700 words essay
annallee
May the Circle Stay Unbroken: Friends, the Presence of Absence, and the Rhetorical Reinforcement of Whiteness Phil Chidester
Whiteness has been broadly conceived as a subject position that is discursively negotiated
and maintained, yet rarely explicitly addressed in the social discourse. The television
series Friends demonstrates how media texts as largely visual forms of rhetoric function
to reinforce notions of racial identity without overtly speaking race. Presenting the closed
circle as a visual metaphor, Friends turns to the presence of absence to achieve two
rhetorical aims: to perpetuate whiteness as a subjectivity that claims an exclusive racial
position, and to defend whiteness’ perceived purity through active exclusion of Others.
Keywords: Whiteness; Rhetoric; Visual; Absence; Friends
Midway through ‘‘The One With the Monkey’’ (1994), an episode from the first
season of NBC’s enduringly popular sitcom Friends, Rachel enjoys a rare glimpse of
the racial Other through the screen of Chandler and Joey’s living room television set.
Typically naive, she is visibly startled by what the small screen reveals to her. In a
storyline that carries over into future episodes, Ross’s monkey, Marcel, has used
the remote control to switch the set’s audio channel to the Spanish setting, and none
among the program’s core group of acquaintances has yet to figure out how to change
it back. In familiar Friends fashion, the characters have come to deal with this minor
problem by largely ignoring it*that is, until Rachel makes her wide-eyed discovery. Paying only halfhearted attention to the linguistically unintelligible goings-on of
Phil Chidester is an assistant professor in the School of Communication at Illinois State University.
Correspondence to: 434 Fell Hall, Campus Box 4480, Normal, IL 61790-4480, USA. Email: [email protected].
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 annual conference of the Association for Educators in
Journalism and Mass Communication, San Antonio, TX. The paper is also based in part on the author’s 2002
master’s thesis, written at the University of Kansas (thesis advisor Dr. Shannon B. Campbell). The author would
like to thank Dr. Eric King Watts and the anonymous CSMC reviewers for their insightful comments and
valuable suggestions regarding previous drafts of this essay.
ISSN 1529-5036 (print)/ISSN 1479-5809 (online) # 2008 National Communication Association
DOI: 10.1080/15295030802031772
Critical Studies in Media Communication
Vol. 25, No. 2, June 2008, pp. 157�174
fellow sitcom Family Matters, the Friends heartthrob happens to hear the familiar
name of the program’s ubiquitous nerd character rise above the group’s conversa-
tional chatter. Her general disinterest is suddenly transformed into insightful cultural
commentary.
‘‘Hey!’’ she exclaims to no-one in particular. ‘‘‘Urkel’ in Spanish is ‘Urkel!’’’ Rachel’s
observation is indicative of many such revelations of racial and cultural difference (or,
conversely, of what is consistently presented as a surprising lack of difference) that are
common elements in contemporary media texts in general and in works of television
entertainment in particular. Just as familiar to scholars are critical analyses that
interrogate the potential influences of race-focused media content on the perceptions
and opinions of entire generations of viewers, listeners, and readers. The field is
replete with examples of research that focuses on the ways in which such fare may
shape and reinforce both white audiences’ perceptions of the racialized Other and of
marginalized audience members’ perceptions of themselves as raced beings. 1
Still, few
researchers have considered the extent to which consumption of racialized media
products might speak to and reinforce white audiences’ perceptions of themselves as
white people and of whiteness as a subject position of stubbornly enduring power and
privilege in contemporary U.S. society (e.g., Dyer, 1988; C. Jackson, 2000; Tierney,
2006; Weigman, 1999).
