The series, created by Marta Kauffman and David Crane, about a close group of friends living in New York City was an instant success when it premiered in 1994.
Since then, Friends has remained a cult classic, even after coming to an end in 2004.
Despite the sitcom being so popular with many, there has been a lot of criticism throughout the years of the show’s lack of diversity, and now one of the stars has spoken out.
New York is known for its diversity, including its variety of cultures, ethnicities, and races. The population of the city is: 31.2% White (Non-Hispanic), 21% Black or African American (Non-Hispanic), 14.4% Asian (Non-Hispanic), 14.2% Other (Hispanic), and 6.3% White (Hispanic), as per Date USA.
Yet, in the sitcom based in a city with such a wide range of cultures, all six main characters are white, and people of different races and ethnicities are only featured occasionally in supporting roles.
Aisha Tyler, the first Black actress to have a recurring role in the series, starred in a total of nine episodes. She played Dr. Charlie Wheeler, a paleontology professor who worked alongside and then dated David Schwimmer’s character, Ross.
In a 2020 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Schwimmer said that he felt it was ‘just wrong’ that there was no broader cultural representation on the series.
The actor said: “I really felt like Ross should date other people, women of all races.”
Co-creator Kauffman told The Los Angeles Times that at the time it was ‘difficult and frustrating’ that Friends was being singled out for its lack of diversity. But, in recent years, she has changed her mind.
Kauffman has since noted that the failure of the sitcom to be more inclusive was down to her internalized systemic racism, which only became clear to her after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the Black Lives Matter movement that followed in 2020.
The co-creator said: “Admitting and accepting guilt is not easy. It’s painful looking at yourself in the mirror. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t know better 25 years ago.”
Kauffman continued: “It was after what happened to George Floyd that I began to wrestle with my having bought into systemic racism in ways I was never aware of.
“That was really the moment that I began to examine the ways I had participated. I knew then I needed to course-correct.”
Kauffman has since pledged $4 million to the Boston area’s Brandeis University, for a professorship in the school’s African and African American studies department.
But Kauffman and Schwimmer aren’t the only people closely related to the series that have spoken out – another fan-favorite character has recently acknowledged the lack of diversity in the show.
Adam Goldberg who starred as Eddie, Chandler’s temporary, somewhat strange roommate, has also spoken out.
Despite only featuring in three episodes, he is still remembered as one of the show’s iconic characters.
In an interview with the Independent, he spoke about his largely positive experience of being a part of the show, but he also says that looking back, it’s clear to him that the series didn’t give an accurate representation of the population of New York.
Goldberg said: “One criticism was how the hell do these people afford to even live in New York? Their apartment is massive, and it’s an incredibly unrealistic portrayal of New York.”
The actor continued: “And in terms of diversity, looking back, it seems insane. I’ve heard Black people speak about this and it’s like, you never expected to see yourself, so when you didn’t, it was not a surprise, and you ended up identifying to characters, irrespective of their race.”
Goldberg says that, at the time, it was ‘the norm that there was such a lack of diversity,’ and that as a Jewish man himself, he spent a lot of his ‘career complaining about how Italians can play Jews.’
He said: “You very rarely see someone who’s a known Jewish actor playing Italian.”
The Dazed and Confused actor continued: “I would get feedback about not being all-American enough, which, you know, if you were to say that to somebody now you’d probably be fired.”
Goldberg says that ‘the entire culture was like that, and television was just an amplification of that culture.’
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