“They have no business writing stories about the experiences of being a person of colour.”
Lisa Kudrow, who grew to fame for playing Phoebe Buffay on Friends, has spoken out about some of the criticism the popular sitcom has received for its lack of diversity in recent years.
The programme, which ran from 1994 until 2004, was centred around six wealthy, straight, white New Yorkers. For the most part, Black characters and characters who were LGBT+ only existed in minor roles on the series. It wasn’t until the ninth season when a Black actress, Aisha Taylor as Charlie, was given a prominent role on the show.
Now, in a recent interview, Kudrow has addressed the lack of diversity on Friends.
She told The Daily Beast that she thinks the privileged backgrounds of the shows creators may be why the show focused on a predominantly white cast.
Lisa said: “Well, I feel like it was a show created by two people who went to Brandeis and wrote about their lives after college.
“And for shows especially, when it’s going to be a comedy that’s character-driven, you write what you know.
“They have no business writing stories about the experiences of being a person of colour.”
This isn’t the first time Kudrow has addressed the lack of diversity on the show.
In an interview with The Sunday Times in 2020, she was asked what changes she would make if she was allowed to change the show today.
She replied saying: “It would not be an all-white cast, for sure.”
She went on to say: “I’m not sure what else, but, to me, it should be looked at as a time capsule, not for what they did wrong.
“This show thought it was very progressive. There was a guy whose wife discovered she was gay and pregnant, and they raised the child together. We had surrogacy too.”
