Dr Dolly Alderton PHD rejoins us for a Freudian lens into Friends TW: Brief discussion on eating disorders (01:15:10 - 01:20:19) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
Hi, everyone. Little heads up before you listen to this week's episode. We had some technical failings on the day of record here. I went to Dolly's house.
Chapter 2: What are the technical issues faced during the recording?
We had a lovely time. My very trusty portable microphones for some reason failed on me that day. Mercury was in retrograde and we dug out Dolly's old podcasting microphone from a sock drawer. And whatever way she was storing that thing, I don't know. But the audio quality here is not what I would normally expect. So please be patient with it. It's still a great episode. I'm very fond of it.
And please enjoy Dr. Dolly Alderton. Hello and welcome to Friends Through a Lens, the podcast where I talk about the aspects of the show Friends through a specific lens with one of my real life friends. And today on the show, the category is It's All Relative with Dolly Alderton.
Maybe one of the best jokes in the whole show. It's so good. Is the game show. This is such a good idea for a miniseries.
I've been waiting for Friends.
I'm loving it. What's been your favourite episode so far? I love the weddings episode. Yeah, so good. Because I just love weddings as a trope within storytelling. I just think it's so cosy and so funny. But it's interesting. Now, when I was thinking about the weddings, I have never gone back to watch Monica and Chandler's wedding.
And I re-watch Ross and Emily's wedding, I think three times a year.
Are you annoyed that you're not getting the space today to talk about Waltham Interiors?
Okay, I'm so upset about it because I actually think I pitched this to you off the back of Waltham Interiors. Waltham Interiors is my favourite two lines uttered on the silver screen ever. It's still up in like every episode, Waltham Interiors. I love it. Do you know, there's something about the characterisation of those two characters that's like,
It's so the English upper class is in such a recognisable way of basically a man and a woman who have nothing in common other than when they were young, he made money and she was hot. And her life is now just about spending as much money as possible with all her weird little projects. And his life is about spending as little time with her as possible and making money.
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Chapter 3: How does the podcast explore the theme of family in Friends?
So do you though We're the same in this But you just also But you also just don't You don't watch Masses of new TV Do you?
No Which is really bad Because I'm making new TV I don't think it is bad Do you not think?
No I actually think The most important thing As a T As any kind of writer For inspiration Isn't reading And it isn't watching I think it's the quality Of your personal relationships Do you really think that? I believe it's the quality Of the conversations That you have with people Yeah
I do think you're right on that I think the conversations you have are the things that inform your characters and your dialogue maybe maybe you can learn about story and plotting yeah yeah from watching stuff but which is why I just never understand this idea of like the secluded writer yeah because I just think your writing is only as good as the as the conversations in the pub basically but then what about all these like amazing famous writers who like famously had one friend or whatever
I think you, I think they, I think that happens as you get introverts, you know, I think that happens as you, I think that all of those people who went and lived on a hill, if you read like early life on their Wikipedia page, the likelihood is they were around loads and loads of people. They would have had like a big family or they would have, you know, worked in a job with loads.
I just think that's the only way that you learn about human behavior. And it's like that, classic thing of every general meeting that you take for as a TV writer what they say is what we're looking for is like serialized rom-com like a TV rom-com and Nobody Wants This is really good and I'm really enjoying it but it definitely shows the challenge of doing a TV rom-com which is how do you keep
two people apart when they're the main focus of the story over eight hours repeatedly how do you bring them together and pull them apart it's like you do kind of run out of tricks and the key the thing that really worked with Ross and Rachel is that it was it was it was not the highest story in the mix yeah oh you're so right so they could so it could fade away for a while and then come back exactly and that's how we were kept wanting more
Even though, somebody pointed this out in the comment section when we did our Ross episode the other day, but they believe the thing that kept Rachel coming back to Ross was that he was a bad boyfriend, but a great friend. And he would show up for people in a friend way and then disappoint her over and over again as a boyfriend.
And I find that very interesting. That is interesting. Because also, I suppose what is so interesting about Ross and Rachel, which you don't see in other rom-coms, It's like, how do you recalibrate? How do you recalibrate friendship when you have been so intimate with each other? Yeah.
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Chapter 4: What emotional themes are explored in Monica's character?
And Phoebe was like, yeah. And Monica goes, she hired me because she thinks I'm good. And Phoebe goes, I did not hear that. And it's that thing when like a third party witnesses that level of like familial dysfunction and is like, how did you just take a compliment out of what just happened? Yeah. Yeah, it's actually heartbreaking. It's so heartbreaking.
