F.R.I.E.N.D.S - American TV series

Résumé du document

Friends' has been, and still is the most popular among the American TV series in the world, released in numerous countries. 'Friends' was created in 1994 by the Emmy Award-winning writing team of Marta Kauffman and David Crane. Six actors were chosen to interpret the parts of the six young friends: Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer. Kevin S. Bright joined the team of Kauffman and Crane as executive producer. Basically, the story is quite simple, it focuses on the friendship of three men and three women who frequently gather at each others apartments and share sofa space at Greenwich village's 'central perk' coffee house. We are led wonder what are the reasons of such a success, and what issues such a series raises in modern society ?

Extraits

[...] F.R.I.E.N.D.S “Friends” has been and still is - is a world phenomenon, as the most popular American TV series in the world, released in numerous countries. “Friends” was created in 1994 by the Emmy Award-winning writing team of Marta Kauffman and David Crane. Six actors were chosen to interpret the parts of the six young friends: Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer. Kevin S. Bright joined the team of Kauffman and Crane as an executive producer. [...]

[...] The lesbian wedding between Carol and Susan is significant: it is shown, in the series, as a completely normal event although it raised controversy in the US. Not only have gays an important part in all the seasons of the series, but the series renders gay marriage uncontroversial, assuming this situation is not shocking but a fact of life, as society is evolving. [...]

[...] There is an outstanding number of people who watch Friends every week: in the US million people used to follow it on NBC every Thursday evening. In the UK, it attracted 3.8 million people on channel in Italy they were 2.3 million. The end of Friends was actually a serious issue for channels, although most of them continue to broadcast it, and will probably keep on doing this for several years. Throughout the different seasons, guest stars have appeared more and more often and stayed longer and longer times: in the first seasons, guest stars already appeared in Friends but they never stayed for a long time - scarcely more than one episode - and they were not as famous as the ones in the more recent seasons. [...]

[...] It is one of the most recurrent themes. For instance, none of them have a baby in the “usual Chandler and Monica adopt, Ross has kids with his lesbian ex wife and his ex girlfriend - none of the babies being foreseen Phoebe carries her half brothers and his wife's triplets. All those examples tend to show that the old family pattern is out of date and does not work anymore. Therefore, a message conveyed by Friends is the fact that there is no or “abnormal” anymore. [...]

[...] As a result, the series conveys the idea that teenagers turn out grown ups later than before. Indeed, they are oscillating between two periods of life: they want to become adults but they like their teenage life at the same time as they are afraid of long-term commitment, except, once again, for Ross, who is in a hurry to grow up and thus gets married very early. A new form of family Friends can also make us think about the new family patterns. [...]