This persistent gap in the literature on media and racial representation is probably
due to a number of factors. Chief among these is whiteness’s fundamentally
paradoxical character as a racial marker. While researchers tend to agree that race
in general and whiteness in particular are discursive concepts (Bonilla-Silva, 1999;
Dyer, 1988; Nakayama & Krizek, 1995), they also concur that whiteness as a racial
position is able to maintain a sense of centrality in contemporary American racial
politics precisely because it remains largely invisible and unspoken (Crenshaw, 1997;
Nakayama & Krizek, 1995; Pope-Davis & Ottavi, 1994). As R. Jackson (1999) notes,
whiteness presents itself as being open to examination at the same time that it refuses
to be interrogated*a result that produces and sustains what is a highly ambivalent marker of racial identification. Much of the rhetorical power of whiteness is founded
in its ability to avoid any explicit statements about or claims to racial centrality. It is a
perpetual silence that resists any critical study of whiteness’s social instantiation and
rhetorical influence.
A second, related force discourages critical analysis of the hegemonic perpetuation
of whiteness in contemporary media texts. This force is a modernist insistence on
presence as the carrier of meaning and influence. This mode of thinking holds that
texts that are free of overt or explicit references to race simply cannot communicate
racial meanings. However, such an approach clearly ignores or even denies the extent
to which the absence of overtly racial depiction and discourse may function
rhetorically. The result is a critical approach that has largely failed to ‘‘abolish the
(usually unquestioned and unseen) everyday social norms, values and structures
through which whiteness, as a privileged cultural construction, is maintained’’
(Shome, 2000, p. 367).
158 P. Chidester
Still, a political climate in the late 1990s and the early 21st century that has paid
increased attention to issues of racial parity in the U.S. has threatened to disrupt
whiteness’s comfortable, silent centrality. In the process, this climate has also forced
the subject position to speak itself more actively as part of the burgeoning national
discourse on race (Giroux, 1997; Kennedy, 1996; Madison, 1999; Rowe & Lindsey,
2003). As a consequence, an already fundamentally paradoxical racial marker has
found itself in a most untenable position. Whiteness today faces an urgent need to
speak while at the same time defending its historically-grounded privilege of silence.
It attempts to reinforce its claim to centrality against mounting challenges from both
critical and popular camps without engaging in the kinds of overt racial discourse
that would only contribute to the on-going cultural ‘‘outing’’ of whiteness as a
structure of privilege and power.
To understand how whiteness as a marker of identity and difference has come to
respond to such a daunting conceptual and cultural challenge, it is necessary first to
recognize the decidedly symbolic, even rhetorical character of this racial marker. As a
socially constructed subject position (Bonilla-Silva, 1999; Ferber, 1998; Shome, 2000),
whiteness is a tool through which individuals and groups mark difference as part of
the on-going struggle to ‘‘categorize people and understand their social locations’’
(Crenshaw, 1997). Because whiteness does function as a marker of identity and
difference that is founded in and perpetuated through social discourse (Nakayama &
Krizek, 1995), it becomes important to examine the rhetorical character of this racial
position.
Dyer (1988) argues that considering whiteness as a largely visual rhetoric is a vital
step in interrogating its power. The author contends that whiteness is an expression
of hegemonic force (Gramsci, 1971) that exerts control and dominance over related
racial subjectivities while at the same time deflecting any attention to its own position
and function within the overall social fabric. In doing so, whiteness continues to
assert itself through distinctly visual forms of discourse. However, far from merely
exerting a claim to dominance by presenting itself openly and consistently as a
privileged racial position, Dyer (1988) claims that whiteness’s complex visual rhetoric
echoes the paradoxical nature of whiteness itself. Whiteness desires to be seen as
object, yet insists on remaining invisible as subject. In other words, whiteness resists
the kind of intense scrutiny that might result in its becoming effectively fixed to a
specific position and revealed as a system of privilege and power (Nakayama &
Krizek, 1995). In sum, Dyer (1988) argues that whiteness uses the visual both to
assert itself and to recede into the background when necessary. It is a rhetorical tool
that can claim immense range and influence precisely because it is so difficult to affix
to any single communicative text or set of discourses.
