Rachel is too good for Ross, Monica (and everyone else) is too good for Chandler the girls have just as many, and I wou
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ppllkk — 9 years ago(June 12, 2016 08:07 AM)
alexaw9
wrote:
the girls have just as many, and I would say more, actually, flaws than the guys, but somehow they're better?
Oh yes, they certainly do.
I have a suspicion that when people say the women are too good for the men that they end up with, what they are really thinking is that the women are better looking than the men and so they could get a "better" husband in the sense of a better looking one or one with more money.
But they know that is an extremely shallow way of thinking, and so they hide their thinking behind "too good for" which is vague enough that it could mean anything. -
Wildstyle26 — 9 years ago(June 12, 2016 08:15 AM)
Going with this. It seems it's more about looks. If you look good, the world is at your feet. You have more dating prospects, job prospects. Good looking people just have edge.
Usually I hear "She's out of his league." I consider leagues to include the entire package. But for many, leagues are about looks. So going by looks alone, Rachel is out of Ross' league. And Chandler is too fat and bleh for the hotter Monica.
The same thing happens with the
King of Queens
fandom. Some who insist that Carrie is out of Doug's league. But really Carrie is just hot. She's got nothing else going for her other than her looks, and not even that when the actress has the baby weight on her from her pregnancy, and became more frumpy.
But it's typical on tv. Media seems to be biased toward men. Men wanna see hot women, so naturally the hotter women tend to get most of the roles. But on the flip, men's looks don't seem to be scrutinized as much as women. So average-looking men could get as many parts as hotter men, because it doesn't seem as cared about.
That's why the Ugly Guy, Hot Wife tropes seems to abundant.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UglyGuyHotWife
Like I said in another thread. This show had plenty of very attractive women. The men usually were all dumpy to average at best. -
alexaw9 — 9 years ago(June 12, 2016 08:41 AM)
I agree that that's the reasoning behind it, but it doesn't make it right or okay. I think it bugs me more on Friends than something like King of Queens because Friends on the whole is more realistic, less sitcom-y. The characters feel like they could be real people (up until some of them become caricatures). So for them to be so shallow and condescending, and most especially towards people that they consider to be some of their best friends, is really irritating.
That's probably why it also irritates me that they all make fun of/act obnoxiously bored with anything Ross mentions about his job or intelligence in general though that is less annoying; I chalk it up to less intelligence on the part of the other friends (not necessarily dumb, just not interested in learning).
But the way they treat the men vs the women, some of their best friends, really annoys me. By the way, Chandler was only chunky in a couple of seasons, and even then, he wasn't bad-looking. And seemingly the men, especially Chandler and Ross, were pretty selfless, while the women, with the exception of Monica sometimes, were very selfish. They were certainly not 'better'. -
alexaw9 — 9 years ago(June 12, 2016 12:18 PM)
Yes, it bugs me too. And it especially bugs me that everyone saying it are people that are part of the five other 'Friends', people that are supposed to be his best friends in the world. Even Monica has voiced that opinion at least once.
None of the guys are unattractive, and if anything, in terms of Ross and Rachel, he is settling for her. -
ppllkk — 9 years ago(June 12, 2016 02:23 PM)
alexaw9
wrote:
if anything, in terms of Ross and Rachel, he is settling for her.
Yes, Ross is "settling" for what looked good to him in high school not always when we have our best judgment.
Ross is no longer a high school nerd. At the beginning of the series, Ross is a PhD in paleontology; by the end of the series he is a tenured professor at NYU. He could've done a lot better. -
alexaw9 — 9 years ago(June 12, 2016 04:43 PM)
Well, I don't think judging by career is much better than looks. What I meant by him settling for her (in some respects) is that even though he can be whiny and he can be an entitled brat (mainly just between him and Monica), he is such a kind, sweet, selfless, loyal person, in relationships and in friendships. Rachel got in the way a lot, but he gave everything to Carol for years, he was willing to give up everything for Emily, he just cared so much. Rachel is a very selfish, spoiled, self-obsessed person, making bad decisions like flying to London to tell Ross she loves him, or convincing Bonnie to shave her head, in the name of "love". She really only wants Ross when he's not available. She can be entertaining as one of the friends, but I think she is not a good person. Ross definitely deserves better, someone who appreciates his love instead of just feeling entitled to it.
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ppllkk — 9 years ago(June 13, 2016 09:28 AM)
timmysdf
wrote:
i just think it is funny that he/she cherry picked rachel's worst moments
Rachel's worst moments stretched over seven years.
and then acted like ross never did terrible things himself
What terrible things did Ross do that are in any way comparable to what Rachel did.
Rachel did not want Ross, but she did not want another woman to have him. She did not want him, but she would not let him go. Rachel always left Ross a little bit of hope that maybe, some time . . . She reinforced this idea by occasionally having sex with him. And she did it for seven years.
