After Facing All the Flack Friends for Not Featuring Enough People of Color, Lisa Kudrow Shares Her Thing
17 years after its last episode aired on NBC, fans are still celebrating the infinitely quotable sitcom, but it's hard for even its most loyal followers to ignore its harshest criticism.
Artists and creators have reacted in different ways over the years, including in David Schwimmer's defense of the series, and now Lisa Kudrow has weighed in with her point of view.
Lisa Kudrow played kooky Phoebe Buffet for 10 seasons of Friends, which also starred her five too-white co-stars.
Discussing the lack of characters from other races and nationalities in the New York City-set sitcom and the issue of stories from more diverse perspectives, the actress told The Daily Beast that Marta Kaufman and David Crane have no place in telling POC stories. was not.
She tells her biggest issue with the discussion. In the words of Kudrow: Well, I feel like it was a show created by two guys who went to Brandeis and wrote about their lives after college.
It's a good thing the Friends creators were only writing what they knew from their experiences, and there would have been no way for them to authentically write POC stories.
So as such, the issue is not so much about the writing that exists, but with the lack of diversity in the writers' room.
Having none on staff contributing that way, co-creator Marta Kaufman said she's going to be making changes to future projects.