Finally, if whiteness consistently affirms and reinforces its claim to racial centrality
and superiority in part through a distinctly visual discourse, then the absence of such
symbolic markers might also communicate distinct meanings, particularly in
moments when these symbols are expected. A number of scholars concur that
absence can function rhetorically in mediated texts (e.g., Entman & Rojecki, 2000;
Fiske, 1994; Nakayama & Krizek, 1995), but it is Scott’s (1993) discussion of
Circle 159
rhetorical silence that suggests a means through which discursive as well as visual
absences can come to function rhetorically. According to Scott, all silences are not
created equal. If silence is simply an absence of sound, it cannot communicate; only
what is present is able to carry meaning. However, Scott argues, silence can be made
present if it is made to occur in a moment when speech is expected*when silence becomes an intention rather than a simple absence of sound. Silence becomes
rhetorical when it is a conscious choice on the part of the rhetor, and when that
choice is made evident to and is understood by those for whom the silence is made
present.
At first glance, most of today’s television content would seem to be wholly silent on
issues of race*to be largely free of overt racial content or even of more implicit messages about race. However, occasional seams in the fabric of our contemporary
hegemonic discourse on race reveal the continuing, almost desperate need of
whiteness to disguise its centrality, if only from itself*and if only as a means to assuage white Americans’ guilt at claiming and occupying a position of unearned
racial privilege. This essay argues that one of the most popular television sitcoms of
the late 1990s is both evidence of just such a rupture in the ‘‘smooth’’ contemporary
discourse on race and a compelling example of the implementation of rhetorical
absence as presence as an argument in favor of whiteness’s continued centrality and
privilege. It is my contention that, for a significant body of viewers, Friends’
popularity is rooted not only in the program’s value as a source of entertainment, but
in its efforts to defend whiteness’s hegemonic privilege in contemporary America.
Following Watts (2005), who argues that Eminem’s emergence on the hip-hop scene
represents an overt claim to the value of white authenticity, I contend that any
number of contemporary media texts have made similar, if less blatantly overt,
assertions in recent years about whiteness’s enduring worth as a subject position.
Friends is a media text replete with such claims to the authenticity and power of
whiteness as a racial subjectivity.
In this essay, I contend that Friends incorporates the closed circle as a core visual
metaphor to represent whiteness as a marker of privilege, and that it does so in two
crucial ways. First, the sitcom reinforces whiteness’s exclusive freedom to convert its
public spaces to private ones; and second, it argues for whiteness’s continued right
(and concurrent responsibility) to maintain its core sense of purity against racial
outsiders by limiting and regulating contacts with the racialized Other. This process
refuses to acknowledge the very real outcomes that accrue to racial difference in
contemporary American society. Locating Friends’ rhetorical power in this way speaks
to what we understand of the role of a largely visual rhetoric in a media-saturated
culture, and to the ways in which whiteness persists in its claim to a central position
in America’s racial discourse, even as that position is progressively assailed on every
side. Further, I argue that NBC executives’ conscious decision to locate Friends in the
same Thursday evening ‘‘viewing strip’’ (Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983) as fellow sitcom
Seinfeld has itself served to shape viewers’ perceptions of whiteness. The juxtaposition
of the two programs invites viewers to read Friends’ statements on racial difference
through the lens of absence as a form of presence. The messages about race that
160 P. Chidester
emerge from a viewing of the two programs in contrast, I conclude, reveal the extent
to which network production decisions shape and reinforce persistent notions of
racial difference and privilege. It should be noted that it is not my intent to reshape
the already existing and excellent literature on whiteness as a largely rhetorical subject
position but, rather, to reveal the extent to which popular cultural texts contribute to
the ongoing social discourse that continually shapes and reinforces what we know
about and how we live race in the day-to-day. In particular, I contend that while the
attention that is paid to texts that explicitly speak race is important and valued, more
scrutiny is needed of texts that more implicitly forge our notions of race and racial
difference. It is also vital to interrogate the ways in which these texts interrelate to
create a web of meanings through which audiences come to see and understand their
own experiences, including their perspectives on the enduring problem of race in
America today.
