That’s assuming it even crossed their minds in the first place back in 1993.
Yeah, there was a strong anti-nerd bias in the show and general era for sure.
Well, it started in 1994, but it did continue for nearly a decade. And surely it would have crossed their minds, because if it hadn’t, then the background extras and one-line actors would have been far more racially diverse than the ones that they cast.
There was some selection going on to make it that way, and it’s not that non-white people don’t want to be on a primetime show.
It wasn’t specific to Friends or Seinfeld though.
SITCOMS’ LACK OF DIVERSITY OBVIOUS AS BLACK AND WHITE – Chicago Tribune
In Networks’ New Programs, A Startling Lack Of Racial Diversity - The Washington Post
I will say it again: Friends had a half-season-long story line in which both Ross and Joey were rivals for the affection of a black woman, who was a professor at NYU. To the best of my recollection, none of the characters on the show said anything negative about an interracial relationship.
I’m not denying that the show was whitewashed to a large degree, but I think it’s somewhat off-base to imply it was racist.
FWIW, I don’t remember which part of Manhattan Friends was set in, but Seinfeld was set in a Manhattan neighborhood that is like 70% white today. NYC is very racially diverse, but not every neighborhood.
None of that is to say they didn’t do a poor job casting people of color in various one-off episodic character roles / extra roles (in fact based on what I know about Jerry and Larry, they were probably mostly indifferent to that concern so I’m sure they put no effort into diversity or even thought about it), but Jerry’s little slice of NYC is not actually all that diverse.
No, but those are the shows we’re discussing.
I didn’t imply that it was racist. I am literally talking about the way the show was “whitewashed to a large degree.”
Why can’t we agree to agree when we’re saying the exact same thing, folks?
Frankly, if I wanted to be offended by any sitcom, it would probably be Big Bang Theory.
Lack of Black characters? Check
Asian jokes and stereotypes? Check. For that matter, there’s a startling lack of Asians of any type, considering the setting is a university science program on the West Coast.
Homophobia? Double down on it with Howard and Raj
Nerd stereotypes? They didn’t just stereotype nerds, they stereotyped subclasses of nerds.
Anti-intellectualism? The only reasonably normal, well adjusted character is a hot blonde waitress who couldn’t get through community college and ends up with a better paying job than her husband.
Throw in continuing story lines with a classic Jewish mother, another mother who’s a Christian fundamentalist, and a colleague with a speech impediment that exists only as a punchline (the actor doesn’t have a speech impediment) and you’ve singled out just about every cheap joke in the sitcom catalog except for bad women drivers.
Yes. It’s very much like real life that way.
The same people who point out problems in Friends also noted the issues with the BBT from the start. It’s not like it got an out.
1, Not in this thread
2. If you want to look deeply enough into any type of mass entertainment you’ll find plenty of things to offend plenty of people. It depends on what things you’re sensitive about.
It may have been personal, but the reason she wouldn’t eat lobster was that she kept kosher. Tricking her into eating it is tricking her into ignoring her religious beliefs. That does seem to show some animosity towards the religion.
There was that similar incident where a football player was told he had to eat pepperoni despite being Muslim and not eating pork. That was “personal” in the sense that it was a punishment for that particular person. But it was widely decried as being Islamophobic, due to the inherent animosity it showed to him for daring to want to keep his harmless religious beliefs.
Don’t get me wrong. That sort of thing is 100% in character for George. He’s too self-obsessed to consider her lack of eating lobster as anything more than an affront to him personally, same as having not seen her naked. But being selfish doesn’t make something not bigoted. In fact, bigotry generally stems from selfishness.
Then that would mean no one could ever be accidentally racist, which very much is not the case. It’s very common to find people who don’t realize they see, for example, black people as lesser.
If accidental racism didn’t matter, then we could fix racism by just not teaching anyone about it. Then all racism would be accidental, and it wouldn’t be racist. Problem solved.
No it doesn’t. We know George doesn’t show animosity to other Jews or to Judaism, he is clearly showing animosity only to one person. You explained that yourself. We know what the motivation is in this case.
Not disputing your point, but BBT did have a couple of Asian characters, one very prominent.
To add to your list… what the hell is Sheldon supposed to be? If it’s a portrayal of a person with ASD, it’s pretty offensive and unhelpful. Some representative autistic traits, and also a completely self-centered asshole that apparently everyone just puts up with because reasons (possibly because all autistic people are insane geniuses or something).
But actions have more than just motivation. It’s his method that is bigoted. His “punishment” is to use her religion against her. It wouldn’t have worked if she wasn’t Jewish. To be able to perform the action itself, he has to hold her Jewishness in contempt.
It’s like how, even if you hate someone regardless of their skin tone, you still can’t use a racial slur without attacking everyone of that race. You can’t do something as heinous as force someone to violate their religion and culture except if you hold that religion and culture in contempt, regardless of why you do so. (For George, it’s that it’s something that doesn’t revolve around him.)
I guarantee you that, if you were to force someone to break kosher, it would be seen as antisemitic, just like forcing the Muslims to eat a pepperoni pizza was seen as Islamophobic.
George is so self-absorbed that he is a bigot at times. That isn’t actually all that uncommon with narcissistic misanthropes–whether real life or fictional. Being a general asshole doesn’t make something not bigoted. It just means you’re bigoted an an asshole.
Fortunately, George is portrayed as wrong, usually getting his comeuppance even if he doesn’t learn from it. His is the clearest.
I would suggest that if someone has to active analyse something to find offence, it’s probably not actually offensive in the traditional sense of the term.
That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, but there’s a large gulf between “this show about a group of friends is somewhat lacking in ethnic diversity, even among the ancillary cast, given its setting” and “this show is offensive”.
Much of the ‘palaeontology’ that Ross espoused was rubbish, so that shows the bias of the writers.
And it’s Gandalf.
Yeah, it’s definitely anti-Semitic. He’s pissed at someone, so he decides to get back at them by causing them to break their religious beliefs. He knows it will cause her great distress because of her faith.