Halloween may be on October 31 but the shocking news came a few days earlier. Actor Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing, on the iconic sitcom ‘Friends’ was found dead in his home in Los Angeles. His passing, you could say, is the end of an era.
“Hi, I’m Chandler. I make jokes when I am uncomfortable”
We first meet Chandler at Central Perk Café as he sarcastically comments on Ross’ romantic life. The pilot episode focuses on Rachel’s entry, played by Jennifer Anniston. Amidst the kooky Phoebe, leader of the pack Monica, lovable Joey and passionate Ross, Chandler seems like an outsider. No ‘main character’ energy as the kids of today might put it. But as the episodes go by, something changes.
“I’m not so good with the advice. Can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?”
During a blackout we see Chandler stuck in an ATM vestibule with a supermodel, leaving us in splits as he communicates in his secret language with Joey. His love-hate relationship with Janice (AKA machine gun laugh), his job that no one seems to understand and his dilemma as he falls in love with his best friend’s girlfriend.
Over time, Chandler balloons into our hearts. We embrace him as he calls himself ‘hopeless, awkward and desperate for love’. We wish we could be there for him as he finally finds the courage to meet the parent who has changed beyond recognition. By the time he says ‘I do’ to Monica, we have cried ourselves hoarse. From being the guy who in his words ‘repels women’, Chandler became the kind, sensitive and loyal partner everyone wanted to have. The sitcom still remains popular among people almost 20 years after it was last aired.
Sadly, while Chandler Bing got his fairy tale ending, the man who played him, Matthew Perry did not have it that easy. In his book, released about a year ago, ‘Friends, Lovers and The Big Terrible Thing’, Perry’s prologue opens with this chilling line ‘I should be dead’.
In this unflinchingly raw memoir, Perry opened up about his alcohol and opioid addiction that almost cost him his life. Holding nothing back, he revealed that during the filming of the show, the episodes where he was carrying weight was due to alcohol and the ones where he was skinny was due to his addiction to pills. Much like the show where the six friends support each other through thick and thin, Perry has spoken extensively of how the cast of ‘Friends’ always had his back.
In the interviews and shows he did subsequently, some of them being legal dramas, it was difficult to separate him from the character he played. Even when he was saying something serious, the tendency as a viewer was to wait for the sarcastic one-liner in true Chan-Chan man style.
“Should I use my invisibility to fight crime or for evil?”
To the fans of ‘Friends’, Chandler, was real. He was one of us. We could relate to his struggles of not fitting in, of using humour as a self-defence mechanism, of dealing with childhood trauma to struggling to figure out a career path. Through him, the early seeds of understanding mental wellness better was sowed — a landmark achievement for the time the show aired. Through Perry’s documented struggles, he became an advocate for rehabilitation for which he received the Champion of Recovery award from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
“Where?”
Fittingly, Chandler spoke the last dialogue on ‘Friends’ acknowledging the tremendous impact the character had on people across the world.
Like me, millions of people tuned into ‘Friends’ everyday as an escape from their dark phases. No matter how bad the day was, we looked forward to coming home, switching on the TV and singing “And if it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, even your year, I’ll be there for you.”