The Presence of Absence as a Rhetorical Construction in Friends
While the sitcom reached its zenith of popularity in the late 1990s, Friends continues
to be a staple of audience consumption in households across America in the early 21st
century, providing the program with significant opportunities to influence viewers’
notions about race. The creation of Marta Kauffman and David Crane, Friends
reigned for years as the top comedy on network TV and the top program of any type
in its time slot. During its first four years of production, the sitcom received some 27
Emmy and three Golden Globe nominations, a Screen Actors Guild Award in 1996
for ‘‘Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Comedy Series,’’ and three People’s
Choice Awards (NBC, 2001). Even reruns of this beloved denizen of NBC’s Thursday
night lineup have received consistently high ratings. Tellingly, the program pulled in
31 million viewers just two days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against
the U.S. In the words of Bauder (2001), ‘‘[O]ne rival network executive likened
Friends to comfort food in troubled times and admitted he watched instead of his
network’s fare Thursday night’’ (p. 8A). As a pop cultural phenomenon capable of
transcending both familiarity and tragedy, Friends deserves critical attention as a
rhetorical artifact.
A promising avenue through which to understand Friends’ discourse on whiteness
as a racial subjectivity can be found in the program’s treatment of the racial Other as a
form of visual and discursive absence. As a sitcom that features a group of racially
and socio-economically homogeneous characters, Friends is no different than any
number of television texts that likewise unfold in situations marked by the absence of
the racial Other (Hunt, 2000). Because both America itself (Yousman, 2003) and the
world of television entertainment (Hunt, 2000) remain highly segregated spheres, the
typical white viewer is likely to find a good deal of formal and substantive fidelity
(Burke, 1968) in his or her consumption of Friends. In other words, for those who are
rarely confronted with racial difference in actual experience and who have come to
expect media content that is likewise free of references to race, episodes of Friends are
sure to ring true*even when the backdrop for the program’s brand of racial
Circle 161
homogeneity is New York City, which is perhaps the most racially diverse community
in the nation.
Friends’ ability to reinforce rhetorically a whiteness perceived by some to be under
siege would seem to be severely limited by its own understated treatment of race as
subject matter. Short of suddenly inserting overt statements of and discussions about
race into its weekly scripts*a move that would probably cost the program a good share of its devoted fans and, in the process, would actually reduce its rhetorical range
and impact*it would appear that Friends would have little to contribute to the scramble to bolster and defend a contemporary American whiteness. However, an
analysis of Friends as a series of thematically related media texts reveals that the
program does speak to notions of race and whiteness in two distinct ways. First, the
sitcom reinforces whiteness’s exclusive freedom to convert its public spaces to very
private ones. Second, it argues for whiteness’s continued right (and concurrent
responsibility) to maintain its core sense of purity against racial outsiders by denying
any significant contacts between whiteness and the racialized Other. Interrogation of
Friends’ various episodes also suggests that each of these racially-invested themes is
driven by a single, persistent visual message.
Visual Whiteness and the Closed Circle
The key visual metaphor that emerges through a viewing of numerous episodes of
Friends is that of the closed circle. This visual symbol is a necessary tool for the
sitcom to assert its message about the need actively to defend whiteness’s purity as a
racial marker. Without the symbol, viewers might assume that the group maintains
itself out of sheer circumstance or convenience. Instead, the visual instantiation of the
closed circle in Friends is a constant reminder, in the absence of any significant racial
threat to the group, that the characters are still vigilant against the Other as largely
unseen outsider. Although the domestic action in the sitcom tends to shuttle between
two private living spaces in the same building*a smaller apartment occupied by the program’s male characters and a larger apartment for the female characters across
the hall*the majority of these scenes are set in the latter. This apartment features not one but two arcs about which the friends may congregate: a round table in the
kitchen area, and a cluster of couches in the living room. The circle motif is also
picked up as the action moves to the sitcom’s other core stage setting*the wryly- entitled Central Perk, a Manhattan-based coffee shop. While business buzzes along
the bar in the background, the sitcom’s sextet of core characters joins in conversation
around an eerily familiar cluster of couches in the foreground.
