The Shwang, the Butt and the Very Pretty Lady

Episode 6, a quarter of the way through season one and we get into some of the best jokes of the first season, and also some serious discussion about gender roles in film and relationships, Chandler trying to be a good guy, and what it was like to be a struggling artist in the 90's.  Or so I assume.  I was a struggling teenager so I'm mostly just guessing. 

Also Matt Leblanc dances and Ass-acts all in the same episode, whats not to like.

Transcript

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Welcome back to Gen Z vs Friends. I am Todd Sullivan, and this is hopefully by now your favorite podcast about whether or not uh Friends is as good as I and my peers remember it to be, or as bad and problematic as uh Gen Z and some others, not all, uh would have you believe. Today we're gonna be talking about episode six from season one, uh classic episode, a lot of fun, uh, some good nostalgia, and uh yeah, we're gonna get right into it. Okay, episode six. Season one. As so many nostalgic trips go, there are highs and lows, and those highs and lows often come back to back. So, as low as last episode's character caricature of a black woman was, uh, this episode is delightful, memorable, and interesting. The one with the butt uh again understells the more interesting storyline with the title, um, but will trigger memories of the of the titular storyline for those who watched the first season. Um, it also starts with what I think is an iconic opener, the Freudian Dance Number. So this was another moment that for a very long time I didn't actually think was real. I don't I can tell you what I thought it was. Um might have thought it was a clip show, might have thought it was actually from another thing that maybe was was kind of looked like Friends or another sitcom of the age. Um, you know, this is something that just isn't an issue in the world of streaming where a show starts whenever you want it to. Uh, but if you were a few minutes late for the start of your favorite show in the 90s, you just missed it. And you may not see it again maybe that summer, maybe the year later. Um, who knows? Um, but you could just miss it. And this was especially show for or true for shows like Friends with cold openings before the credits. So you there was no music to trigger you that it was coming. Um, if you were waiting for the theme song to get you to come in and run to the TV. Also, the timing of these, you know, let's face it, once again, as I've said before, the first season is 12, 13 years old, something like that. Um, so this was, you know, uh watch it in bed. And if you're running a little bit late or whatever, then you might miss that opening. Uh, might not see it. Um, but watching it again now and in time since, you know, Matt LeBlanc doing a little monotone song and dance about penis envy is some really great TV. Uh, right along with the the rest of the cast's reception. Um, a great moment, uh, great little overall bit of comedy. Full credit to LeBlanc for selling all the way in, buying all the way into this one. Um, really, but until the box set came out in the 2000s and I had the chance to watch this again. And think about it now, it it might have even gotten edited out. Um, you know, the direct references to penis and penises and schvangs uh might have meant that in some networks, especially if it was being replayed um earlier in the day, uh uh before the watermark, as the as the Brits would say, um, but before that prime time marker, uh, they might have just actually cut the whole thing out and replaced it with something else. But yeah, so until I bought the box sets in the early 2000s and and uh uh started watching it and re-watching it there. Um yeah, I uh I I really didn't even know or couldn't have told you 100% this existed. I thought it was hilarious in my head, but I I couldn't have told you 100% existed. That really gets back also to a bit of my my relationship with the show overall. I said I actually bought the box sets in that kind of early 2000s, 2010-ish uh area. Um I was home from I I'd seen it many times, enjoyed the show, but I was home from school for the summer, home from university, uh working an internship, working fairly long hours, um, staying with my parents again for the summer. Um, had a TV, didn't really want to, you know, it was already reruns. Um, so I had to had a DVD player and just thought, you know what? I'm just gonna buy the box sets. They were cheap. They were at Best Buy back in the day when that was what you did. Um, and I don't think I bought them all that summer. I can't remember if I made it all the way through, but got through most of it just, you know, getting home after work and chilling out, uh, whether I wasn't going out myself. It having very much that nostalgic feeling about what they were going through as I was in my kind of mid-late 20s, uh, finding my own way, all that kind of stuff. Once again, I'll point out going back to Ross, he was a