“I wish I could,
but I don't want to.” Sometimes Phoebe Buffay can feel
a little superfluous on Friends, sort of like the odd friend out. “I've always felt
kind of like an outsider. You know, the rest of you have
these connections that go way back.” Major storylines don’t usually
revolve around her, because she never dates anyone
in the group and we only see her
live with other friends briefly. So on one level,
it’s easy to see Rachel’s point that if anyone were to be
phased out of the group, it would be Phoebe. “You live far away,
you're not related. You lift right out.” But if you were to take Phoebe
out of the show, the mix just wouldn’t work. Because she’s the mystery ingredient
that spices things up, “I am pretty cool.” the salt,
if you will. Phoebe’s edgy, layered personality
adds complexity to a series that, in her absence,
might border on bland. “We have it all. We have crushed, cubed, and dry -- watch -- ah.” So what is it about Phoebe
that ties the whole group together and adds that extra special magic? “P as in Phoebe,
H as in hoebe, O as in oebe,
E as in ebe, B as in beebee,
and E as in... ‘ello there, mate!” Before we go on,
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for free. “Smelly cat, smelly cat,
what are they feeding you? Everybody!” Phoebe is the secret mastermind
of the group -- she uses her insights about other characters
to pull invisible strings. “I like to think of myself as
the puppet master of the group.” Phoebe the puppet master
can be a bit of a troublemaker. “Tell him who you originally wanted
to hook up with that night.” She has a habit
of being loose-lipped “Oh my God! Monica, he's the stripper
from your bachelorette party!” and even straight up
meddling in her friends’ personal lives. “We could set Ross and Rachel up
on horrible dates so they’ll realize
how good they are together.” Phoebe’s interference can have
a good or bad immediate effect. “Oh, no.” Yet Phoebe’s friends need her
straight-talking and boldness because she pushes them to confront
their true feelings about things. “It's-it's not negative,
it's positive.” “Are you sure?” “Well, yeah, I lied before. Now you know how you really feel about it.” She helps Rachel see that she’s
still in love with Ross, “If someone I was still in love with
was getting married--” “Still in love with?” and at another point,
she confronts Ross about his love for Rachel “Now he's using this three divorces reason
because he wants to stay married to her because he loves her.” She pretends to seduce Chandler
to get him to openly admit he's dating Monica. “I can't have sex with you.” “And why not?” “Because I'm in love
with Monica!” And in the series finale,
her phone call to Rachel -- “Something is wrong with
the left phalange.” creates a frenzy on the plane
and delays Rachel’s flight, which gives Ross the opportunity
to confess his love just in time. Phoebe seems to take some pleasure
in stirring up drama and then sitting back
and watching it play out. “I don’t want to miss the fight.” Like when she uses her friends’ lives
as material for her book. “Monic...Marsha and Chester are planning
on seeing a movie Sunday night. Marsha thinks they're supposed to meet at
6. Chester thinks it's at 7.” “So you knew we were gonna
miss the movie?” “That's right.” We get the sense that Phoebe is
studying these people and manipulating them
far more than we realize. “You know what
the best part of it is? I get to do my plan laugh.” [LAUGHS] But even if she creates
surface trouble, in the long run she’s helping her friends
move closer toward what they truly want. We can understand Phoebe’s role
in the friend group by looking at
the triple goddess archetype. The idea is that there are
three female figures -- the maiden, the mother,
and the crone. So on Friends, Rachel would be
the naive and beautiful maiden of the group. Monica is the practical,
mature mother figure. And Phoebe is the wise crone. “Yeah, I’m very wise,
I know.” That’s not to say
that Phoebe’s an old woman, but that she has world experience,
perspective and insight
beyond her years. “There are children coming into the world
in this very building, and your negative fighting noises are not
the first thing they should be hearing.” She sees the big picture
more clearly than her friends do. “You love her, you always have,
you have a child together. There's no right answer.” And for the audience, Phoebe serves the function of
commenting on the other characters. she points out