An Equation of Public and Private Space
In serving as the dominant visual backdrop for the sitcom, these groupings of
furniture become the core of Friends’ visual comment on whiteness as a racial subject
position. The closed circle is incorporated into the argument in a number of highly
specific and potent ways. First, the purposive similarity between the cluster of
162 P. Chidester
couches in the female characters’ apartment and the group of couches in the coffee
shop suggests an easy conversion of public space to private space*a conversion that is simply not available to (or possible for) those who are marked as the racial Other. It
is telling how little the Friends’ behavior changes from apartment to coffee shop; the
characters engage in the same lively banter and personal barbs at either locale, hardly
stopping to take note of the many individuals who move about the outside of the
public circle. Effectively centered both visually and discursively, the characters have
no fear of these outsiders, or of the consequences that might accrue to their very
public venting of personal experiences and concerns. On the few occasions when any
of the individual stars of the sitcom are censured for a statement or misdeed, the
reprimand is invariably an internal one; the culprit is taken to task not for violating a
larger social norm, but for violating the inner group’s expectations.
The arrogance of the Friends’ claim to the right to translate private behaviors into
the public sphere is revealed in its full complexity when the sitcom is viewed in
relation to its counterpart in NBC’s Thursday evening lineup. While both sitcoms
actively blend private and public storylines and experiences, the Seinfeld crew is much
more wont to censor its public displays. In one memorable episode, the staff actually
banishes George from Monk’s, the Seinfeld equivalent of Central Perk. Such an
expatriation would be all but unthinkable in Friends, so closely have the characters
been tied to the eatery as an expression of their centrality. As contrasted with the
atmosphere and action on Seinfeld, the episodes of Friends as a pattern of meaning
represent a compelling argument in favor of whiteness’ ability to claim a medial
position in contemporary life. It is a claim that extends into the public sphere as a
privilege unique to whiteness.
A Boundary Under Patrol
A second instantiation of the closed circle in Friends emphasizes the extent to which
the circle serves as a visual boundary between included and excluded, as a perimeter
to be doggedly defended against anyone who might challenge the in-group’s physical
solidarity and cultural unity. The circle as racial metaphor echoes Sleeter’s (1996)
description of white racial bonding as ‘‘interactions that have the purpose of
affirming a common stance on race-related issues, legitimating particular interpreta-
tions of oppressed groups, and drawing we�they boundaries’’ (p. 261). In other words, at least some level of interaction with the racial Other becomes necessary in
order for the in-group to recognize and appreciate its own racial ‘‘purity’’ and
cohesion. If the threat of the Other is largely absent, as it is in Friends, then such a
sense of unity and sameness requires an even more vehement defense in order to
produce a semblance of in-group similarity and belonging.
Just as whiteness itself remains silent and invisible in contemporary American
society until it is assailed by some exterior force, so too is the Friends’ metaphorical
circle rendered clearly visible and meaningful only in moments of challenge. And
such menaces are not the exclusive domain of outsiders; Ross in particular is a
character who constantly threatens the stability of the group by introducing new
Circle 163
elements to the circle. It is interesting to note that these occasional interlopers rarely
present the possibility of a complete breakdown of the group’s internal (racial)
homogeneity and cohesion. An excellent case in point can be found in ‘‘The One
With the Breast Milk’’ (1995), an episode from the sitcom’s second season. In a carry-
over storyline from previous episodes, Rachel finds herself struggling to deal with the
fact that Ross, her on-again, off-again love interest, seems to be getting along too well
with his new girlfriend, Julie. That Julie is Asian American is a fact that is never
explicitly broached by any of the characters. The failure to note such an obvious
difference is an important means of reinforcing the program’s verbal silence on all
matters racial.