paleontologist. If he had actually been in his mid-20s, he would not have been working at the museum. He would have still been in grad school at the very best. But we don't get in need to get into that again. Um but yeah, so that was that was how I, you know, I rewatched the box set, saw the saw the penis envy dance, and um, and was relieved that to find out I hadn't just been making that up. Uh, there it was, glorious to behold. So it this whole um this whole episode resonated for a lot more than just comedy by that point, as I was saying. And you know, by then I also had friends who were trying to make it in the arts. Uh, they were who would take any bad gig that came up, and I'd go to the shows, you know, you went to the bar shows as their friend. It's yeah, bars and pubs and small theaters and open mic nights and whatever it was uh just to support them. But also, you don't have a lot of money yourself if your friends are all artists, most likely, if you're in that same demographic. You could use a little cheap entertainment because you're not, you know, uh to contrast with the other another big sitcom of the age. We weren't all Frasier spending money on uh the symphony and the opera at hundreds of dollars a shot. So cover at a bar was a fairly cheap uh ticket to go see some some good music or uh good comedy or good whatever. Um of course, once again, this was in uh city in Western Canada, Calgary, Alberta. So not New York City off Broadway, but you know, lots of it was still good, and lots more of it looked like it was gonna be good one day. Um and lots more of those per people would have died for a line as good as All You Want is a Tinkle and How You Envy the Schwang. The real world that this is based on, I would also guess, is a little more foreign to younger millennials and and the generations that have followed. Uh where if you want to be a star and artist, at that time, grinding was really your only option. You know, get in there, pay your dues. Performers, mutually supporting writers and producers and stage directors, you know, bringing their maybe half-formed scripts and concepts to life. Um I'm not pretending that there's not still a grind and a struggle uh today, but you also have that option of just publishing yourself, a la what we're doing here. Um, you know, if if there was a, but let's face it, if if there was a Joey character today, his particular blend of middling talent um and wanting to be a star more than anything else probably would lend itself more to YouTube and TikTok and you know, God forbid podcasting, um, as opposed to making small underground off-Broadway plays. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm misjudging poor Joey. Um, but I I do feel like this is a scene which is which may not be quite as relatable uh and might confound younger folks these days. Um so this little number does lead into one of the stories very nicely, uh, as it does get Joey seen by his future long-term agent, Estelle Leonard, uh we don't see at this point, but we hear the name. Um also in you know, into a peak of kind of the now diminished New York ecosystem of sea level agents to represent the gaggles of sea level stars. Uh, before, once again, they could do more of that themselves now, or could or get forced to do that themselves now. Uh, you know, she just drops a card and has him call her and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, we don't meet Estelle yet. Uh that particularly tasty bit of camp comes much later in the in the series. Um, but she does get him his first big movie role as Al Pacino's butt. Um, so a little more context once again to come on that. Uh for much of the 80s and early 90s, for those of you who weren't there to live it, um it's important to remember that there was some female nudity that was required, uh effectively just ubiquitous in all action movies, and really any drama that was trying or purporting to be real. Uh so in most buddy cop movies, you know, a female protagonist basically just existed to eventually succumb to the charms of one of the leads, sleep with him while a very sexy saxophone ballad played in the background, always saxophone, not optional. And then either get killed by the big bat or eventually convinced that uh hero to leave his high-risk post for the picket fences of suburbia. Uh her fate had a heck of a lot more to do with if they would need him for the sequel than any character development on her part. Uh so uh, you know, eventually we're not going to get into all the politics of what eventually led to me too, but it does feel like eventually female actors got better agents, managers, and contracts uh in the late 90s that let them keep their tops on, uh, while also then lowering the ratings on most action movies uh from ours to PG-13s. I always think that's interesting. I was a kid, you know, your diehards and your seagull movies and all that kind of stuff, um, it was always R. You couldn't go see it at all as a kid. Um slowly that changed. As they