A lot of people would say Chandler Bing is the funniest Friend.
“I’m not great at the advice, can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?”
The Friends themselves would agree --
Within the group, he's the funny guy.
"You're funny, Chandler!
You're a funny guy!"
But Chandler is also frequently the punchline.
He gets made fun of endlessly for his name,
“Chandler M. Bing.
It’s not just an ‘M,’
your middle name is Muriel!”
his nubbin,
"So, uh, does it do anything, you know, special?"
"Why, yes, Ross.
Pressing my third nipple opens
the delivery entrance to the magical land of Narnia."
his social awkwardness,
"Boom, boom, boom--"
"Ow!"
"Oh, my God!"
and just for being himself.
"My scone!"
"Okay, I don't sound like that.
That is so not true."
"You have a quality."
"Yes, right."
And as Chandler will openly admit,
his sardonic persona is a basically a shield that he built up
starting in childhood to avoid his unresolved issues.
“I’m Chandler, I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable.”
He’s trying very hard not to deal with a lot of underlying problems
in his family, his love life, his career, and his self-esteem.
“It just seems as though maybe you have intimacy issues,
that you use your humor as a way of keeping people at a distance.”
So we’re happily surprised when falling in love with Monica allows Chandler,
for the first time, to open up, commit to love,
and work out what he really wants to do in his life.
"Got a job interview I gotta get ready for."
"I thought you already have a job."
"And people say you don't pay attention."
Other characters rise in their careers.
"I got tenure!"
But Chandler starts off in a place of financial security
only to risk that later in life and try to do something
that’s creatively satisfying.
We come to love Chandler even more after ten seasons
than when we started,
because he learns to let go of his defense mechanism
and become an open and loving person.
"You are the person I was meant to spend my life with."
He ends up at the center of a happy family --
something he thought would never be possible.
Of the six main characters, Chandler undergoes
the most extreme, positive emotional transformation.
So he gives us hope that we too can overcome our deep personal wounds
and stop getting in our own way.
"What must it be like not to be crippled by fear and self-loathing?"
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At the start of the series, Chandler’s office job and his stable income
give the illusion that he has his life together.
“Alright kids, I’ve gotta get to work.
If I don’t input those numbers...
doesn’t make much of a difference.”
But emotionally he's blocked up.
He copes with his insecurities in unhealthy, avoidant ways.
See his compulsive chain smoking
"Don't think of it as a cigarette.
Think of it as the thing
that has been missing from your hand."
and inability to cry.
“You didn't cry when Bambi's mother died?”
“Yes, it was so sad when the guy stopped drawing the deer.”
Chandler is his own worst enemy,
especially when it comes to romance.
“I’m hopeless and awkward and desperate for love!”
He makes sure to be the one who rejects women first
by being too critical,
"I don't like you."
“How many perfectly fine women are you going to reject
over the most superficial, insignificant things?”
"Woah, woah, woah, hold on."
or drives them away by being insufferable.
"We should take a trip with your parents."
For years, his most significant relationship is with Janice,
and except for in one brief period, he can’t stand her.
He ends their relationship three times in the first season alone.
"I didn't necessarily think that it meant that we--"
"Oh, no."
"Look, there's no way for me to tell you this.
At least there's no new way for me to tell you this."
It’s a joke that he can’t break up with Janice,
but it’s also a sign that he’s deeply messed up
when it comes to dating.
“You got away from me!”
“But you found me.”
When the irritable downstairs neighbor, Heckles, dies,
Chandler worries that he’s going to end up alone like him.
“Our trains are on the same track.
Bitter Town, Alone-ville, Hermit Junction!”
But even though he understands that he’s not happy with his own choices,
he keeps self-sabotaging and winding up in doomed relationships.
"This is great.
I'll give you a call -- we should do it again some time."
He seriously falls for Kathy in season four --
but she’s dating Joey at the time.
“We swallow our feelings.
Even if it means we're unhappy forever.
Sound good?”
So on some level this is another way of going for love
that he assumes can’t work out.
And once Chandler and Cathy finally do get together
and even manage to get Joey’s blessing,
Chandler immediately ruins it by accusing her of cheating
"Oh come on, it was so obvious.
There was no chemistry between you two."
and driving her to do just that.
Chandler will avoid confrontation and drama at all costs.
"I'm not fine.
Here she comes.
She's coming."
"Wait here, okay?
Wait."
He tells Janice he’s moving to Yemen.
"I'm being transfered to Yemen!"
He makes up a fake “work laugh” to avoid not laughing at his boss’ jokes.
