The “Friends” alum is more guarded during press Q&As, and that’s her choice. It’s paid off handsomely given her thriving career, and she rarely alienates potential audience members with her responses.

She changed course, dramatically, this week. …

In the past, “you could joke about a bigot and have a laugh — that was hysterical. And it was about educating people on how ridiculous people were,” she said. “And now we’re not allowed to do that.”

She noted how the younger generation finds her blockbuster sitcom “Friends” offensive. That was never the intention, she notes.

[As I said yesterday, “Friends” never took the kind of socio-political risks that “Seinfeld” did in the same era. But after more thought, maybe that makes Aniston a *better* voice on this subject. Her show did its best to fit into the prevailing elite cultural moment, only to find itself eventually up against the cultural wall in the ongoing revolution, so to speak. The big takeaway from this is that there’s no pleasing the Cultural Revolution vanguard … so maybe everyone should be defending free speech instead. — Ed]