cut the nudity out, we realize once again censors in America are less concerned with blood, gore, and trauma than they are with a little little bit of topless female nudity. Um despite that it had to be in fact it had to be in everything, but just made sure the kids couldn't see it. Um so in response to this, Hollywood tried something fun. There was definitely a push to let's just to show that we're all we're not we're not prejudiced, we're not treating the women badly, we're gonna balance our topless ladies with a few bottomless dudes. Uh knowing there was already topless men all over the place, because you know, dead sexy, short, topless male action stars. Um but knowing that man pecs are just you know they're not the equivalent, uh, and they were not gonna get away with a little tinkle or a little schwang, um, that was gonna be too much. Uh producers went for put their little male leave in the shower, put them in a locker room, put them in bed, and keep their backsides hanging in the wind. Um however, the thing with chests and uh compared to butts is proximity to face, with the latter being much easier to employ a stand-in. And this is where we come to Joey. His job, this big break in Hollywood, is effectively to stand in a shower and be Pacino's butt. Uh he and his agent type hype it up into a big break or his opportunity to land a big film role in the future, and his friends predictably find the whole situation much funnier than that. Um whether it is or isn't his big opportunity, it does not go well. Uh effectively because not because he doesn't have cute little butt, not because he, you know, doesn't look enough like Al Pacino, even though they were completely different body types. And in today's world, it would have been absolutely hilarious when people in high deaf were like, well, what the hell? I'm not saying Al Pacino today. Al Pacino of the mid-90s still uh was not the same body type as uh Matt LeBlanc, let's just face it. Um so he overacts it. Uh that's the issue, is that he starts trying to act with his butt, apparently, um, adding tension, being too relaxed, uh, and eventually gets himself fired from the role. Um you know, it is interesting when as I was discussing, it's a bit of a cultural time capsule to kind of think of all the things that were going on that led to the need for or the plausible need for Al Pacino to have a butt double in a in a supposed action movie. Um it's also just some good standard fair butt comedy. Like bombs are just funny. Let's face it. They're there's something, even though they're cute, they're adorable, they're lovely, everybody likes them. Um, they're also kind of funny, too. Um is probably one of the reasons why this great butt balancing act of the 90s Hollywood nudity didn't really work. Because even the best-looking man butt is at least as funny as it is aesthetically pleasing. Um but the other big story here um is of course Aurora. So post Janice, we have Aurora for Chandley, Chandler. Uh, one of the many very beautiful women who gave funny men everywhere hope by being attracted to Chandler. This is not a knock in Matthew Perry's appearance, by the way. He's a good-looking dude. Uh just the overwhelming neurosis that he so skillfully oozed out through Chandler's very being does make you think he probably should not have had quite so much good luck. Um if you've forgotten who she was, well, she was the incredibly sultry Italian-Israeli knockout played by a Greek actress, Greek Swiss, I think, uh, Sophia Milos. Um, she is the character who tries to tempt Chandler into effectively joining her cadre of sexual partners, an offer which he gladly takes, but just for the length of one episode. Um, so the character of Aurora actually flips a lot of the stereotypes of the day right on their head. In a film landscape where strong female heroines who were still very feminine were actually hard to find. Uh, she's the dominant one in this relationship. Um, we know that there was strong female characters, but there was still definitely an element in that that time where you couldn't be feminine and hard. You know, you get the the uh what's her name, Connor. Ah, see, she need to re-watch T2 on on top of everything else. Um where yes, you could have a strong female protagonist, um, a dominant female character, um, but she could not be particularly feminine, or being dominant would would cause her to lose that femininity. Um in this particular case, though, for our 30 minutes or 22 minutes of of time, um beautiful Aurora knew what she wanted, and she was not at all afraid or apologetic to about going out and taking it. Um but the great the the really the wonderful thing, the beautiful thing is that she also wasn't cruel or hurtful about it. Uh she was always honest about what she wanted, what she was willing to give Chandler, as well as her desire to keep him in her life. There it wasn't that she, you know, he wasn't a plaything. He liked she liked him, but she wanted him in her life in the way that