So, she made the decision to survive using courage, humor, and grace. She was the queen of her own life and the choice was her's. And she used the word fuck a lot.
So I get that Ross Geller isn’t the most popular character of Friends on tumblr, and I’m pretty sure this is very strongly in part due to his behaviour on The One With The Male Nanny…
…but isn’t the whole point of this ep showing how the culture of hyper-masculinity makes otherwise normal guys act like berks? After all Rachel has it right - Ross isn’t exactly the manliest of manly men on friends; he tries on make-up, he likes long hot baths, ends up accidentally wearing women’s clothes; literally every other character takes the micky out of him for this - but Ross is the one to really freak out about guys in traditional female roles. And then we find out it’s because his dad foisted all of this nonsense onto him as a kid, and how that must have made him so insecure - to the point where he freaks out when a perfectly lovely guy wants to take care of his daughter, and behaves like a perfect jackass. That’s not ‘Ross is a moron and a dick’, that’s ‘Ross was messed around as a kid and needs looking after’.
And more to the point, Sandy the Awesome Male Nanny actually helps him see that it’s not a problem and encourages him to express emotions in a typically ‘unmanly’ way. So what we actually have in this ep is initially problematic man undergoing character development and personal growth. And isn’t that kind of what we all hope for from men caught up in this hyper-masculine nonsense?
I mentioned that I listened to this book and that they're making it into a movie to my boss and a few weeks later he told me that he was fucking reading it. It's made for some interesting conversation around the water cooler...