So just what did Ross did do other than love Rachel and not want to lose her. And be a fool about what Rachel is really like. -
imaneassi — 9 years ago(June 12, 2016 07:54 PM)
Actually Ross is the one who claimed to love her all these years, did nothing about it till he saw her with Paolo. Rachel flying to London to tell him she loves him wasn't horrible. Horrible would have been if she had actually told him her supposed feelings and tried to stop him. Instead Rachel did absolutly nothing. She congratulated him and watched him marry Emily.Ross didn't find out why she was there till later. All characters are flawed but Ross was plain unrootable, failed big time a romantic lead
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ppllkk — 9 years ago(June 19, 2016 07:20 AM)
morganseer
wrote:
I just love how people point at others who aren't exactly like then and call any differences flaws.
As far as I can tell, you clicked on reply to my post. I don't have any idea what you mean by that. Can you explain because what you wrote does not seem relevant to anything that I wrote. Or what anyone wrote.
Women are picky until they find a guy they love.
Across a great many species, females are quite picky when they are able to be because they are the ones that get pregnant. They have a limited number of offspring to carry on their genes.
Men do the same.
I assume that is an imperative not an observation. Unfortunately it ignores how strong the sexual drive is in males. Across a great many species, males are not limited reproductively the way that women are, and so males have little incentive to be picky. -
morganseer — 9 years ago(June 21, 2016 04:10 AM)
I think I was responding to the whole argument you and another poster had about who was worse, Rachel or Ross. Your answer to him was: "Rachel's worst moments stretched over seven years."
It got me thinking how we view people through our biases. If I had to pick a roommate between the two, I'd pick Rachel in a minute. She certainly had her selfish moments, but I'd know what to expect from her, and would for the most part be comfortable with her. With Ross' explosive and downright bizarre behavior, I'd never be able to relax.
That's my bias. -
ppllkk — 9 years ago(June 21, 2016 06:31 AM)
morganseer
wrote:
I think I was responding to the whole argument you and another poster had about who was worse, Rachel or Ross.
I was responding to this:
i just think it is funny that he/she cherry picked rachel's worst moments and then acted like ross never did terrible things himself
Your answer to him was: "Rachel's worst moments stretched over seven years."
Rachel's prick teasing of Ross stretched over seven years. That is hardly a matter of cherry picking things. Ross had his bad moments, but he did not string anyone along for seven years because he thought that maybe he might eventually want them. That is what Rachel did.
If I had to pick a roommate between the two,
Picking a roommate is very different from evaluating a person as a mate. The latter is the context in which we have been talking the characters. .
She certainly had her selfish moments, but I'd know what to expect from her, and would for the most part be comfortable with her.
I think that Rachel would be all right as a roommate. The problem is that she is a disaster to be in love with at least if you love her more than she loves you because she exploits the power that gives her over the person who loves her, Ross. She doesn't get back together with him, but she doesn't let him go. She keeps her hooks in him by always leaving him with a little hope that maybe she will get back with him. For seven years.
With Ross' explosive and downright bizarre behavior,
I don't agree that there is very much of that. And I would point out that Ross is under a lot of stress from his relationship with Rachel. She is driving him batty. If Rachel just ended it for good, Ross would move on, but Rachel doesn't. When Ross tries to move on with Emily, Rachel successfully interferes. But Rachel does not get back with Ross when he is available after he has broken up with Emily.
Ross broke up with Bonnie thinking that he was getting back with Rachel, but then she set conditions that ensured that they wouldn't. She did everything that she could to destroy Ross's marriage including telling Ross that she still loved him when he was trying to get back with Emily. She took it right back, but you can't take something like that back completely. Ross heard it, and it is sitting there in his mind when he has to decide if he wants Emily badly enough to not see Rachel.
On an irregular schedule, Rachel gives Ross hope partly by having sex with him. The technical term is "irregular reinforcement," and it is very powerful.
Ross is one of the most reliable and responsible people that you will ever meet, but unrequited love that is irregularly given hope will drive most people nuts. -
morganseer — 9 years ago(June 21, 2016 09:03 AM)
Rachel's prick teasing of Ross stretched over seven years.
Ppllkk, you and I have talked about these two charakters before, on a thread that no longer exists. We saw things differently then too. Where I'm coming from is that each person has to learn to manage their emotions. It's really more up to Ross to set some limits with Rachel, than it is up to Rachel to stop trying. Rachel isn't a good monitor of others' feelings, which I find forgivable because really most people aren't. Ross knows the depth of his feelings, and he needs to learn to say "enough; either sht or get off the pot." Or stay away from her for a while if that's what it takes. I see it as HIS weakness that he keeps changing his mind about women and going back to an old girlfriend with whom he can't make it work. And then getting all rageful when it doesn't work - again. I don't see either one of
them being mature enough to talk about what the rules of the relationship should be, and whether both partners are willing to abide by them.