The creator of the wildly popular show “Friends” claims to be ashamed of the show’s lack of diversity. He has donated $4 million to apologize for the demographic wrongdoing.
“Friends” the show set in New York City’s Greenwich Village, has long been criticized by those on the left for what they believed to be a lack of diversity in the cast.
Marta Kauffman, a co-creator, admitted that she was first irritated by the criticism and felt that the program had been treated unfairly.
She changed her mind in the meantime, and it was obvious during her Zoom interview.
“I’ve learned a lot in the last 20 years,” Kauffman explained in an interview “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 claimed that the protests against George Floyd’s death made her aware of racism in society.
“I knew then I needed to course-correct,” she said.
Brandeis University, which Kauffmann attended, will receive a $4 million donation from Kauffmann to establish an endowed chair in the department of African and African American studies.
“It took me a long time to begin to understand how I internalized systemic racism,” Kauffman said.
“I’ve been working really hard to become an ally, an anti-racist,” she added. “And this seemed to me to be a way that I could participate in the conversation from a white woman’s perspective.”
David Schwimmer, one of the “Friends” main characters, replied to complaints regarding diversity in 2020.
“I don’t care,” said Schwimmer to the Guardian at the time. “The truth is also that show was groundbreaking in its time for the way in which it handled so casually s-x, protected s-x, gay marriage, and relationships. You have to look at it from the point of view of what the show was trying to do at the time.”
Additionally, he said that he actively promoted Ross, his show character, to date non-white characters, which Ross did.
Friends is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC for ten seasons from 1994 to 2004. It was created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman. The main characters are Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, and David Schwimmer. The show focuses on these six friends, following their ups and downs, family, and romantic relationships. The show has exploded in popularity due to its spectacular humor and clever scenarios.
