“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.”
Co-creator of the hit sitcom Friends, Marta Kauffman, is drawing fresh attention after creating a new show called 'DINKS' with two white leads after telling the Los Angeles Times in 2022 she agreed with longtime criticism that Friends failed to reflect the racial diversity of New York City.
Friends, which premiered in 1994, became a near-instant success and remains one of television's most popular shows. Despite that success, the comedy Kauffman and David Crane co-created received widespread criticism over the show's apparent lack of diversity and limited roles for black characters, despite being set in New York City. Kauffman told the Los Angeles Times at the time that while she was once confused by the criticism, she has since understood it.
Kauffman also said that after the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent 2020 protests, her perspective on the matter changed dramatically.
"I've learned a lot in the last 20 years," Kauffman said at the time. "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."
As part of that reckoning, Kauffman donated $4 million to her alma mater, Brandeis University, to establish the Marta F. Kauffman '78 Professorship in African and African American Studies. The endowment supports scholarship focused on Africa and the African diaspora while helping the university recruit faculty and expand academic opportunities for students.
"I feel I was finally able to make some difference in the conversation," Kauffman said. "I have to say, after agreeing to this and when I stopped sweating, it didn't unburden me, but it lifted me up. But until in my next production I can do it right, it isn't over. I want to make sure from now on in every production I do that I am conscious in hiring people of color and actively pursue young writers of color. I want to know I will act differently from now on. And then I will feel unburdened."
However, Kauffman's latest television project is already inviting renewed scrutiny. Amazon recently announced its new comedy DINKS, which stars June Diane Raphael and Paul Scheer as a married couple who have chosen not to have children. While Kauffman has repeatedly vowed that future productions from her would have more diversity, the new series is once again centered on two white leads.
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