Matthew Perry wasn’t afraid to be flawed — on Friends or anywhere else
Norm Macdonald, that mordant rapscallion, once relayed a story about Matthew Perry saying that he had invented a new kind of comedy with Chandler Bing; Macdonald, in that wily way of his, responded: “You invented sarcasm?”
Funny as Macdonald’s retort was, Perry’s claim wasn’t wholly without merit. It isn’t the incessant sarcasm that makes Perry’s performance special in the annals of American sitcoms, though. It’s the vulnerability, the willingness to look stupid and be a loser emasculated by ’90s standards — he kissed a guy, he has a gay “quality,” he didn’t touch a breast until he was 19, he’s a poor athlete, and during a bout of fisticuffs with a pair of bullies on the West Village streets he trips over a little girl’s jump rope — and still find the decency in the sweater-vest-wearing jester’s heart.
Niles (David Hyde Pierce) from Frasier is the decade’s other great wimp, but he is a rarefied fancy-pants, erudite, maybe effeminate but uproariously libidinous for a Daphne; he’s a success story. J.D. (Zach Braff) from Scrubs, which debuted in 2001,is the progeny of Chandler, with repeated references to his unmanly physique and doofiness. Chandler and Perry’s other characters are men with a particular piteous kind of imperfection. His best roles are imbued with a malaise and awkward, anxious tendencies, but they’re never hopeless.
When I found out that Perry had died far too young at 54, I felt an inordinate amount of sadness for this man I had never met, yet who felt like a longtime friend. I knew his secrets; in a way, he knew mine. I’ve seen Friends five times, initially as a bit, an ironic gag with which I could annoy my friends, and then as background din instead of music while I wrote, and, at some point, to my
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