Weeks, months and years go by, but the controversy over the —more than evident— lack of diversity of the charming sitcom ‘Friends’ continues more alive than ever with different critics, underlines and chants of “mea culpa” surfacing on a regular basis; reaching us the last words related to the thorny subject of the very Lisa Kudrow.
write about what you know
The actress and producer, who gave life to Phoebe Buffay for ten years, has gone down to the mud after knowing that series co-creator Marta Kauffman has donated four million dollars to Brandeis University – where he studied – to create a financial support fund for students studying Africa and the African diaspora after reflecting on the “whiteness” of his flagship production.
Kudrow has pointed out that, from his point of view, the problem of diversity in ‘Friends’ is only inherited from one of the great recommendations when creating solid scripts: write about what you know.
“I feel like it was a series created by two people who went to Brandeis and wrote about their lives after college. And especially in series, when it’s going to be a character-centric comedy, you write about what you know. They don’t do anything writing stories about the experiences of being a person of color.”
Kauffman, whose latest work is the ‘Grace and Frankie’ series, explained to the Los Angeles Times that currently one of his goals is to shape narratives in which the integration of minorities both in front of the cameras and behind them be the order of the day.
“I want to make sure that from now on, in every production that I do, I’m going to be mindful of hiring people of color and actively looking for young writers of color. I want to know that I will act differently from now on, and then I will feel relieved.”
Look!
But in the midst of good will and more or less accurate analysis, there are voices that continue to rise up to remember what, under the current prism, is the great scourge of the show —which originally aired, remember, between 1994 and 2004—. One of the last has been that of the actor Daniel Dae-Kim —’Lost’, ’24’—, who has been talking about his relationship and that of his family not only with ‘Friends’, but with fiction in general.
“When my kids watch TV shows, my wife and I naturally point to the screen and say ‘look’ whenever an Asian face appears. Just by doing this, it kind of created a dynamic where you would know when you don’t see them.
My kids loved ‘Friends,’ because they would watch reruns and say, ‘Hey, how come New York is all white?’ He would tell them, ‘Thanks for thinking about that,’ because it’s true. As much as I loved that show, when it came to diversity, it was…let’s just say lacking.”
Via | TheDailyBeast