You can read between the lines and tell that Variety‘s Janet Sphrintz and Deadline Hollywood‘s Nikki Finke aren’t happy with the California Supreme Court’s decision to throw out an old sexual harassment suit (filed six years ago) by a female assistant against three producer-writers on NBC’s Friends (as well as their Warner Bros. TV employers) for speaking profanely during story meetings. The woman, Amaani Lyle, felt being exposed to this was a form of sexual harassment, and it may have been that on some level. (Talking about big boobs and anal sex in front of female coworkers is certainly a kind of provocation.) But vulgar talk among “creative” colleagues is totally standard in this town…among almost all heavy-hitters, really. Indulging in Aristocrats-style improvs in a business meeting is a way of signalling that you’re an unpretentious get-down type and not an uptight dickhead spouting p.c. bullshit…that you’re “real.” Nobody likes someone sitting in the room complaining about the talk not being polite enough. This is Hollywood, after all…a world peopled with lions, faux-lions, jackals, hyenas and lots of little hamsters running around. In his written opinion on the case, Justice Marvin Baxter said that “the essence of a sexual harassment claim is disparate treatment on the basis of sex, and that the mere discussion of sex or the use of vulgar language does not constitute sexual harassment.”