the black origins of the whitewashed “Friends”
We have lived 2020 mostly within the walls of our homes and in the bright glow of our laptops. It is the prime era of the television binge and the re-binge, a time when new obsessions are finished in record speed and old favorites provide season after season of necessary comfort. I’ve personally returned to the classics, the shows that solidified their timeless and legendary status from the moment they aired. “Living Single,” a sitcom that Google says is about “six black 20-somethings [who] share their lives and loves in a Brooklyn brownstone,” is one of these shows that is hard to not watch in long bouts.
“Living Single” stars the iconic Queen Latifah, features an incredibly talented cast and has some of the best sitcom writing; that is to say it is altogether remarkably well done and genuinely funny. Almost every instance of canned laughter is answered with an audible chuckle of my own and the characters have well rounded personalities that shine through in very relatable ways from the first episode.
The ‘90s television show is a gem of a sitcom, highlighting the lives of a group of friends who live in direct proximity within the Big Apple as they navigate life and relationships for five amazing seasons. While the franchise is not a mainstream household name, its premise is known by almost all. “Six friends in their twenties pursue careers, love, and happiness in New York City while relying on each other for support” isn’t me reiterating Google’s “Living Single” description: It’s the HBO Max description of the “Friends” pilot that aired on NBC a whole year after “Living Single” premiered on FOX in 1993.
Imitation isn’t the sincerest form of flattery; It’s a racist, domineering con. From Elvis Presley and rock and roll to the Kardashians and cornrows, things that Black people do first are commodified through appropriation into white mainstream culture. The patterns of this behavior and the reasons behind them are woven into America’s historical and contemporary white supremacist structure. That is why so many of the classic films, books and TV shows that people return to year after year are by old/dead white men or just white people in general, and all other races are just erased from the story.
It is clear many people considered “Friends” a classic from the beginning. In a 1996 Los Angeles Times article, a Warner Bros executive called the show a “mega-hit,” saying its widespread success was a “national phenomena [sic], the likes of which we haven’t seen in the last decade.” The whitewashed sitcom lasted 10 seasons, and the same popularity it garnered while on air has continued over a decade after its finale. Fast fashion retailers still sell “Friends” merchandise, Buzzfeed posts “Which Friends Character Are You?” quizzes and reputable news sources like CNN report on the reunion special that is currently in the works.
Most notably, the show continues to increase in monetary value. Netflix first bought the streaming rights in 2014 for $30 million. When they almost lost the streaming rights in 2018, they paid $100 million in response to the mass internet outcry against losing the ability to endlessly re-watch “Friends.” At the beginning of 2020, before anyone knew how much television would be binged in the following months, HBO Max paid $425 million for just five years of the streaming rights to “Friends.” “Living Single,” meanwhile, wasn’t added to Hulu until 2018, purchased for an undisclosed amount.
The 90s gave us many quality Black sitcoms but simply because of the racial specification they were assigned, they were never marketed to a wider mainstream audience or given full network support. Latifah and other cast members complained about the lack of advertising and network priority received in the show’s heyday. The 1996 Los Angeles Times article quotes Yvette Lee Bowser, the creator and executive producer of the show, saying, “It’s disappointing that we have never gotten that kind of push that ‘Friends’ has had. I have issues with the studio and the network over the promotion of this show.” At the time, “Friends” was given a whole billboard while “Living Single” just got mention on one billboard promoting various shows. “It just pisses me off every time I see that ‘Friends’ billboard and the little piece of our billboard. I mean, how much more of a push do they need?” Latifah told the Los Angeles Times. The financial inequities surrounding these shows were around long before streaming services could continue them, and it all comes down to hegemonic marketing.
This idea that something must be made white in order to be made relevant to mass audiences is nothing new. A crucial backbone of American society is the normalization of whiteness; therefore, the millions of shows with all white casts are marketed as relatable to all and the handful of shows with diverse backgrounds are only targeted to people of those backgrounds. That is why white television shows like “Friends” are just “TV” and shows like “Living Single” are “Black TV.” According to the 1996 Los Angeles Times article, on a list of 114 series on major television networks in 1996, among all viewers, “Friends” ranked No. 3 while “Living Single” ranked 85th. However, “Living Single” was one of the most popular shows with Black and Latino audiences. Black is niche in a sea of white.
This overshadowing of Black cultural productions by white classics continues to this day. It wasn’t until recent months that Netflix added other classic Black sitcoms like “Moesha” and “The Parkers,” and before that, the few available options were never marketed as a bingeable reason to subscribe to a specific streaming service. What makes the “Friends” vs. “Living Single” situation noteworthy is the fact that “Friends” is a literal exact rip-off of its predecessor, just adjusted to fit white archetypes.
