que viven en Nueva York, tienen unos veinte años y están probando a fundar sus vidas adultas. Las diez temporadas del programa los siguen a través de todos los aspectos del día a día — el trabajo, los amigos, el amor, la familia — dejando que los espectadores vean el crecimiento y desarrollo de estos personajes.

Cuando veo Amigos, mi madre se burla de mi. No comprende porque veo un programa que salió hace casi 20 años cuando hay muchos programas nuevos que salen todos los días. Para mi madre, Amigos es viejo — desgastado. Aunque mi madre está posiblemente justificada en decir que Amigos es relativamente viejo, lo que no sabe es que la mayoría de mis amigos ven Amigos — que, posiblemente, válida la pregunta de mi madre: ¿porque está generación, que tiene más opciones de entretenimiento posibles que en antes, está fascinada con una reliquia de la generación de mi madre?

Cuando pienso sobre esta pregunta, empiezo a pensar de porque yo, personalmente, veo Amigos en vez de de otro programa más moderno como Juego de tronos o Scandal. Cuando veo Amigos, me siento calma y tranquila que no me siento mientras veyendo estas otros programas. Cuando veo Amigos, me siento como si estuviese mirando al pasado de mis padres, cuando estaban jóvenes y recién casados, viviendo en Nueva York. Aunque no estaba viva en eses momentos, mis padres me contaron tantas historias,
que imagino que las vidas de mis padres se parecen muchas a las vidas de Monica y Chandler, o de Rachel o Ross. Cuando veo Rachel y Monica comiendo helado directo del pote, imagino mi madre y su mejor amiga, Lori, haciendo lo mismo. Cuando veo Chandler se costa en su primer trabajo, imagino mi padre trabajando intensamente como banquero de inversión. Cuando veo Monica consolando a su hermano, Ross, quien se divorciando de Carol, imagino mi madre consolando a mi Tío Chris durante su divorcio parecido. Aunque no estuve viva durante estos momentos, son igualmente importantes a mí como a mis padres, como memorias pasadas de mano a mano. Cuando veo cado de estos.

TRANSLATION

One of my favorite TV shows is Friends. It’s about a group of 20-somethings living in New York and trying to establish their adult lives. The show’s ten seasons follow them through nearly every aspect of their lives — work, friends, love, family — allowing viewers to watch the characters develop in almost every way.

Whenever I watch Friends, my mom makes fun of me. She doesn’t understand why I’m watching a show that came out almost 20 years ago when there are so many new shows that come out every day. To her, Friends is old, worn-out. While my mom may be justified in saying that Friends is relatively old, what she doesn’t know is that I am not the only one of my generation who watches Friends. In fact, most of my friends watch Friends — which, perhaps, validates my mom’s question: why is the generation that has more entertainment options available than ever before so fascinated with a relic of her generation?

The more I thought about this question, the more I began thinking about why I, personally, watched Friends rather than other, more modern shows, like Game of Thrones or Scandal. When I watch Friends I feel a sense of calmness and peace that I don’t feel while watching these other shows. When I watch Friends, I feel as though I’m looking into my parents’ past, when they were young and just-married, living in New York. Although I wasn’t alive then, my parents have told me so many stories that I can imagine them leading lives that were very similar to Monica’s, Chandler’s, Rachel’s or Ross’s. When I see Rachel and Monica eating ice cream straight from the tub, I picture my mom and her best friend, Lori, doing the same thing. When I see Chandler struggling in his entry-level job, I picture my dad slaving away as an investment banking analyst. When I see Monica comforting her brother, Ross, through his divorce from Carol, I picture my mom comforting my Uncle Chris through his very similar divorce. While I may not have lived through these moments, these passed-down memories and stories are as much a part of my past as they are a part of my parents’ past. When I watch each of these moments play out on the screen in one Friends episode or another, it glows with the same golden nostalgia I find in my own home videos.

Nostalgia implies a sense of longing, or desire, for the past. It is a feeling one can only experience if a degree of discontent exists in the present. The more I think about the times when I watch Friends — when I desire that sense of nostalgia — the more I realize they are times when I feel particularly stressed, disheartened or simply sad. I do watch modern shows like Game of Thrones and Scandal, but when I’m feeling stressed about the future, be it getting good grades or securing a job, I almost always turn to Friends. Perhaps that’s where the answer to my mom’s question lies — that the reason Friends is so popular with my generation is the fact that we are collectively searching for a treatment, albeit temporary, to our present discontent. Whether or not Friends triggers a personal sense of nostalgia as it does for me, it triggers a societal sense of nostalgia for better times. Friends was filmed in the 90s, when the economy was flourishing under the Dot-Com Bubble, racism was thought to be “over”, gender equality was thought to have been achieved and President Clinton was wildly popular with a 73% approval rating. Today, as my generation graduates college and begins
to enter the same stage of life captured in Friends, we are entering a very different world. Today, people no longer trust the economy, racism is alive as ever, women are still marginalized despite having organized this country’s largest protest and President Trump has assumed our nation’s highest office without the support of the people. While watching Friends may temporarily allow us to escape these present problems and assuage our anxiety about the future, we cannot completely lose ourselves in the past, because it is the sense of fear and discontent that drives us to change the future and recreate Friends’ peace and happiness in reality. So, while Friends may glow warmly with memories of my parents’ past, I use this warmth to inspire me to fight for the change necessary to make it a reality in my future and the future memories of my own children.