Such a refusal to speak race becomes even more noticeable with the introduction of
Aisha Tyler to the cast in 2003. While much was made in the popular press of NBC
executives’ decision to include an African American character in the regular Friends
cast for the first time, no mention is ever made of the character’s race in the actual
sitcom, despite the fact that neither Joey nor Ross had ever been romantically linked
to an African American woman during the sitcom’s run. Interestingly, the core cast
members seem to go to great pains not to discuss Tyler’s racial difference; Rachel
instead limits her predictable jealous barbs to a comment about the black woman’s
height. However, if the characters’ verbal statements manage to steer carefully away
from any recognition of Tyler’s racial difference, her visual exclusion from the group’s
circle speaks volumes about her perceived value as Other. Tyler’s Charlie does manage
to insert herself twice into the coffee-shop scene during her short run on the
program, but on both occasions she is joined by only a few members of the central
cast. She is allowed to interact with members of the core circle, in other words, but
never to be seen as belonging to that group of insiders as a whole. Finally, Tyler’s
departure from the sitcom after just a few episodes met with almost no reaction or
discussion from either the sitcom characters themselves or from network executives.
Again, the refusal to speak race, as Scott (1993) would argue, is made evident through
such dramatic visual encounters with the racial Other.
In comparison to Charlie’s active visual exclusion from the center, Julie does
manage to breach the perimeter*but the viciousness with which she is treated as an interloper, particularly in comparison to other (white) women Ross dates in these
episodes, speaks to a threat well beyond her presence as a simple substitute for
Rachel’s affections. ‘‘The One With the Breast Milk’’ (1995) begins with Julie seated at
one of the couches in Central Perk. Invited to enter (and thus to join) the circle of
friends by Ross, Julie’s welcome by the rest of the group is awkward at best; in the
opening scene, a gaping space on the couch between Julie and Monica speaks of the
insiders’ discomfort with the newcomer. Still, Julie does her best to ingratiate herself
with the rest of the friends, to close the physical/rhetorical space on the cushions. She
offers to get muffins for everyone, and even re-ties Rachel’s apron strings as she passes
by on her way to the counter. Rachel, however, is anything but impressed by these
gestures of friendship. As soon as Julie is out of earshot, Rachel responds to the
niceties with a snippy, under-the-breath, ‘‘What a bitch!’’ This bitter assessment is
picked up again in the episode’s final scene, as Julie and Rachel sit alone in the coffee
164 P. Chidester
shop. Ross’s new love interest openly admits that she is somewhat intimidated by
Rachel as a former romantic interest of her new boyfriend, and expresses a hope that
she and Rachel can become friends. Following such a heartfelt appeal, Rachel’s
response is somehow both startlingly blunt and completely expected. The instant Julie
is out of earshot, Rachel exclaims, ‘‘What a manipulative bitch!’’
Such openly verbal rejections of this potential violator of the Friends’ closely-
guarded internal purity are intensified by the visual nature of Julie’s difference as a
marker of her non-belonging. Over the course of the series, a number of white
romantic interests are easily and freely welcomed into the circle by both male and
female members of the group; although Rachel in particular expresses to various
degrees her feelings of jealousy over Ross’s dalliance with other women, the brunt of
her fury is reserved for Julie. Rachel’s verbal anger serves as a compelling
reinforcement of the visual message of the episode*that the need to maintain the racial purity of the inner circle requires not only the visual expulsion of the Other, but
an accompanying verbal rejection of such a clear threat.
Rachel’s vicious treatment of Julie might be read as nothing more than a fit of
jealous rage against a perceived romantic rival. However, it is difficult to discount the
expressly racial quality of the encounter, or the extent to which Rachel’s presented
value as a woman is tied to her worth as the visual ideal of the white woman, the
blonde, pale-skinned beauty who has so often served in visual media texts as the
source of desire for the red-blooded American male (Dyer, 1988). To be supplanted
by a woman who so clearly fails to meet this ideal not only threatens Rachel as an
individual; such a violation by the Other challenges the very fabric of racial
heterosexual desire upon which a sense of white privilege has so long been based.
