In 1994 six semi-unknown actors joined a new NBC project for $ 24,500 per episode (and head). Twenty-seven years later, each of those six actors, now global celebrities, have pocketed a check of around two and a half million dollars for a special of just over an hour and a half. An amount proportional to the excessive interest generated by everything related to
Friends
, the series that marked the lines to follow all the sitcoms that came later. A brilliant legacy in creation, but one that leaves its shadows in the debate about ages, bodies and sexes.
For example, let's talk about the sarcasm with which the obvious physical change of its protagonists has been received. A transformation that has become one of the most talked about aspects of the program and has caused, as expected, that social networks, that virtual minefield, overflows malicious comments in which the word "botox" appears almost the same number times as "nostalgia".
The physical changes of the protagonists are as logical as they are evident, but they cause us astonishment because in our memory Monica, Ross, Rachel, Joey, Phoebe and Chandler have not aged a day since they closed the door of their iconic apartment in the Village. Perhaps because that apartment has continued perennial in the continuous reruns and, now, in the streaming platforms (in exchange for millionaire figures). But Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry have grown old. Seventeen years, specifically. And for many it has been a shock to discover that television officers in their twenties have become people in their fifties.
The change in LeBlanc and Perry was especially surprising, why? Because they have been able to grow old, something very rare in Hollywood. Meanwhile, they - with greater or lesser surgical success - have remained as expected of a star: oblivious to the passage of time. Their characters' wardrobe will probably work for all three, Aniston may even be able to slip into the same wedding dress she first entered Central Perk in escaping from her wedding to Barry the dentist.
Aniston, Cox and Kudrow cannot afford to grow old at the risk that their agents' phones stop ringing. They have come to this event in top form because they should always be, it is their obligation as female stars. If the reunion had occurred ten years ago, they would have been, also five years ago or last year, and if a recording command had woken them up in the middle of this morning to drag them to a set at three in the morning, probably I would have caught them with perfectly hydrated manes and a perfect manicure. They cannot afford to let their guard down.
The double standard with which the industry - a reflection of the world - judges the passage of time in men and women is not a surprise. Female beauty has always followed the same rules, with the preference for an A or C cup as the greatest variation. And that's why at any time, be it the seventies, eighties or last week, editorials have been made in which the star of the moment emulated Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner. The masculine has adapted according to its own convenience because those who dictated its canons were the men themselves. And that's why in the seventies they managed to convince the world of the concept of ugly attractiveness in which they sneaked from Dustin Hoffman to Woody Allen, physiques totally removed from the classic heartthrob, permanently ragged-looking and not even too nice.
What has been its female equivalent? None. No one questions Matt LeBlanc's white hair. In fact, we've been brought up on the idea that silver temples are elegant. The masculine ones, of course. The feminine ones are a symbol of neglect. Like body hair, which in men implies virility and in women, again, neglect. Everything natural is transformed into neglect as soon as it springs from a woman's body. But if that were Courteney Cox's hair color, it would have overshadowed even the presence at the reunion of the hyper BTS. And if Cox or Aniston or Kudrow sported the same physique as Perry, someone who seems to spend more time on the couch than in the gym - which is quite normal when you're a determined billionaire - it would have monopolized the conversation about him. return,if that return had come to pass.
If the three protagonists did not maintain the same physique as almost two decades ago, do we have the guarantee that HBO would have paid them those two and a half million to appear on the screen? To answer this question, let's talk about another reunion. This year the cinemas will experience another very special one, that of Maverick and his Kawasaki in the second part of Top Gun (35 years after the first). But this time who will be hugging Tom Cruise's waist will be Jennifer Conelly and not a Kelly McGillis who made the mistake of growing old unaware of the superficiality of Hollywood. His first step was to remove the breast implants. "My agents called me and warned me that I was screwing my life, but I just wanted to be a character actress and in the United States there is no one who looks 50 years old," he declared. McGillis decided to be a woman who looks her age.The phone stopped ringing.
However, there will be the character of Iceman, played by Val Kilmer. Because the current physique of Val Kilmer - one of the most desirable men in the world in the eighties is today a gray-haired man who appears to be 61 years old - nobody cares. He is a man and he has two options: he can afford to grow old or he can cling to youth like Tom Cruise has done. You have the privilege of choosing a sofa or gym.
From time to time, trend magazines remind us of that little subtle difference with irritating terms like that
fofisano
coined by MacKenzie Pearson, a student at Clemson University who defined a man who had skipped a class of Crossfit for taking a few pints and whose The female counterpart were the "chubby" women, because in the case of women it no longer mattered that they were healthy, only good.
The detail that we cannot ignore is that while their example was a Leonardo Di Caprio in a swimsuit lying on a deckchair or a Ben Affleck in a tracksuit shopping at the supermarket, theirs were Christina Hendricks or Monica Bellucci, with makeup and dressed as to preside over the Dance of the Rose.
And of course, without a gram of
fofez
on your body.
That constant scrutiny of women's bodies caused Jennifer Aniston to explode in 2017, fed up with the fact that every time she did not skip dinner the press would impose on her a pregnancy. Through an open letter to
The Huffington Post she
stated: “The objectification and scrutiny we place on women is absurd and disturbing. We use
celebrity
news
to perpetuate this dehumanizing view of women, focused solely on physical appearance, which the tabloids turn into a sporting event of speculation. It bothers me that they make me feel
less than
because my body is changing or I had a hamburger for lunch and I was photographed from a strange angle and therefore considered one of two things: pregnant or fat.
This derision has been suffered by a woman who has lived in front of the cameras since she was 19 years old, always leading the list of the most desired, which has given her name to a haircut, "the Rachel", and leaving scenes like this in our retinas.
Fast food pregnancy is not a Hollywood phenomenon. Yes, I was pregnant. About a gourmet hamburger and some french fries, "wrote
La Casa de Papel
actress
Úrsula Corberó in
her stories
in response to a news item that wondered if she was expecting a baby. Cristina Pedroche, another woman whose physique is always questioned - Cristina Pedroche's physique is questioned, let's stop at that - also came out on her social networks “Thin? Fat woman? The Vallecas whale? What I am is ... happy, "he wrote on his Instagram account.
Cristina Pedroche puts the accent on another feminine drama: a woman cannot be fat, but neither can she be too thin. Another social stigma suffered from Queen Letizia to Angelina Jolie or Victoria Beckham. "Alarm for his extreme thinness" and "concern for his physical condition", are the words that always accompany his photos. The modern world is divided into trainers and endocrinologists. Is anyone worried that Harry Styles is "too" skinny? Or the official heartthrob of Saturday Night Live, Pete Davidson? Has anyone scrutinized under the broad robes of Bad Bunny as they did under those of Billie Elish? What's more, does anyone care about Bad Bunny's body? Of course not. Is a man. They can afford to have the physique they want because they know their agent's phone will never stop ringing.
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