“What can I say? ‘I wish Lisa was black?’ I’ve loved this cast. “I would have been insane not to hire those six actors,” executive producer Kevin Bright explained. Is that really so outdated?Īnother Friends co-creator takes a more sane view on the show’s all-white cast, pointing out the actors and actresses had an undeniable chemistry with one another that drove the show’s success among audiences. Despite a few gags at Charles Bing’s expense, the thrust of the storyline is that you don’t have to fully accept nor understand someone else’s lifestyle in order to treat them with kindness. Of course she could not have predicted what would be considered the “proper” way to portray or address transgender people more than twenty-five years ago. It is bizarre that Kauffman feels the need to apologize for not living up to 2022 wokeness standards on a show that premiered in 1994. So we didn’t refer to that character as she. “Pronouns were not yet something that I understood. “We kept referring to her as Chandler’s father, even though Chandler’s father was trans,” Kauffman said. It’s unclear throughout the series whether Charles is just a drag queen or if he actually identifies as a woman - the character still goes by the name “Charles” offstage - but Kauffman confirms that he was intended to be trans. Charles was the father of Chandler Bing, and he divorced his wife and began performing as a drag queen under the name “Helena Handbasket” after discovering he was gay. And then I will feel unburdened.In addition to her monetary apology, Kauffman said she was also sorry that she had “misgendered” Charles Bing. I want to know I will act differently from now on. "I want to make sure from now on in every production I do that I am conscious in hiring people of color and actively pursue young writers of color. The writer-creator said in her future projects she will make sure to have a diverse team on board. In an attempt to redeem herself, Kauffman said she has pledged USD 4 million to her alma mater, Brandeis University, to fund an endowed chair in the school's African and African American studies department, one of the oldest in the US. I knew then I needed to course-correct," she added. That was really the moment that I began to examine the ways I had participated. "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. I'm embarrassed that I didn't know better 25 years ago," Kauffman, who co-created the show with David Crane, told The Los Angeles Times. It's painful looking at yourself in the mirror. "Admitting and accepting guilt is not easy. Kauffman, who in the past had said that it was "difficult and frustrating" to understand why people were so critical of the show, believes she came to realise the importance of on-screen representation following the George Floyd incident. The New York-set sitcom, featuring an all-white cast- Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, ran from 1994 to 2004 but rarely featured a character of colour. "Friends" co-creator Marta Kauffman says it was difficult for her to accept the criticism that the show received for lack of diversity.
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