‘Friends’ Co-Creator Regrets Transphobia and Lack of Diversity on the Show

Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman has been speaking lately about the diversity errors on the ’90s NBC sitcom. Now, she is speaking about the mistakes in how it handled Chandler Bing’s (Matthew Perry) transgender parent.

Kathleen Turner, played the character, who is referred to as “Chandler’s father” in the series, even though it is clear that the character is meant to be trans. Kauffman told BBC World Service’s The Conversation that this was a mistake. “We kept referring to her as Chandler’s father, even though Chandler’s father was trans,” Kauffman explained. “Pronouns were not yet something that I understood. So we didn’t refer to that character as ‘she.’ That was a mistake.”

While I was never an avid Friends viewer, I do remember seeing the episode where we meet this character, and it both played the character fo laughs, but also had a sentimental reconnecting moment—especially since, eventually, the character did get to co-walk Chandler down the aisle. Much like Ross’s lesbian ex-wife, the storyline is a mixed bag of ’90s/2000s ignorance, with a desire to be both genuine and comical.

Turner spoke to The Gay Times back in 2018 about how the character was described as gay or a drag queen in her performances in Las Vegas.

“How they approached with me with it, was ‘would you like to be the first woman playing a man playing a woman?’ I said yes, because there weren’t many drag/trans people on television at the time.”

During Friends’ run, the character was never actually acknowledged as trans, and was referred to as either gay or a drag queen. She was often mocked by the other characters – especially for her drag show, which was titled Viva Las Gaygas. “Yeah, people thought Charles was just dressing up,” Kathleen added.

This is the second time in a week that Kauffman has publicly expressed regret for Friends’ approach to diversity; on June 29, she told the Los Angeles Times that she has pledged $4 million to the African and African American Studies department of Brandeis University. “I’ve learned a lot in the last 20 years,” Kauffman told the outlet. “Admitting and accepting guilt is not easy. It’s painful looking at yourself in the mirror. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t know better 25 years ago.”

Friends has reaimined a cultural epicenter like many shows of that era, but to its credit, the series cast/crew has been vocal about their mistakes. I’ll forgive them when Living Single is also on BluRay.

(via Yahoo, featured image: NBC)