And then, yeah, Monica loses one of her false fingernails inside of the quiche, which I do think is irresponsible to wear false fingernails while catering. That'd be a hard line for me. I'm with Judy on that one. And they say, we bought some frozen lasagnas because we thought you might pull a Monica.
so horrible and it's do you know what also that's part of as well is that like people who have like the narrative of who they are within their families is really strong like um Gav has this where for so long the whole thing in his childhood was that he was really late um
and really disorganized and because of that he has made like huge sort of like he's the most organized person I know because he knows he's got that natural sort of thing and so like he's got filing systems for sort of every bill we've ever received or whatever but that narrative still exists about him within his like core friend group from home and he finds it so upsetting that like he's he's done all this work for nobody to revise their opinion of him and that's the same thing with Monica it's like we know that Monica is obsessed with doing things perfectly
But it's like, oh, the reason that she's that way is because everyone thought she was this kind of like loopy klutz. Yeah. You know? Totally. Really hard. It's a really sad story.
So sad.
Pull the moniker.
Every person who's been a part of a family has one of those. Yeah. Pull the moniker. And it drives you crazy.
Yeah. Because you could never outlive them.
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Chapter 5: How does Phoebe's past influence her relationships?
I just love how horny him and Judy are.
I know. That's such a big part of it. Their sex tape as well.
The sex tape. And the line that obviously was totally lost on me when I was a child, but I now love, is when they turn up late to the rehearsal dinner of Ross and Emily's wedding. And she's like, oh, sorry, we're late. I was riding the tube. Oh, yeah, yeah. Judy. And she's like, that's what they call the train here. I love it. And I also think it does, like...
if you grow up in a household where like a marriage is very alive which is again a privilege the household it is a privilege you don't realise it's a privilege until you like realise that you have friends who have never seen their parents kiss yeah yeah then you realise it's a massive privilege totally and that's my parents were like that and it means that
You have these high standards for what you think marriage should be. I've seen that a marriage can... I mean, they're in their 80s and their 70s now, my mum and dad. And they're still pinching each other's arses and slow dancing when Frank Sinatra comes on and flirting. So I just wasn't willing to accept anything other than that.
Mm-hmm.
And that's what you can see Monica has in that relationship with Charlotte. And that's why I think she's so... She's so white as sexual Monica.
You said this before, that apparently the creators thought of Joey and Monica as the most sexual characters. I do not find Monica sexual.
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Chapter 6: What does the podcast reveal about the dynamics of family in Friends?
It is not sexual. I feel like there are all these hints about how horny Monica is.
Mmm...
Like, you definitely think that... Is she, like, more horny than Rachel or Phoebe? She definitely talks about it more, I think.
Oh, I mean, there's the sex advice she gives to Chandler.
Like, seven, seven, seven, a one, a two, a one, two, three. That's so good, that episode. But there's also, like, you definitely know that she is demanding more sex than Chandler in that marriage.
Oh, you think?
Definitely.
There's that really weird episode where she gets really ill and she's like a flu or whatever and she doesn't want to admit that she's ill so she tries to force Chandler to fuck her.
Yeah, and she robs Vix all over her chest.
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Chapter 7: How does the concept of found family manifest in the series?
Yeah. And actually, it's something that a doctor once said to me, is that anorexics are often foodies. Because they're thinking about it all the time. Obsessed with food.
Yeah, yeah.
And if there's a way that you can, as you heal and go into recovery, I was advised, if there is a way that you can channel a kind of obsession or interest or thought in food in a way that is... you know, creative or nutritional.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rather than... It's about scarcity. It's about scarcity and deprivation. That has to be a choice that this was a girl whose main trauma when she was growing up was powers to food. And now her life is... How she makes her money is being in control of food.
I always wonder this, especially when we did the episode on Phoebe, about when these writers are sitting around doing as you and I have done in writers rooms, which is like spending nine hours talking about this incredible, complicated, like making up complicated psychologies and bad stories for people who don't exist.
Because it's such a 23 minute episodes where there is a joke every other sentence, you know, there's never not a joke. It's always... Everything has to earn its place. Everything is building to something, whether it's a laugh or a gasp or whatever. When they're sitting around talking about Phoebe's mum having killed herself or Monica being bullied for her weight, are they doing it smiling?
Or are they doing, sitting there, I mean, Martha Kaufman and David Crane being like, with their hands on their chest being like, the thing about Monica is, like, this is like really important because the way the show treats her eating and treats her weight is so cruel.
And I think like one of the things that dates, more than the gay panic stuff, I think it dates even worse is the way people are so cruel to her over her weight. Yeah. I wonder were they writing it with love in their heart, if you know what I mean? Like, were they writing it with a sense of like, the thing about Monica is she has these control issues. She's a chef for these things.
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