Viewed through this lens, Rachel’s inability to ‘‘get over’’ Ross and move on to more
attractive male conquests is suddenly rendered wholly predictable, even rational, as
an attempt to defend the purity of the inner circle against ‘‘contamination’’ by the
Other.
Freedom From Contact With the Other
Rachel’s vehement reaction to this seemingly harmonious encounter with the racial
Other, particularly when that Other has been strangely cleansed of all but the vestiges
of difference (Julie’s character in the episode is accent-free, sports an ‘‘Americanized’’
name, and displays no cultural markers in dress or behavior), also points to an
extended function of the closed circle in the sitcom*that of preventing any potentially sullying contact with racial outsiders. As one of the sitcom’s most beloved
characters, Joey Tribiani fills a pivotal role in this regard. The only regular cast
member to display any clear racial/ethnic characteristics, Joey’s stereotypical Italian
beefcake, and his often stumbling, awkward efforts to meet the standards and
expectations of his social group, become the markings of a liminal personality
(hooks, 1990). Joey’s character serves as a visible boundary between what is white and
what is not quite white, between what is acceptable to the in-group and what must be
ultimately rejected in order to maintain the purity of what lies within. As the extreme
Circle 165
limit of the group’s tolerance for racial difference, Joey is always on the verge of being
turned away by the cluster of friends. His is a constant cycle of transgression and
punishment, of learning to tame his natural tendencies to behave inappropriately
based on his own racial impurities.
An excellent example of this boundary can be found in ‘‘The Pilot’’ (1994). The
action opens, as is often the case in Friends, in Central Perk. As the rest of the gang
shares stories, Rachel stumbles into the coffee shop in her wedding gown,
announcing that she has just abandoned her would-be husband at the altar. Within
minutes, Joey has turned on his Italian charm and made a play for the distraught
Rachel. Chastened by Monica with the news, ‘‘You don’t hit on a girl on her wedding
day,’’ Joey is left to slump away from the circle and pout in a corner by himself.
Coupled with this and numerous other examples of Joey’s ‘‘inappropriate’’ sexual
mores are moments in the sitcom when the character’s unrefined social skills*also implicitly linked to his liminal nature as a not-quite-white male*fit him awkwardly at best within the collective. Matt LeBlanc’s character is constantly chided, for
example, for his lack of intellectual sophistication and his failure to keep a job* qualities that distance him from the more accomplished (and therefore more worthy)
members of the collective of friends. Again, the visual representation of the circle as a
closely-patrolled core of behavioral (racial) purity uses Joey as a vivid example of
what belongs and what does not. Over the course of the sitcom’s run, Joey learns
precisely what it means to belong to the in-group. In the process, we as viewers are
taught these enduring lessons as well.
A final example from the sitcom’s fourth season demonstrates the extent to which
Friends’ presence of absence as a form of rhetorical silence speaks to whiteness’s
privilege as a subject position: the privilege of sealing oneself off from any interaction
with the racial Other. In ‘‘The One With All the Haste’’ (1998), Rachel and Monica
continue to deal with the fallout of an ill-fated bet that led to them swapping
apartments with Chandler and Joey. Rachel’s discomfort with the new living space is
compounded by the fact that she is regularly awakened by an unseen man in the
neighboring apartment building who belts out a ‘‘morning song’’ at the top of his
lungs. Finally fed up with the intrusion, Rachel flings open her window one morning,
only to discover a well-dressed black man making the final adjustments to an
expensive silk tie as he sings. True to Friends form, nothing is ever explicitly said of
the cantor’s race; Rachel only stares in surprise at the man for an awkward moment
or two, and then turns away to begin her own morning preparations. In the absence
of any direct conversation about this rare encounter with the racial Other, Monica’s
agreement with Rachel later on in the episode, ‘‘This place is a hole,’’ can be read
by the audience in a number of ways. The characters may be simply complaining
about the cramped conditions of their new quarters; or they may, in fact, be giving
voice to their unease at suddenly being forced to make contact with those outside the
closed circle. This conclusion speaks quite compellingly to a sense of experiential
privilege that has always accompanied whiteness as a racial marker.
