Hello everyone! As today is the tenth instalment of
Favourite Character Praise Friday since the conclusion of my hiatus, today is
the next of many LEAST Favourite Character Praise Fridays. For those that are
unfamiliar with me and my content, every ten weeks / five instalments of
Favourite Character Praise Friday, I will diverge from my standard practice,
where I pick apart my favourite characters and the ones I adore more than
anything, so I can challenge myself and explore why the characters I loathe are
also brilliant. You can always learn a lot from the characters you hate because
they tend to be hated for a reason, and just because you don’t like them
doesn’t mean that they’re not somebody else’s favourite character too. Despite
finding it much harder to see the good in characters I hate, it is a lot of fun
to pick a character apart.
So, who am I picking apart today?
A rather controversial character to dislike – Ross Geller
from Friends, The TV Show!
Warning, the following will contains spoilers from all ten seasons of Friends!
Now, a disclaimer before I begin. Friends is a show that has
been a part of my life since I was quite young. I remember watching it when I
was like nine because it was on TV. I always really enjoyed watching it, and it
was something I could just unwind and relax, watching, and let all of time just
slip past me.
When I was fifteen, I was gifted with all ten seasons on DVD
and I remember, when we moved house, the following week, we spent every waking
moment of the day, watching friends on the TV. We burned through ten seasons in
three weeks and were left, unsure of what to do with our lives in hindsight.
I have been watching it on-off, sometimes because it is the
only thing on the TV that I’ll happily have on in the background. When compared
to most other daytime TV shows, knowing there’s always the welcome comfort of
Friends on hand was reassuring.
Even now, it occasionally goes on in the background, to
provide a soundtrack to my day. It’s a familiar comfort when you live with
anxiety, knowing that there’ll be a welcome distraction available if you just
change the channel.
I’ll be the first to admit that, with all of this in mind, I
probably do sound like slightly more than a casual fan. But I am the first to
say that my interest in it has slowly fizzled out, just because I know what’s
going to happen in every other episode, thanks to my childhood and early-teen
years being fixated with these people and their amazing lives, and seeing how
it all unfolds relatively easily for each of the characters.
So, before I start laying into Ross, in particular, I would
like to acknowledge something. Because I have had similar discussions at
university and it always seems to be brought up as a counter-argument:
Something that is really important is that character
development is done subtly. This means that a casual viewer, that is watching
the show our of order would still be able to recognise the character from its
core traits. With Friends, considering how long the series has run, it would be
impossible to completely stagnate the way the characters behave and interact,
otherwise there is no way that the show would have been as successful and have
run for so long, still being loved for twenty five years after its initial
debut.
Character development in Friends was done through looking at
parts of the characters and their relationships that would make sense to be
stretched out. For example, the Ross and Rachel back and forth which took place
consistently throughout the seasons, as well as how Monica and Chandler ended
up in a relationship. The way that Chandler felt about Monica was discussed at
as early as season three, where he began to make declarations that he would be
her boyfriend if nobody else would. However, there were hints that they were
quite close friends from the start of the show considering the way they
interacted. Most of their banter toward the start consisted of jabs and jibes
about their former relationships, particularly when they were single. There is
always a small glimpser that there was a bit of romantic tension between them,
and thus, at the end of season four, when Chandler and Monica sleep together,
and any subsequent episode, you can see that their dynamic hasn’t changed too
much, even though they are now in a romantic relationship. They still make
comments about people they find attractive, even in the other’s company.
In short, sitcoms can’t have dramatic character development
for the reason that they don’t want to detract the casual viewer from coming
back to the show when they can, because the characters are so different.
This does, influence my perception of Ross’ character. It’s
easy enough to criticise the way he is due to his lack of a capacity to change
his behaviour, but if he was able to change that drastically, then it could
impair the viewership. Changes with Ross, or any of the characters, were
usually short-lived and took place within the space of one episode. Like when
Ross made a New Year’s Resolution to do a new thing every day, and ended up
changing up his image by buying a pair of leather pants. The same way that
Chandler and Ross make a fifty-dollar-bet that he can’t go a without insulting
his friends.
But, let’s get to the analysis.
Let’s start with why I dislike Ross. There are reasons why
he’s in this segment instead of its partner.
