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Was "Friends" considered a "white show"?

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Blasian Persuasion said:
I have to say yeah. I just couldn't with that show. I couldn't.

I think the only white sitcom I watched was Married with Children.
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I don't think anyone would call Married with Children a white show, even though the cast is predominately white. I think white shows has to have humor that only white people understand and like, while MwC is pretty much universally liked (same with Fresh Prince, which is why no one really calls it a black show)
 
kurahador said:
Hmmm...I just realized how the same can be said for Modern Family, The Goldbergs and Big Bang Theory.

Guess comedy shows operate differently?
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You at least can argue Modern family at least has 3 POC core cast characters, so that alone separates from the Friends tier of Whiteness.
 
Top 10 Whitest Shows of All Time

1. Friends
2. Frasier
3. Downton Abbey
4. Leave It to Beaver
5. Duck Dynasty
6. The Brady Bunch
7. Mad Men
8. Girls
9. The Cosby Show
10. Full House
 
GustyGardens said:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/member.php?u=405268

I remember she did an AMA here a couple of years ago. I haven't seen her post much, but I'm not searching through threads. I also remember she posted a picture of her new Tesla when she bought it.
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Well...

ross-clapping.gif
 
youngplaya21 said:
I don't think anyone would call Married with Children a white show, even though the cast is predominately white. I think white shows has to have humor that only white people understand and like, while MwC is pretty much universally liked (same with Fresh Prince, which is why no one really calls it a black show)
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Married with Children never gave me that vibe.

Kinda like Roseanne, even though it was a mostly white show I never got that vibe from it.

Maybe because the characters are working class/lower income?
 
TAJ said:
I saw the dude who played Chandler on a show last night for a minute and he looks terrible these days.

But yeah, Friends is white AF.
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He looks like he has awful cotton mouth and probably smacks a lot when talking.

Drugs are a helluva drug.
 
TAJ said:
Griff wasn't in most of the seasons. He's Married With Children's Aisha Tyler.
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Officer Dan had been on the show since season 4 I think. Fun fact. There has been 4 black guys who worked alongside Al at Gary's shoe store during the whole series. Also who could forget Miranda Veracruz de la Hoya Cardinal?
 
It probably wasn't marketed as a white show, because of the assumption that white is default or "normal"

But it definitely is one
 
I liked the joke in Kimmy Schmidt about playing a race other than your own when Kimmy said it would be okay because Aisha Tyler played a white woman on Friends.

Anyway, yes. Friends is one of the whitest shows in recent memory.
 
Seinfeld kinda got a pass because most of the characters were Jewish and as a result dealt with other ethnicities and social classes regularly (though many of them where still white),

Friends wasn't just white, it was Snow White. As in everyone including the background actors was like second or third generation middle American, so much so that it started making Ross stand out.
 
FZZ said:
I don't think I ever saw a black person on friends

Shit was Caucasian nation
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I think Ross had a black girlfriend once, for like several episodes too.

I use to watch friends all thr time when I was young, I never really saw it as a white show tho
 
Guys, the 90s were white as fuck on TV. It's not a strike against it, it just is what it is. Sure you had Family Matters and Fresh Prince, but the vast majority of it was just plain white.
 
Not just white, but maybe the whitest show ever made. I mean, they all hang out in a coffee shop as a second home and talk about their dating life. Can't get much whiter than that.
 
Frasier also gets a pass because let's face it, they were Yuppies. Their social class didn't really allow for them to encounter many black people. Should probably have had more Asians on the show though, considering it was mid 90's Seattle.

That said, the absolute worst episodes of Frasier center around a black woman who comes to work at the station. I did a whole Frasier rewatch and skipped those episodes, awful and LCD.
 
SeanC said:
Not just white, but maybe the whitest show ever made. I mean, they all hang out in a coffee shop as a second home and talk about their dating life. Can't get much whiter than that.
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Well, they could have set the show in Portland.

Though judging from Friends, New York is also 95% White.
 
George Oscar Bluth II said:
As someone who has been slowly rewatching Friends and is nearly finished, I remember... 6 black people in the show off the top of my head:

- Charlie (Ross' girlfriend played by Aisha Tyler)
- Monica's connection at the advertising company and Chandler's new boss at his internship
- Chandler's boss who sent him to Tulsa played by the original Aunt Viv from Fresh Prince
- That guy Chandler was having a job interview with. The duties/doodies guy.
- The young intern at the advertising company
- The kid who wanted money instead of candy on Halloween

All in the later seasons.
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There was also the black guy from the Candy Lady episode.
 
The Hermit said:
I am laughing just looking at the picture.

Seinfeld is no where near as white as Friends. Friends is too "clean". How I met you mother is almost the same too.
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How I met your mother had way more minorities on it, it's no contest. Wayne Brady and Kal Penn where both big recurring characters for instance.
 
As a native New Yorker (Hispanic) I can say that yes "Friends" was definitely a "white" show. Didn't make it any less funny or enjoyable to watch tho.

As a Hispanic it was more like a window into the lives of fairly well-off white folks in NYC. More like "wow these are what these people worry about, oh they consider this a problem" etc.


TwEE-N-Toast said:
Friends is no whiter then Married with Children. This thread leaves me with he impression that when americans say white they mean yuppie.
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You make a very good point. Couple years ago I went down to Mississippi and I saw some "poor" white folks and I was like "oh shit I never seen it like this"

Up until then I had gone to many southern states and it was very surprising.
 
Yeah during that time my family was watching UPN/ABC sitcoms. Never watched Friends or Seinfeld during their times.
 
it's so white that even when the geller's jewish heritage gets brought up it's always in a "oh yeah, we're actually jewish" kind of way.

however there is a black guy in one of the best scenes
 
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