And instead of just telling his co-worker his name’s not Toby,
"Toby!"
Chandler blocks the guy’s promotion and trashes his own office
just to keep up the charade.
Of course, it’s funny for us to watch his outlandish ploys
to avoid awkwardness.
But Chandler would be doing himself a favor
to just learn to be a little more honest with people.
"When we get to Yemen, can I stay with you?"
Most of the Friend group have some trouble connecting with their families,
and they depend on each other as their surrogate family.
But for Chandler his friends really are his family,
because he’s totally disconnected from his biological one.
His childhood led to most of the neuroses we know very well in Chandler.
"I relied on a carefully regimented program
of denial, and wetting the bed."
He still resents his father for coming out as transgender
and leaving the family to become a burlesque performer.
“Did your dad ever hug you?”
“No, did he hug you?”
And his romance novelist mother is oblivious to his needs.
“Now, Chandler dear, just because your father and I getting a divorce
doesn't mean we don't love you.
It just means he would rather sleep with the houseboy than with me.”
So since at the start Chandler has basically no family
and no romance in his life,
his platonic connections are everything to him.
He takes care of his friends like family.
"Now, out of the blue you start with the charity thing again!"
"I'm just trying to help you out, okay?
I want to make sure you're okay."
And before Monica, Chandler’s life partner is Joey.
"Oh."
When Chandler and Monica get together, about halfway through the series,
their relationship works because it’s above all a friendship.
Monica is Chandler's friend, so she accepts his quirks
and sees the good in him that other people might miss,
and he doesn’t feel he has to hide who he actually is.
"You're so cute."
After they sleep together in London, they both seem confused and surprised
that they’re attracted to someone they know so well.
“What were we thinking?”
“I’m coming over tonight though, right?”
But Chandler enjoys the intimacy and emotional bond.
"Isn't this great?"
"You're so smart!"
And Monica knows him well enough to stop him
from reverting to his usual self-sabotage.
“You know when I said that I want you to deal
with relationship stuff all on your own?
Well you're not ready for that.”
“I didn't think I was!”
She teaches him the difference between a fight and a break-up.
"If you give up every time you have a fight with someone,
you'd never be with anyone longer than...oh.”
She shows him what a healthy relationship looks like.
We see that old habits die hard when Chandler tries to play it too cool,
“I mean you and I, we’re nothing.
We’re just goofing around.”
slipping back into his commitment phobia,
“You are obsessed with babies and marriage,
and everything that's related to babies and marriage.”
and gets irrationally insecure whenever Monica sees her ex-boyfriend Richard.
"No big deal."
But thanks to Monica’s patience,
Chandler deals with his relationship anxiety instead of bailing.
And soon enough he’s the one pushing the relationship forward.
“They can say that you're high maintenance,
but it's OK, because I like...maintaining you.”
He’s the first to say “I love you”
"I love you."
"Because I'm in love with Monica."
"You're what?"
and to suggest they move in together.
“You understand what I’m saying?”
Their relationship brings out the best and bravest version of him.
“I can’t believe you’re gonna ask Monica to marry you!”
“I know.”
She even motivates him to reconnect with his father
and let go of the pain he's holding on to from his past.
"Ma'am."
Chandler truly wants to change and be better for Monica.
He gets cold feet from time to time,
but his love for Monica always sets him back on track.
The new, more open Chandler also has the guts to change careers later in life.
“Why should I be the only one who doesn’t get to do
what he really wants to do?”
“What do you really want to do?”
“I have not thought this through.”
It’s been a running joke that none of the friends knows what Chandler does.
What is Chandler Bing’s job?”
“Oh gosh, it has something to do with numbers.”
“And processing!”
“And he carries a briefcase…”
He’s never cared enough about his work to ever talk
to his friends about it.
“No, I want you to have a job that you love,
not statistical analysis and data reconfiguration.”
“I quit, and you learn what I do?”
So he realizes that he’d rather give it a shot
and try to be really happy in advertising, even if he fails,
instead of forcing himself to keep doing something
that's making him feel numb.
"Chandler, that's great."
"Oh, thank you, sir!"
Season ten Chandler is a far more mature, happy person
than the man we met in season one.
Ironically, the friends once guessed that he’d be the last of them all to settle down.
“Which one of us will do you think will be the last to get married?”
But he and Monica have the first stable, lasting marriage of the whole group.
After all the quotable moments he’s given us,
it seems fitting that he has the last line of the show.
“Should we get some coffee?”
“Sure.
Where?”
"Take it, take it."
I'm Debra.
I'm Susannah.
We're the creators of ScreenPrism.
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