One of the greatest lies polite society ever told was that sarcasm is a bad thing. That people who rely on it use it as a crutch, a shield, or a mask—a way of presenting themselves to the world without having to be authentic, vulnerable, or, scariest of all, earnest. The sins of sarcasm have come down from some moral mount, and passed on through generations: It is mean; it is disrespectful; it is lazy; it is poor manners; it is condescending… At some point, the thesaurus runs out of synonyms, but you get the gist.
What the finger-waggers and buzzkills skip over, as if they’re guarding a secret they don’t want to get out, is that sarcasm is also extremely funny. And, when done right, it exposes what is maybe one of the most complicated and brutally honest parts of the human condition. is an overdue appreciation for how talented and nuanced the entire cast’s performances were, and that was certainly true of Perry. It’s not easy to transform the sitcom jokester into the Trojan horse of an entire series, the surprise vessel for all the emotional growth that happens over a decade of our lives. It’s certainly devastating to know about the demons Perry was fighting when he bore the burden of the show’s fame. But it also crystallizes the poignancy of his character’s journey and the way Chandler interacted with the world—especially those he loved.
I loved seeing shades of those Friends gifts in other classic Perry roles, like The Whole Nine Yards, Fools Rush In, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. A deep sigh, raised eyebrow, or quick deadpan managed to dance between the euphoria of being the smartest person in the room (or at least thinking you are) and the gloom of weathering life—the tango that being alive in this world is supposed to be.
Danny Feld/NBCU Photo Bank
He played with that nuance and the “type” he had been cast in after Friends with one of his best performances, in the underappreciated 2011 series Mr. Sunshine. He played a self-involved manager of a sports arena, whose 40th birthday and the quirky demands of his well-meaning colleagues triggered an (albeit slow) awakening. It wasn’t hard to project a sort of art-imitating-life significance to the series, which Perry also co-wrote and executive produced. Given the intimate decades we’ve shared together through a TV screen, it’s bizarre to admit that Perry and I aren’t really “friends.” But among the ocean of untapped potential for future work from Perry, there’s the curiosity of what might have been next had he continued to explore that personal trajectory through his work.
It’s funny to think about what became Perry’s most indelible line delivery from Friends, the oft-quoted opinion starter, “Could I BE…” People now co-opt that phrase to make their own points, replicating Perry’s cadence as they say it. When something is mimicked so much and with such fervor, you start to notice something. Really, it’s inimitable. Matthew Perry is inimitable.
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