Friends has remained as popular today as it was when it began airing over 25 years ago, and it’s done so despite not exactly jibing with the politics of today. One complaint: Its all-white cast, which seemed far-fetched then and especially so now. Its cast would agree with that. Speaking to The Sunday Times (as caught by Entertainment Weekly), Lisa Kudrow pondered what a rebooted Friends would look like in 2020.
“It’d be completely different,” the erstwhile Phoebe Buffay said. “It would not be an all-white cast, for sure.”
Indeed, it wasn’t only the main sextet who were Caucasian; most, though not all, of the supporting characters and guest stars were, too. Modern thinkpieces on Friends, which celebrated its quarter-of-a-century anniversary last fall, criticize some of its politics, from the copious fat-shaming of young Monica to its whitewashed portrayal of Manhattan. Kudrow argued that it “should be looked at as a time capsule, not for what they did wrong.”
She also defended it a bit, pointing out it was ahead of the curve on many other social issues, including its positive portrayal of Ross Geller’s ex Carol (Jane Sibbett), who leaves him and marries another woman (played by Jessica Hecht).
“There was a guy whose wife discovered she was gay and pregnant, and they raised the child together?” Kudrow pointed out. “We had surrogacy, too. It was, at the time, progressive.”
Kudrow’s comments come a few months after David Schwimmer made similar comments to The Guardian, saying he was “well aware of the lack of diversity” on the show, and that he campaigned to have Ross date non-white women.
“One of the first girlfriends I had on the show was an Asian-American woman, and later I dated African American women,” Schwimmer said in January. “That was a very conscious push on my part.”
Friends is currently in limbo, its 236 episodes having left Netflix at the turn of last year, but it’s due for HBO Max when it launches on May 27. The reunion special, which was to have dropped on that date as well, had to be postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak, but surely they’ll have plenty to talk about whenever it finally happens.
(Via The Sunday Times and EW)