Abstract
This chapter explores the backlash Friends has received in recent years for its politics of representation. The chapter begins by reflectively exploring the backlash and then focuses on issues of race, specifically the representation of Charlie Wheeler. Paying attention to context, tone and the intersection of race and class, it unpicks the complex ways in which this character maps onto existing frameworks relevant to the representation of black women, and how her presence operates within the show’s aesthetics of representation and storytelling. Uncovering a considerable tonal ambiguity, the chapter concludes by reflecting on why Friends has become a key site for debates about representation. Drawing on interviews with Marta Kauffman and Kevin S. Bright, the authors link this back to the programme’s strategy of intimacy, suggesting that the latter works complexly in relation to representational issues, just as sitcom as a genre has a far from straightforward relationship to hegemonic discourses.
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Knox, S., Schwind, K.H. (2019). The One with the Emblematic Problematic Fave: Friends and the Politics of Representation. In: Friends. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25429-2_5
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