what’s going on with them even when they can’t
see it themselves. “You ate meat!” “You had sex!” It’s clear that she’s always
a whole lot of steps ahead of everyone else. “Rachel's pregnant.” “Oh my God I can't believe it!” “Holy mother of God!” “With my child.” “That is brand new information!” Phoebe’s world-wisdom and savvy
come from the extreme trauma and tragedy she experienced in her past. “My mom had killed herself
and my dad had run off. And I was living in a gremlin
with a guy named Cindy who talked to his hand.” The show makes a joke of
how terrible Phoebe’s childhood was. “I lost my mom to suicide.” “Okay, no way,
you cannot use that to get the cute guy
and the last blueberry muffin.” “Did I use that already today? I'm sorry.” But ultimately her edge adds
a little more substance to Friends -- she makes this more than
just a show about sheltered people without any exposure
to harsh reality. “I wasn't rich
like you guys, okay? I didn't eat gold
and have a flying pony.” How Phoebe has responded to her past is
also really important. Chandler, the other friend
with a painful childhood experience, is still completely emotionally scarred
by his parents’ divorce. “When my parents got divorced, I started using humor
as a defense mechanism.” So it’s amazing that even though
Phoebe’s been through much, much worse, she’s made a conscious choice
to be open and kind and optimistic. She still has some hardness to her. “Someday I'll tell you about
the time I stabbed a cop.” “Phoebe!” “HE STABBED ME FIRST!” And she’s clear
about her boundaries. “If you touch my guitar again, I'm gonna have to pound on you
a little bit.” But she keeps
these parts of herself in check. In the alternate reality episode, Phoebe’s a Wall Street workaholic
driven by anger. “No, no. I said sell
when it hits fifty. Five-O. It's a number
that comes after four-nine.” So the symbolism is
that the Phoebe we know is defined by her choice not to harden herself
by giving in to bitterness, which would have been very easy
given all that she’s been through. “You see that was
an actual problem. And yours is just like, you know,
a bunch of, you know, high-school crap that nobody really gives...” Phoebe knows what it’s like
to lose people, so she really understands
the value of relationships. “My friends are the most important thing
in my life.” And while the six friends are
all good to each other, Phoebe also helps people
outside of their circle. “These jerks might not care about you,
but the universe does.” Maybe it’s because she grew up
far less privileged than her friends that she’s a generous do-gooder
in the world at large. “I mean last year I spread a little joy,
but not really enough. So this year I'm gonna do
the whole city.” The other five friends are
private citizens, but Phoebe’s a world citizen
who’s driven by her social conscience and desire to be
a good humanitarian. “Okay, let's start with
the free massages at the U.N.” “Oh, it's my new thing. I figure,
‘Bodies at peace make peace.’” A lot of her storylines are about
her determination to make the world better. “I'm gonna find a selfless good deed. I'm gonna beat you, you evil genius.” And Phoebe does really
hard selfless things, like being the surrogate
for her half brother’s babies. “I know it’s gonna be like a million times
harder to give up a baby, but oh my God, it’s gonna feel
a million times better, right?” When she can’t bring herself to keep the
money that shows up in her bank account accidentally, what she says tells us a lot
about her value system. “I'd never be able to enjoy it. It'd be this giant karmic debt.” For Phoebe, good karma and what she puts out
into the universe is far more important than
the earthly money or success she receives. Phoebe is the exception
to the rule of upper-middle class ascension that we see in Friends. She doesn’t really have
much career ambition -- she floats between different jobs,
and doesn’t have that drive to be the head of her team,
the star in a big TV show, or the well-paid executive. So she’s a refreshing alternative
to the assumption that you need a prestigious,
high-powered career in order to see your life
as successful. “To years of hard work
finally paying off.” “And to knowing that your career
doesn't mean everything.” The fact that the more mainstream
five friends like Phoebe so much proves that they’re more complex
and interesting than they might first appear. And Phoebe leads her more sheltered
friends by example. She helps them be more empathetic,
