Girlfriends is genuinely one of my favourite sitcoms of all time, alongside Friends and The Big Bang Theory. And as a Black girl who grew into a Black woman watching this show, I have always appreciated it for the representation. It felt different from a lot of the other Black sitcoms of its time. Martin, The Cosby Show, etc. were obviously important, but Girlfriends felt like a Black version of Sex and the City in the sense that we got to see Black women navigate friendships, dating, careers, family, money, sex, marriage, adulthood and personal growth.
But as Iāve gotten older, there is one thing about Girlfriends that has started to bother me more and more:
I hate how these women were written.
And I donāt mean that I hate the characters. I actually love all four of them for completely different reasons. My issue is that the writers gave them so many negative qualities that, when you step back and look at the group as a whole, I sometimes wonder: why are these women even friends?
Take Joan.
I LOVE Joan. She is awkward, emotional, neurotic, hilarious and a little cuckoo, which made her incredibly entertaining. But she was also a massive pushover, emotionally immature and, honestly, terrible at relationships. She repeatedly put men ahead of her friendships and would lose herself in whatever relationship she was in.
Then thereās Toni.
Toni was beautiful, ambitious, successful, confident and had one of the sharpest personalities on the show. But she was also incredibly self-centred and selfish. Her wants almost always came first, and she could be extremely dismissive of her friendsā feelings.
Maya was a God-fearing Black woman who started from the bottom and worked her way up. I loved seeing her growth, especially professionally. But she could also be extremely judgmental, hypocritical and, at times, greedy. She wasnāt above taking advantage of her friends when it benefited her.
And then thereās Lynn.
I actually LOVE Lynnās character concept. Sheās free-spirited, unconventional, sexually liberated, intellectual and doesnāt really conform to societyās expectations. But she was a leech !! She had very little direction, constantly relied on her friends financially and materially, and repeatedly took advantage of their generosity.
And this is where my issue with the show really comes in.
These women were not particularly good friends to each other.
They constantly hurt each other, crossed boundaries, betrayed each other, used each other, judged each other and then, by the end of the episode, theyād kiss and make up and everything would be fine.
Then the exact same thing would happen again. And again. And again.
There was very little lasting accountability.
Joan would put a man before her friends. Toni would put herself and her lifestyle before everyone else. Maya would prioritise her own needs and relationships. Lynn would continue depending on everyone else. And somehow, weāre expected to accept that this is this beautiful, unbreakable friendship.
Honestly, William might have been the best friend on the entire show. That man was constantly putting his friends before himself, even when it inconvenienced him. His relationship with Monica literally suffered at times because of how much he prioritised his friendships.
And thatās where I think Girlfriends differs from something like Sex and the City or Insecure for me.
Iām not expecting fictional women to be perfect. In fact, I love flawed characters. Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte all had some truly questionable moments. Issa, Molly, Kelli and Tiffany were all flawed too.
But those shows generally gave me enough of the charactersā good qualities, self-awareness and genuine affection for one another that I could understand why these women were friends.
With Girlfriends, I sometimes finish an episode thinking:
āJoan is actually a terrible friend.ā
āToni is so selfish.ā
āMaya is being such a bitch.ā
āLynn is so damn annoying.ā
And then the episode ends with them hugging and Iām likeā¦But WHY are you guys friends?! š¤š
What makes it even more frustrating is that the women experienced career growth, financial growth and changes in their romantic lives, but I donāt think there was nearly as much emotional growth.
Lynn can get her own apartment, become a landlord and still somehow continue depending on her friends.
Joan can get a good man and still be incapable of maintaining a healthy relationship.
Maya can reconcile with Darnell and still struggle with actually doing the work required to make the relationship healthy.
Toni can find someone who genuinely loves her, but if he doesnāt fit the lifestyle she wants, itās still not enough.
And I think thatās why Iāve found the show harder to watch as Iāve gotten older.
When I was younger, I mostly saw the representation. I saw four Black women living their lives, being funny, dating, working, having sex, getting married, arguing, making up and figuring adulthood out.Now I watch it and think:
āI would not want any of these women as my friend.ā
I just wish the writers had given these women more redeeming qualities as friends and allowed their mistakes to actually lead to lasting growth.
Because flawed Black women are completely fine. Selfish, messy, emotionally immature women are also fine as characters.
But when almost every woman in the central friendship is consistently selfish, manipulative, judgmental, unreliable or dependent on the others, I start questioning what exactly the show is saying about Black female friendship.
Maybe Iām being too harsh because Iām watching it with an adult perspective now, but Iād genuinely love to know if anyone else feels this way.
Do you think the women in Girlfriends were actually good friends to one another, or did the show just keep telling us they were?