she was comfortable with. And she was very mature then about walking away rather than prolonging prolonging the potential inevitable heartbreak. Um, you know, as with most sitcom romantic guest stars, she actually provides the maturity the main character lacked. Um, you know, it it but this was a bit of a chance for Chandler to be honest with himself about the fact that maybe he didn't want all the things that toxic masculinity of the day told him that he should. Um he'd struggle with this battle for years to come, but right at this early point, his desire for the stability that his own family couldn't provide him was enough to actually overcome his desire for Aurora. And re-watching this episode, he might deserve a medal for that. Um I don't think I don't know if she turns out to be a nice person, Sophia Milos, but you know, well very well cast. Uh she by far the sexiest Greek Swiss actress to ever play a sultry Italian Israeli um polyamorous amorous individual. Well done. Excellent casting. Um there is I we do have to talk about the fact that a little bit network TV, a little bit of network TV sexuality is for the beautiful bias here. Uh there is no question of Aurora's right to live as she pleases. Uh and and I'm sure that is in no small part in the viewer's mind because she's j not just beautiful, but smart and sophisticated. European doesn't help or doesn't hurt uh when you're selling this to an American audience. Polyamory among the rich and the powerful and the beautiful can be seen as an enlightened choice, uh, even if it isn't for everyone. It's hard to imagine this storyline being taken so seriously or seriously at all if she had been less refined, less cosmopolitan. If it had been Janice, for example, wanting to do the same thing, uh, that it's much more likely to be seen as some sort of degenerate condition and one to be avoided. Does raise a lot of kind of a chicken in the egg discussion in that I don't think television invented this concept, uh, but they definitely made it more accepted and spread it around to the masses. So with all of that in mind, you know, what how do we score this one? How do we rack it up at the end? Well, as I said, I really like this episode. There's lots of pieces of it from right from the opening. Um, and I think that's gonna be reflected in the scores, not just because I'm trying to balance out the previous really terrible episode, uh, because I do genuinely think that there is a lot of high quality television going on here. Is it still funny? Well, yes, let's face it, as I already said, I think uh it's juvenile, it's silly, but in small doses, uh penis and butt jokes are always gonna strike a certain chord, especially if you're, you know, in the mood for a little easy comedy. Uh it's not terribly crass, it's not, you know, unless you find puns terribly offensive, and that's fair. Uh, but I'd still gave it a three for me. I actually I thought it the jokes were well written and uh and it was a funny episode. Um does it address the topic in a new way? Well, I'd say yes to both the nudity in film and the female polysexuality. Uh so I'd give that another three. Um, you know, I think it it talked about those in not maybe a right-in-your-face way, like it didn't get into all the depth. It is just a half-hour sitcom after all. Uh, but I thought I thought it's deserving of a full marks in that. Well, is it and is it memorable? I honestly think it's uh 100%. Um like I said, as soon as that as soon as the lights go up on Joey's play and he's sitting there in uh that kind of terrible uh Sigmund Freud costume. He's got far too much it was a very flattering portrait of Sigmund Freud's hairline, let's put it that way. Uh, but as soon as that comes up, you know it's you know what you're looking at and it's it's uh good stuff. So I give that give it three points there as well. Is it cringy? Well, yeah, I give it a little bit there. Uh it's called with the one with the butt, so gotta take a point away there. Um, but no, it isn't offensive. Uh I really don't think so, uh, at least in re-watching it. Like I said, the characters are they're sympathetic, they're thoughtful, they're compassionate to one another. Um, yes, we're talking about some fairly raw emotions. Um, you know, also thinking about the fact, even if we just think about the proximity, you know. Chandler, there's some allusion to the point that Chandler may have been dating Janice for a considerable period of time before he breaks up with her in the previous episode. Um, so he's a little bit on the rebound, he's probably a little bit uh a little bit uh tender there, emotionally vulnerable as it were. Um, and that was all treated fairly kindly. Um and I would say it's you know it's not for formulaic, in fact. Re-watching it, the actual flow of the episode, I I want to give full credits to here. Um you know, so often in sitcom 20 minute television, you know, you've got your three breaks, your three chunks, your three storylines. Uh that's just how