open-minded people. “I believe this is my mother. Even if I'm wrong, who cares? Just be a friend, okay? Be supportive.” She shows them the power
of having strong values “Honey, you have principles,
and I so admire that.” and not caring
what anyone thinks of you. “People were looking at us
like we were crazy.” “Why do you care?” “Because they're people!” “People that you don't know
and will never see again.” She teaches her friends
to be more stable and emotionally mature in the face of personal challenges. “Alright, you don't have to
love each other, okay? You don't even have to like each other
much right now. But please, you have to figure out
a way to be around each other.” It can be easy to underestimate Phoebe
because she comes across as an oddball “No, no. Stop cleansing my aura.” and a true innocent
with her head in the clouds. “When you said ‘the deal with Santa Claus,’
you meant?” “That he doesn't exist.” “Right.” But it’s a mistake to confuse her kookiness
for a lack of depth. She’s a layered, nuanced person
full of contradictions -- she's tough yet flaky, “That's true, I am flaky.” weird yet wholesome,
free-spirited yet firm. Phoebe’s a kind of wildcard. On the moment-to-moment level, you never know what exactly is
going to come out of her mouth -- “Oh, wait,
my grandmother's dead.” and on the deeper level, too,
she’s ever surprising both others and herself. “Yeah, I'm a big surprise.” Due to Phoebe’s complexity
and surface weirdness, her friends and maybe viewers
sometimes miss the fact that she has normal human needs. “All I wanted to do was...
have dinner with my friends on my birthday.” Phoebe may take pride
in being different -- but she comes to see that in many ways
she’s also the same as everyone else, and she has to assert that
to get her needs taken seriously. “When we make plans,
I expect you to show up. Okay? I can't just be a way to kill time
till you meet someone better.” When she gets into
her first long-term relationship with Mike, she’s surprised to realize
that she’s really drawn to traditional family life. “I had no idea you were
so conventional.” “I know. I guess I am. Oh my God, load up the Volvo,
I want to be a soccer mom.” So when Mike rules out
the possibility of marriage, she has to speak up and explain
why this is a deal-breaker for her. “I haven't exactly had
a normal life. And I never really felt like
I was missing out on anything. But it feels like now it's my turn
to have some of the regular stuff.” This is a key moment for Phoebe --
she’s coming to terms with the fact that she wants conventional things,
and there’s nothing wrong with that. Earlier in the show,
it might seem mysterious why Phoebe spends all of her time
with such mainstream people. “You’re, you know,
so...vanilla.” But she values their stability
and normalcy, especially because those things
have been missing in most of her life. What’s funny is that for her character,
doing the traditional thing actually is the unexpected choice
that pushes her out of her comfort zone. Despite her flower child persona,
the Phoebe we first meet can be rigid and stuck
in her ways. And while Phoebe's staunchness is
often a great thing, at times it leads her to be
too harsh with people or insist on making a statement
when it's not strictly necessary. “I am mad at you,
I know that much.” So Phoebe finally grows when she learns to be less dogmatic
about her moral ideas and become more flexible. “And now, you know what, just because potentially
the love of my life comes back from Russia
just for one night I-I should change my beliefs? I should change my beliefs!” So as the essential
mystery ingredient of Friends, Phoebe is the behind-the-scenes mastermind
who adds depth to the show, and helps her friends
be better people. Every time we watch,
there’s always a new layer to discover within that one-of-a-kind enigma
who is Phoebe Buffay. “I may play the fool at times
but I'm more than a pretty blonde girl with an ass that won't quit.” This is Mike Lacher. Mike is a humorist
who has worked for McSweeney's, Google Creative Lab
and BuzzFeed. And Mike teaches a class on humor writing
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She’s my favorite character. Though I really like Rachel too. Actually I love everyone of them in their own way.
Thank you Lisa Kudrow
I especially liked the part about her choosing to live as a happy, positive person, instead of being angry of her past. We can all learn from that :)
Season 1 Phoebe was the cutest girl on TV ever