“Friends” co-producer Malta Kaufmann “Embarrassment” Sitcom’s lack of diversity.Pledge $ 4 Million for African Studies

The woman behind “Friends” is trying to get things right.

In a new interview with Los Angeles TimesCo-author Marta Kaufmann addressed decades of criticism of the classic Sitcom about the lack of diversity between leads.

Read more: “Friends” co-creator Marta Kaufmann becomes emotional, admitting that “I didn’t do enough” to promote diversity at the show.

Kaufman’s view has changed in recent years, despite years of criticism feeling that he has unjustly selected “friends” and called them “difficult and frustrating.”

With that shift, she recently pledged $ 4 million to her home school, Brandeis University, and set up a professorship donated to the school’s African-American Studies Department.

“I’ve learned a lot in the last 20 years,” she explained. “It’s not easy to admit and accept guilt. It’s hard to see yourself in the mirror. It’s embarrassing because I didn’t really understand 25 years ago.”

It was the recent calculations of racism and police violence against blacks that influenced Kaufman’s change in thinking about this issue.

“After what happened to George Floyd, I started wrestling with adopting systematic racism in ways I didn’t realize,” she said. “It was really the moment I started looking at how I participated. At that time I knew I needed to fix the course.”

Read more: Marta Kaufmann, co-creator of “Friends”, blames “my own ignorance” for the lack of diversity in the show.

Last year’s “Friends” reunion made some special criticisms for not responding to that criticism, but Kaufman said, “I don’t know how the two were related. And I’m also myself. I don’t know how we could do everything wrong and deal with it in the context of that reunion, and there were others. “

She added a $ 4 million pledge. “In this case, I’m finally putting money literally where my mouth is.”

“I only got love. It was great. I was a little surprised because I didn’t expect the news to be so widespread,” Kaufman said of how to receive the donations. I’m just an email to help. And texts and posts flooded in. I got a lot of “it’s about time”. It never makes sense. It’s just people who admit that it’s been postponed for a long time. “