I feel like Ross was one of those characters that could have
been fantastic. You can see from the way he is quick to jump into new
relationships that he struggles to validate himself, and, in a sense, does need
someone there to reassure him that he’s on the right track, or doing the right
thing. This is demonstrated from the get go in the immediate response to his
marital breakdown with Carol. He expresses in Season One, that he felt that
everything was okay, and that finding out that she didn’t agree and she couldn’t
stay married to him was devastating. He couldn’t necessarily fault her in the
sense of not wanting to try and make things work, which probably made things
worse for him; after all she was cheating on him, and was in love with “the
other woman”, Susan. After that point, he is struggles to pick himself back up.
This is understandable, but for the sake of plot progression he quickly ends up
fixating on the romantic feelings he once had for Rachel, who suddenly came
back into his life. He let those emotions take over and when he eventually
ended up with Rachel, he seemed a lot more stable in himself. Had the “we were
on a break” thing not happened, I reckon that they would have stayed together
for much longer. After all, Ross and Rachel’s relationship was incredibly
strong at the start – with their arguments being real and easy to access as a
consumer. However, TV drama and tension requires exaggerated reactions every
once in a while, and thus the Ross and Rachel saga begins, from Season Three up
until the Series Finale in Season Ten, they are constantly in a back and forth,
trying to best each other, whilst not coping with their issues. The trait that
is basically to his detriment is that desperation for validation that lead him
to cheat on Rachel with the girl from the Copy Shop.
Another reason I dislike him is due to his character being
presented as a serial monogamist, instead of his issues being handled properly.
His divorce lawyer even makes quips about Ross being so quick to marry. It is
shown in several instances that he has issues with commitment. He enjoys being
married, he enjoyed the comfort and security of that relationship and has since
ended up trapped in a cycle of it always being too soon, in one way, shape or
form. When he married Emily, he hadn’t sorted out his issues with Rachel and
ended up saying the wrong name at the altar. He ruins the opportunity to go
onward and enjoy a happy life with her, because of this mistake and it is
repeated several times for dramatic and comedic effects. Ross was still hung up
on his breakup with Rachel when he got in a relationship with Emily and in his
whirlwind romance, didn’t think of the consequences until Rachel was right
there at his wedding, all of a sudden. Then, the second time he got married in
the show, it was under even more dramatic circumstances. He and Rachel, his
on-off romantic interest for several seasons got drunk in Las Vegas and ended
up getting married. Ross is shown in many relationships between these
marriages, never really taking time to enjoy life as a bachelor. Instead, he
fixates on this blissful life he once had, that he once enjoyed and constantly
strives to achieve it again. His fatal flaw is being so quick to commit to
relationships and immediately wanting to spend his life with people, instead of
giving himself the opportunity to adjust to the breakdown of one relationship.
This wouldn’t be a problem, so to say, if his character wasn’t as fixated on commitment
as he is. In short, instead of the sitcom focusing on the deeper problems, that
could have still been poked fun at, Ross is just made out to be obsessed with
marriage.
The last reason that makes me dislike Ross as a character is
the way that he refuses to acknowledge his own hypocrisy. During Season Eight,
when, after a one-night-stand, Rachel falls pregnant with Ross’ child. During
her pregnancy, Ross resents Rachel for still having a romantic life, going to
the lengths of hiding messages he took for her. Even though they didn’t discuss
re-establishing their romantic relationship. However, during that period, Ross
feels perfectly comfortable to start dating Mona for an extended period, during
which, he neglects her own boundaries and constantly leaves her waiting for him
when he won’t show up. Yet she is never shown to do the same thing back. Worst
of all, in that period, he allowed Rachel to move in with him without telling
her. Dishonesty, is a common trait of Ross’ character, where he will lie in
order to deflect the severity of the situation he has found himself in. The
fact that he never actively takes responsibility for the things he does is a
negative character trait which is hard to find endearing as a viewer.
Of course, Ross, like all of the other characters, has
reasons to be liked: he is diligent in the pursuit of his career, passionate
enough about palaeontology to end up as a tenured professor at NYU, a
distinguished position, despite his shortcoming in his role, like dating a student
and not failing students because they claimed to be in love with him, he
clearly did a good job and was very knowledgeable.
There are many things that I would love to discuss here
about Ross, particularly with his issues. If I do end up making follow up
posts, do expect to see them linked at the foot of this post!
Please, if you have opinions on Ross Geller, feel free to
share them with me! Don’t forget you can check out my previous Character Praise
by looking through the hashtags below.
And remember!
Per Aruda Ad Astra!
