Marta Kauffman, the creator of the cult series Friends, once again spoke about the lack of diversity for which the cult program of the 90s is criticized. She also revealed her way of fighting, today, against discrimination against racialized people.
Friends creator Marta Kauffman donates $4 million
It was in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that Marta Kauffman, to whom we owe the success of Friends, spoke. The showrunner returned to the lack of diversity within the cast in the American series and claims to deeply regret this choice. “It’s painful to look at yourself in the mirror,” she said.
To fight against discrimination and racism, the creator of Friends has decided to get involved, in her own way. A former student at Brandeis University, she decided to donate $4 million to the institution’s African and Afro-American studies department. “I’ve learned a lot over the past 20 years,” she said. “Admitting and accepting guilt is not easy. I’m embarrassed that I couldn’t have done better 25 years ago.”
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A lack of diversity criticized in Friends
If today, Marta Kauffman questions the lack of diversity in the Friends series, this has not always been the case. Still, many fans of the series lamented this. In 2020, in an interview with Entertainment Tonight, David Schwimmer himself pointed to the under-representation of racialized people in Friends.
But, at the time, Marta Kauffman defended the series as is and disagreed, not admitting a lack of diversity. It is since the death of George Floyd, who died after being the victim of police and racist violence in the United States, that the creator of Friends became aware of what the public reproached him for. “It was after what happened to him that I started to question the fact that I had participated in systemic racism and that I had never been aware of it,” she confessed to the Los Angeles Times before adding: “It was really at this time that I analyzed the way I had participated in it. I knew then that I had to rectify the situation.”
In her redemption, Marta Kauffman says she now wants to hire more racialized people at the heart of her audiovisual productions. “I want to make sure that in the future I hire people of color and seek out young writers of color. I want to feel like I’m acting differently. I’ll feel relieved,” she said.
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