you're how everybody moved through it. Um the way this one really flowed, how everything did tie back to that cold opener. It wasn't, you know, if it felt like that it's in that same vein in that it's a little bit shocking and it's the friends all together in one place as as far as the cold openers in the the five previous episodes. But those are all throwaway. Uh those openers, you never hear about them again, they're pointless. They're just to get you through to the the opening credit theme. In this case, um this opener is actually very strong. It ties into the story, kicks off the the narrative uh that will run for the next 20 minutes. And and in fact, when you get into things like uh the addition the uh introduction of Estelle and and kind of the the fact that Joey's nearly nearly ends his career and a key part of his character as an actor over this, but then comes back to it because of this role. Um you know, it's all very, all very important and all flows out of that opening. So, you know, and then even that idea, think about it now, like you're you've you've got a Sigmund Freud reference in a care in a episode that's going to be about nudity and sex and boundaries and you know, uh that's actually it all ties together nicely. It all wraps up very well. Um, some some of the better sitcom writing, I think, that I've actually seen um at all, really. Um so could you make this episode today? Well, yeah, though likely Aurora would need to be played by an actual Israeli-Italian uh if they were going to state her background outright like that. Uh, you could leave it out, uh, just make her very sexy and have an accent. You don't have to talk about where she's from. Um, but more and more, you know, we looked to something, uh, I think it wouldn't necessarily it would cut down your credibility with a certain audience. Let's put it that way. Um, I think the you know the recent controversy surrounding Yellowstone uh and one of the actors there where she was actually um uh well she was playing uh Indigenous, she was playing First Nations uh characters or a character. Um and uh I can't remember where she was from exactly, but uh it uh was a an Asian country and uh people had some issues with that. But let's face it, Yellowstone's target audience is not overly concerned with that. So it depends on who you're targeting it for. If you but you'd at least have to just clean up that a little bit. Could have made her Greek Swiss, there's no reason why not, uh just to line up with her background. Uh just a thing that we're more tuned into today. Um there's also yeah, uh the the reality that that not just could you, but yeah, you should make this episode today because that conversation flipping the tables on Joey uh on on Joey and his nudity and Aurora and Chandler and and who's really driving that relationship. Sadly, we still need to be having that conversation. It's been three decades since this episode was was first written and filmed. So you could make it, and I would argue you should make it today. Um so yeah, uh, you know, that's a solid, I would say solid 10 points after last episode's negative five, 15-point swing from episodes five to six. That also closes us out of the first quarter of season one, puts it fought solidly back into the black with 14 points. Um is this a bit of a freshman bump? Am I being a little bit too generous? Probably yes, to both of those, uh, though I think we've been uh uh as critical as necessary in a couple places. Is the back three quarters gonna make me question my life choices? That is entirely possible. Um I'm trying, you know, this is an interesting exercise in the fact I have seen all these episodes many times, and really trying not to cast my mind too far ahead and think about what's gonna happen next and take it uh as it comes as much as possible. Um, but yeah, a good start, uh, good effort, and I hope that you'll join me for the rest of the season. Okay, that's that. Episode six and a quarter of the first season is done. Uh hopefully there's someone out there enjoying it at this point. Um, if not, I'm enjoying it. And to be quite frank, at this point, that's really what it's all about. Uh reminders once again, if you are enjoying it, this is an entirely human-produced podcast from the uh really sketchy uh theme song that uh composed and played myself, to the editing, to the scripts, to the recording, to everything else. Um no AI involved at all. So thank you so much for supporting your fellow humans, for supporting the this little trip down memory lane and the nostalgia that it involves, and and a bit of a discussion about culture, uh old and new. Uh, and most of all, hopefully uh you've come along to enjoy it with me as well. Uh there will be more. We'll be picking up uh episode seven right away, uh, and hopefully moving into that full first half of the season uh before summer really fully gets underway. So once again, I'm your host, Todd Sullivan. Thank you so much for being here, and uh until next time.