What may seem like a coincidence of similarities is actually not. In a recent interview on “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” Latifah said that when an NBC executive was asked if he could have any hot new show of the time on his network, what would it be, he replied, “Living Single.” “Friends” came out on NBC a year later. The pilot was centered around marriage, specifically Rachel running out on her rich fiancé. The “Living Single” pilot was also centered around marriage, but instead Regine finds out her rich boyfriend is actually married. The similarities – down to the characters’ names -- are hard to ignore. It’s not just the show descriptions and premises or the rival coveting but it’s the ripping off of the exact details.
The six main characters themselves are just mirrored versions of each other. Khadijah, played by Latifah, is the owner of her own magazine. She is the serious, career-minded character who on “Friends” is turned into Monica, the serious and career minded chef. Khadijah’s cousin, Sinclair, is the ditsy type, who in the first episode makes herself contemporarily relevant and relatable when she says, “Now I know your Aries rising is constantly conflicting with her Taurus moon but can’t we all just get along.” The first episode of “Friends” shows Sinclair transformed into the hippie type Phoebe, who is seen plucking Ross’ “aura”. In “Living Single,” Regine is superficial on the surface, going after men with money after growing up in the projects. “Friends” turns her into Rachel, an oftentimes superficial, spoiled daddy's girl.
The boys who live upstairs from Khadijah, Sinclair and Regine are Kyle and Overton. Kyle is the attractive ladies man and Overton is the funny goof. Across from Rachel and Monica are Joey and Chandler, also a ladies man and awkward jokester guy combo. Maxine Shaw, attorney at law, the friend who lives alone across the street but is always in Khadijah’s apartment, becomes Ross, a paleontologist who occasionally dates Black women -- Black women who are the only Black characters on “Friends.”
Network executives turned a rare portrayal of successful Black characters into a display of white mediocrity. From a friend group containing business owner, stockbroker and attorney into one with an unemployed actor, a waitress, and whatever it was Phoebe did.
“Living Single” is full of positive Black imagery and inspiring representations. The cast is all different shades and sizes, not just skinny, light skin or ambiguously Black women, and it’s about Black life and friendship instead of Black pain and stereotypes. It shows Black love and Black success, with the main characters always looking for their Mr. Right. The whole show is as heartfelt as the season 1 Christmas episode, when Sinclair gives everyone gifts so personalized that they drop everything to prioritize each other’s company over some eggnog. It’s as funny as when Overton puts a handyman ad in the paper that because of the wrong wording, gets his pager blown up with explicit requests. It’s also as relatable as Kyle and Max’s constant bickering and slick comebacks. Through thick and thin situations, the show demonstrates instances of true friendship that feel incredibly genuine even through the screen.
In January 2020, David Schwimmer said in an interview with the Guardian that maybe one day there would be an “all-Black ‘Friends.’” Even after being corrected via Twitter and a Medium op-ed published in February by Erika Alexander, the actress who plays Maxine, Schwimmer failed to fully acknowledge the fact that the shows were more than just similar, they were the same. “That’s how a seemingly innocent comment from David Schwimmer reverberated in my community,” said Alexander in her response. “Scratching the wound of a historic crime, it unleashed a posse of digital warriors, voicing their frustration against a rigged system that so marginalizes and under-represents us that it keeps us forever out of the cultural mainstream.”
“Friends” obtained the notoriety that “Living Single” deserved. By being ghettoized as “Black TV”, it was never given the chance to unveil “Friends” as the sham it is and easily prove itself as amazing television. It is so erased from the narrative that even Jay Z perpetuated the idea of a future “Black Friends” by recreating their opening video montage with Black celebrities for his “Moonlight” music video. Before 2020 brought a new politically correct commitment to listen to the wants of Black consumers, there was no financial gain in providing these shows to a small fraction of demanding viewers.
By replacing Blackness with whiteness, the societal balance built around supremacy is kept. Continuing to hype up the timeliness of “Friends” without even realizing what it replaced is a part of that balance. “Racism isn’t always about what you know, usually it’s about what you don’t know or what you don’t want somebody else to know,” wrote Alexander earlier this year. “And what you don’t know about Black people can harm all of us. White ignorance is the rich fertilizer that nurtures a false supremacy.”
When overconsuming content while stuck in the house, re-evaluate how much of what you see is white leads and majority white casts. Consider going out of your way to discover the classics that deserve your attention even when the algorithms don’t tell you they do.
*originally written as the final for my Arts and Culture Journalism Class