The following piece was recorded for the Bombay-based film critics podcast, India Independent Films, – run by Rahul Desai and Tanul Thakur – prior to its publication on this site. You can listen to this essay in the audio track posted below.
I don’t know about you but I get semi-annoyed whenever I hear a friend or a coworker dismiss an Indian film because it’s derivative of a Western or a Korean film, especially since I know that their favorite show is F.R.I.E.N.D.S, which is a complete and total rip-off of another Nineties sitcom.
Living Single was a groundbreaking show with a predominantly Black cast that first aired on August 1993 and was an instant success across the United States where it especially resonated among young American urbanites and black audiences. The show revolves around six friends in their twenties navigating through the social and professional terrains of life in New York City.
Exactly, one year later, on September 1994, after the airing of the first episode of Living Single, the first episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S was aired. As many are aware of, F.R.I.E.N.D.S is about six friends in their twenties who are navigating though the social and professional terrains of life in New York City.
The studio that ran F.R.I.E.N.D.S, NBC, made no efforts to hide this in the Nineties. In fact, the studio’s former president, who oversaw the production of F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Warren Littlefields, was once asked in a TV interview in 1993 that if he could have any show on TV, which show would he pick? He said, without a hint of hesitation reportedly, “Living Single”.
It was blatant theft, plain and simple.
And it wasn’t just the outline of the show that F.R.I.E.N.D.S lifted wholesale from Living Single, it was also the principal characters’ personalities and their dynamics.
Khadijah, played by Queen Latifah, is the most mature, most career-driven, female of the group – the “Monica of the group”. Khadija was college friends with Maxine, played by Erika Alexander, the bougie female in the group i.e. “the Rachel”. And like Rachel and Monica, Khadija and Maxine were childhood friends too.
Speaking of Maxine, throughout Living Single, she was in an on again, off-again relationship with the most mature, most successful male member of the group, Kyle. And if there is one important plot point that everyone knows about on F.R.I.E.N.D.S is that two of the characters, Ross and Rachel, are in a constant tumultuous on-again off-again relationship. “We were on a break!” Well even that was stolen from Living Single.
The similarities are staggering!
It doesn’t stop there – Living Single also had a less-than-smart Joey Tribbiani and a quirky Phoebe Buffay played by John Henton and Kim Coles respectively.
So why hasn’t this information been widely disseminated? Why don’t more people know about this? Even if one were to Google the similarities between F.R.I.E.N.D.S and Living Single, they’ll likely only find a handful of articles about it. People like me who’ve grown up watching both shows simultaneously know because we noticed the similarities instantly but most people don’t because both stateside and globally, shows with a predominantly black cast tend to not fare as well as shows with a predominantly white cast. Plus, I suspect NBC went through great lengths to conceal this so as to not tarnish the long-standing legacy of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. After all, it was NBC that effectively killed Living Single. At one point during Living Single’s run, the studio decided to run both Living Single and F.R.I.E.N.D.S on the same day at the same time thus forcing viewers to decide which show they wanted to watch.
And because as mentioned previously, both in America and globally, shows with a predominantly black cast don’t do as well as shows with a predominantly white cast, Living Single ended prematurely after five seasons while F.R.I.E.N.D.S lasted twice as long with ten seasons.
“White Americans have a notorious track record of stealing innovative ideas from the Black American community.”
The other reason why not a whole lot of people know about this is because none of the F.R.I.E.N.D.S stars have ever spoken publicly about it. Now I understand that no one expects them to openly admit that the reason why they’re all insanely successfully and multi-millionaires is because they stole a black show, but a little acknowledgement on their part would have helped.
Given today’s fragile sociopolitical climate with the plight of Black Americans being exemplified with the Black Lives Matter movement and with Cancel Culture looming large across the developed world, I honestly expected at least a couple of the F.R.I.E.N.D.S stars to at least acknowledge the elephant in the room in the reunion episode that aired a few weeks ago. But there was zero acknowledgment on their part in the past twenty-seven years which is fucking despicable especially since F.R.I.E.N.D.S went on to become a worldwide phenomenon while, outside of a few circles, people have largely forgotten about Living Single. What makes matters worse for them is at least a couple of the F.R.I.E.N.D.S stars posted about the Black Lives Matter movement last summer during the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing. And I’m sure, they all voted for Obama.
Hypocrites.
This is not an isolated incident in Americana history – White folks have a notorious track record of stealing innovative ideas from Black folks. Rock n’ Roll was stolen from Black musical virtuosos, Little Richard and Chuck Berry, by Elvis Presley who made it mainstream and over time, he became the King of Rock n’ Roll and they were side-lined. If you were to ask a thousand people in a room who come from different countries and backgrounds if they know who Chuck Berry or Little Richard are, chances are they don’t. But everyone knows Elvis.
Similarly, Hip-Hop was pioneered by Black artists in the South Bronx like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five but the genre was brought to the mainstream by the white, blonde Ms. Debby Harry of the pop-rock band, Blondie. Blondie’s hit song, Rapture, was indeed the very first pop song to incorporate Hip-Hop elements to reach number one on the charts in America. You read that right – the very first number one hit Hip-Hop song was not performed by a Black person or a Person of Color but by a blonde, White woman.
Even forms of dancing that were created by Black folks were later co-opted by White people who popularized them. Voguing was created by queer black artists in Harlem but was later co-opted by Madonna with her number one hit song and its accompanying video, Vogue, while Miley Cyrus co-opted twerking, a type of dance created by Black women in the 1980s, and made it popular twenty-five years later.
So what’s the overall takeaway from all this? Well number one: White Americans have always stolen innovative ideas from Black Americans and popularized them. And number two: Hollywood steals just as much if not more so than any Indian film industry. Hence, the next time you hear some wiseass dismissing an Indian film by saying it’s a “copy-paste” or it’s a “sasta version of an American film’, remind them that one of people’s all-time favorite shows, F.R.I.E.N.D.S, is a complete and total rip-off of a Black show.
And that is the Double Truth, Ruth.
