Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman has admitted that the hit show messed up with handling transgender representation.
The 66-year-old opened up about her regret during an interview with BBC World Service’s The Conversation and said that the show made a critical mistake concerning Chandler Bing’s parent Helena Handbasket, played by Kathleen Turner.
In the show, the character is frequently called Chandler’s ‘father.’
“We kept referring to her as ‘Chandler’s father’, even though Chandler’s father was trans. Pronouns were not yet something that I understood,” Kauffman said.
“So we didn’t refer to that character as ‘she.’ That was a mistake.”
The character, a performer in Las Vegas, was never acknowledged as a transgender woman and caused confusion among viewers, with many thinking Helena was a drag queen.
In an interview with The Gay Times in 2018, actress Turner also said that viewers often thought her character was ‘just dressing up.’
The actress also said that she accepted the role at that time because of the lack of trans representation on TV but would no longer consider such roles as “there would be real people able to do it.”
Kauffman says that it is important to have a ‘safe place, a tolerant place,’ and shared the moment she fired a worker ‘on the spot’ for making an offensive remark about a trans cameraperson.
She also acknowledged Friend’s lack of diversity, saying it was ‘embarrassing’ for not knowing better.
“I’ve learned a lot in the last 20 years. 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,” she told the Los Angeles Times.
After receiving criticism, Kauffman has pledged $4 million to the African and African American Studies department of Brandeis University to promote diversity within academia.
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