Offroading Into Controversial Issues; Seinfeld Paves The Way For Gender Roles

Since the final episode of Seinfeld, television has taken to the trend and continuously reformulated the essential apsects of the american sitcom. An example of this would be the popular TV show, Friends. The cast of the show consists of three women and three men, however, women's liberation makes its way into the show and gender roles switch. The men are portrayed as a bit more feminine and the women; a bit more masculine. For example in the episode,'The One with the Metaphorical Tunnel', Chandler scares off his girlfriend and Monica and Rachel coach him through winning her back with lo-cal ice cream, "Rachel: Yeah, well that's that low-cal, non-dairy, soy milk junk. We sort of... we save the real stuff for the truly terminal cases" "Monica: You know, when you start getting screwed over all the time, you gotta switch to low-fat" (Oct. 10, 1996). In this same episode, Monica recalls a memory from her childhood with Ross dressing up as a girl and singing, 'I am Bea, I drink tea, won't you dance around with me?'. Throughout the seasons, Joey and Chandler are also constantly seen hugging.

Audiences know Monica as the competitive one in the group, therefore, a bit more masculine. In the episode, 'The One with the Football', the group plays a game of football on Thanksgiving day and Monica and Ross compete for 'The Geller Cup'. Rachel and Phoebe are terrible at playing but Monica keeps up with the men and the final scene depicts her and her brother fighting over the football in the snow (Nov. 29, 1996). Audiences are familiar with Phoebe's past of living on the streets of New York. One episode shows Rachel getting a tattoo and another, Monica killing Joey and Chandler at foosball. Ross wears makeup in a later episode when he over-whitens his teeth and is caught in an ex-girlfriends apartment trying to reclaim his favorite 'salmon' shirt.

Any sitcom preceeding Seinfeld portrayed the men as the breadwinners and the tough ones; women as needing help from the stronger sex. Friends expanded on the freedoms and controversial issues in which Seinfeld cleared the way.