Name: Rachel Green, the Real Protagonist of Friends
Uploaded: 2018-03-24T23:09:55.000Z
Duration: 14 min 45 s
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"Friends" is a show with six main characters,

but if you had to pick one protagonist --

the one who really takes the biggest journey
over the ten seasons,

The series starts with Rachel Green making
a choice that will define her entire life.

She runs away from the wealthy but passionless
existence she could have had with her orthodontist

She embraces being a regular twenty-something.

“I'm gonna go get one of those job things.”

This down-on-your-luck, no-frills lifestyle
is a given for the other friends,

and they're sometimes disenchanted with
it.

They're starting to feel that longing for
marriage, children, having a bit more money

Rachel certainly struggles with whether she
could have made a mistake.

“Everyone I know is either getting married
or getting pregnant or getting promoted, and

But she chooses this life because she doesn't
want to live some numb, lukewarm life in the

even if that means she has to brave a lot
of new lows.

“It's like there's rock bottom, 50 feet
of crap, then me.”

So more than any other character, Rachel embodies
the value of experimenting, failing, and striving

“Mom, I realize you and daddy were upset
when I didn't marry Barry and get the big

with all the security and everything, but
God, this is just so much better for me.”

Slowly but surely, she finds her feet in her
career,

falls in and out of love -- mostly with Ross,

Rachel proves that the choices we make at
this age can completely transform us.

She changes from spoiled princess to savvy
executive and put-together mom.

The person she's become is thanks to the
many missteps and lessons learned,

and even more than that, thanks to the friends
she found.

So we can say that Rachel is the true protagonist
of Friends

because she most demonstrates the message
of the show --

that we grow into our best selves by investing
in our friends

and accepting the messiness of our young adult
lives.

Besides being the missing piece of the friend
group at the beginning,

Rachel is also our proxy -- we enter the world
of the show through her.

The pilot is framed around her personal journey
as she moves in with Monica,

finds a job at Central Perk, and cuts herself
off from her family's financial support.

In fact the whole first season is focused
more on Rachel than any other individual,

So from the get-go, it is a story about Rachel
finding herself and coming of age.

"Friends" can get criticized for offering
a sugarcoated, lillywhite vision of twenty-something

But Rachel does face a lot of classic universal
problems, from financial strain --

“Bloomingdale's eliminated my department.”

And we see how invested the other friends
are in her progress.

The reason they -- and we -- care so much
is that everything feels like a big “first”

I did the windows, I did the floors, I even
used all those attachments on the vacuum

except for that little round one with the
bristles.”

She seems to see everything with new eyes.

She's earnest and enthusiastic even as she
experiences things like doing laundry for

"If I can actually do my own laundry, there
isn't anything I can't do."

Even as the show goes on and Rachel becomes
less of an ingenue,

she maintains this lovable, sometimes clueless
streak.

So we can relate to her drive to try new things
as well as her tendency to stumble.

"I wasn't supposed to put beef in the trifle!"

Rachel's oblivious parents and vain sisters
represent what she could have become

if she'd stayed in her bubble of privilege
and security.

“You didn't marry your Barry, honey, but
I married mine.”

We also get the alternate reality where we
see

the bored, dissatisfied housewife version
of Rachel who did marry Barry.

She's an altogether shallower and less interesting
person.

I mean when you took out your own kidney to
save your ex-wife even though she tried to

Sometimes we do see the aftereffects of Rachel's
upbringing sometimes,

But ultimately she's rejected that life
path.

And we recognize that it takes guts to let
go of everything you know

While Rachel's new life delights us, it
doesn't always look great to outsiders.

“I'm not going to tell you what they spent
on that wedding.”

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Rachel Green, the Real Protagonist of Friends

ultimately

thrive

progress

journey