Why The Friends vs. Living Single Twitter Beef Really Matters
Erika Alexander, a star of the beloved sitcom, on the systemic ignorance behind the battle
David Schwimmer’s and my beef started like all things nowadays… with a tweet. It was just after Sundance. A friend had sent me a link to a Guardian article, an interview with actor David Schwimmer. In it David talked about his awareness in Hollywood as a privileged, hetero, White man. To demonstrate his commitment to racial diversity he discussed his past advocacy for a more diverse cast as part of the six-person acting ensemble in his juggernaut-sitcom, Friends. Cool. In the article David talked about how he pushed his producers to cast multi-racial, romantic relationships for his character “Ross.”
“I was well aware of the lack of diversity and I campaigned for years to have Ross date women of color. One of the first girlfriends I had on the show was an Asian American woman, and later I dated African American women. That was a very conscious push on my part.”
Double Cool. But where it started to go south was the random comment he made after giving himself props for his social acuity:
“…I feel like my barometer was pretty good at that time. I was already really attuned to social issues and issues of equality…”
