The lack of diversity on “Friends” still doesn't sit well with one of the show's actors.
Adam Goldberg, who played Chandler's roommate Eddie in three episodes in 1996, said Sitcoms This does not include people of any color.
“In terms of diversity, looking back, it seems crazy,” the 53-year-old said in an interview. The Independent Published on Sunday.
He said, “I've heard black people talk about this and it's like, you never expected to see yourself, so when you didn't see yourself, it wasn't a surprise, and you began to identify with the characters, regardless of their race.”
Goldberg said at the time it was “common” for shows like “Friends,” which aired on NBC from 1994 to 2004, to display a “lack of diversity.”
“I mean, I spent a lot of my career complaining about how the Italians could play with the Jews,” he said. “You see [Robert] De Niro plays Jews, but you rarely see a famous Jewish actor playing an Italian.
“So that's where my mind was. Or I would get feedback about how I'm not fully American, and if you said that to somebody today you'd probably get fired. Or maybe not, because the term fully American has become a derogatory term.”
“The whole culture was like that, and television was just an extension of that culture,” Goldberg said.
The “Saving Private Ryan” star also questioned how the main characters in the sitcom — played by Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and more — “end up” The Late Matthew Perry — were able to stay in New York City.
“Their apartment is huge and it's an incredibly unrealistic portrayal of New York,” he said. “I'm not even 100 percent sure I knew this incident happened in that city.”
Despite her criticisms, Goldberg said she was still “glad” to be on the show. Emmy Award winning series.
“I think about all of those people, and how amazing someone like Jennifer Aniston is, who has really had such a huge career,” Goldberg said. “And that's really remarkable, because I think it would be very, very, very difficult to be a part of something that's so popular and not be recognized for just that.”
In 2022, Mart Kaufman, who created “Friends” with David Crane, told the Los Angeles Times that she felt very “ashamed” and very “guilty” due to the lack of diversity in the hit show.
After Murder of George Floyd in 2020Kaufman donated 4 million dollars He also commissioned his alma mater — the aforementioned Brandeis University — to create the Marta F. Kaufman ’78 Professorship in African and African American Studies.
“I've learned a lot in the last 20 years,” the TV writer told the LA Times. “It's not easy to admit and accept guilt. It's painful to look at yourself in the mirror. I'm ashamed that I didn't know better 25 years ago.”
Kudrow, 61, said, The Daily Beast in 2022 that Kauffman and Crane, 67, had “no right” to tell stories about people of color on the show.
“I feel like this show was made by two people who went to Brandeis and wrote about their lives after college,” Kudrow said.
He added, “And especially for the show, when it's going to be a comedy that's character-driven, you write what you know. They have no right to write stories about the experiences of being a person of color.”
