David Schwimmer: ‘There Should Be’ An All Black Or All Asian Version Of ‘Friends’
Paul Bois - The Daily Wire
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In recent years, the hit NBC sitcom “Friends” has taken a tremendous shellacking from SJWs for its lack of diversity despite the show’s fairly liberal sexual politics regarding same-sex parenting and surrogate pregnancy. Actor David Schwimmer, forever known as the character Ross, has proposed a remedy to this social injustice: an all-black or all Asian reboot.
Speaking with The Guardian, Schwimmer said that he was well aware of the show’s diversity issue at the time and that he advocated having Ross date more women of color.
“Maybe there should be an all-black ‘Friends’ or an all-Asian ‘Friends’,” Schwimmer said. “But I was well aware of the lack of diversity and I campaigned for years to have Ross date women of color. One of the first girlfriends I had on the show was an Asian American woman, and later I dated African American women. That was a very conscious push on my part.”
At the same time, Schwimmer feels that when people criticize the show, which he referred to as “groundbreaking,” they should try to look at it with further context.
“I feel that a lot of the problem today in so many areas is that so little is taken in context,” Schwimmer said. “You have to look at it from the point of view of what the show was trying to do at the time. I’m the first person to say that maybe something was inappropriate or insensitive, but I feel like my barometer was pretty good at that time. I was already really attuned to social issues and issues of equality.”
The sitcom “Seinfeld” and “Friends” have been severely scrutinized by SJWs for having problematic jokes that do not rest well with today’s more woke-minded millennials. As Rayna Rossitto wrote at Popsugar:
Revisiting the series in 2019, I’ve discovered problematic themes throughout its 10 seasons, from Joey’s constant sexualization of women to the narrative surrounding “Fat Monica.” Read on to see why Friends, acclaimed as one of the greatest sitcoms, hasn’t exactly aged well.
Friends takes place in New York City, one of America’s most diverse cities, and at the time of the show’s premiere, white people accounted for only 40 percent of the city’s population according to the 1990 US Census. But instead of drawing upon experiences from people of different backgrounds, Friends focuses on the white experience, rarely touching on the subject of race.
In addition to focusing solely on the white experience, the series also puts straight love stories at the forefront. The only reoccurring queer characters in the show are Carol, Ross’s ex-wife, and her partner Susan, whose relationship was always addressed as a joke, as the couple was often referred to as “lesbian lovers,” never as just a couple. And since we’re on the subject of the jokey, offensive way queer relationships are treated on the show . . .
Writer Angelica Florio also lamented at Bustle about the many problematic jokes seen on the show “Seinfeld,” especially its use of the term “Soup Nazi.”
“What might be the most well-known joke from Seinfeld is also one of its most disappointing ones. Maybe in 1995, when the episode (titled ‘The Soup Nazi’) aired, it felt okay for viewers, but in 2018 when groups of Neo-Nazis have become noticeably emboldened, using the term ‘Nazi,’ to label someone as a joke doesn’t sit so well anymore,” Florio wrote.