Through the consistent visual metaphor of the closed circle, Friends argues for
whiteness’s continued privilege of confounding private and public spaces, for the
166 P. Chidester
racial position’s need to protect the boundary between insider and outsider, and for
its inherent right to avoid contact with the racial Other in order to maintain such a
state of purity. Still, two additional brief observations are also necessary in order to
understand the full rhetorical potential of Friends as a mediated treatise on race.
First, it is important to note the extent to which race and gender are juxtaposed in
these conversations. Throughout the sitcom’s episodes, it is the male characters who
most doggedly patrol the borders of the group while the women rest comfortably
inside; it is the male characters who respond to any threat from the outside by
encouraging internal (perhaps even incestuous) romantic relationships with the
female characters*relationships that prevent the Friends women from becoming too attached to the Other. Thus, any attempt to consider the range of meanings generated
by the sitcom must also include considerations of gender (and of class as well, as any
number of the episodes would suggest).
Second, to contend that the core visual metaphor of Friends is the closed circle is to
ignore the fact that the circle is not visually closed at all. In the case of both the
apartment couches and the couches in Central Perk, the furniture circle is open to the
screen; the viewer is visually invited to close the circle, to make up the fourth side of
the racial border to be patrolled and defended. Not enough can be made of the
rhetorical power of the invitation to identification (Burke, 1969) that this visual
consistently and persistently extends to the audience member. By simply suggesting to
the viewer that whiteness’s continued efficacy as a subject position requires his or her
active participation, Friends moves from serving as a comment on contemporary
racial patterns and mores to functioning as a veritable potent facet of that public
discourse.
Seinfeld as Viewing Lens
Recognizing that the context within which media texts are considered influences the
meanings that audiences attach to them suggests a second rhetorical strategy through
which these largely implicit messages on race can be made much more explicit and
potent. If Friends were somehow able to make its historic refusal to deal with issues of
racial parity even more clearly evident to its viewers, then the program could make a
significant contribution to the reinforcement of whiteness as a contemporary
American subject position. A conceptualization of meaning as arising through the
audience’s juxtaposition of various texts (Ott & Walter, 2000) provides just such an
opportunity for Friends to maintain its race-free ethos while at the same time joining
in the effort to mend the spreading rupture in whiteness’ civilized surface.
One such means of interrogating Friends’ visual racial discourse is by examining
the program through the lens of fellow NBC sitcom Seinfeld. When viewed as a
dialectical partner to the latter program, Friends’ presumed absence of racial
conversation is made wholly, significantly present to audiences. Such an approach
not only represents a fruitful means through which to understand the meanings
which viewers might attach to these sitcoms as rhetorical texts. It also provides a
method through which to read network executives’ programming decisions as forms
Circle 167
of political strategy. Linking these textual representations in viewers’ minds, I
contend, reveals a deliberate and consistent intention to maintain and reinforce status
quo perceptions of racial difference and privilege.
The meaning viewers may attach to Friends as a contemporary media document is
certainly not limited to their comparisons of the program to Seinfeld; the ultimate
significance of any text undoubtedly rests in its openness to the entire range of
available mediated texts, as well as to individual viewers’ own material experiences.
However, it is also important to consider the decidedly rhetorical nature of the
signifying process any program necessarily constructs and presents. Audiences
are always actively invited to use particular texts as lenses through which to interpret
the messages they consume, and likewise to ignore other text-lenses through which
they might interpret these messages (Ott & Walter, 2000). This process is put into
play in different ways by different audiences; those with broader cultural and
mediated experiences apply much more expansive lenses to the process of
interpretation than those with more limited exposure. Many viewers of color, for
example, might conclude from the perspective of their own material experiences that
the two distinct forms of racial discourse presented by Friends and Seinfeld are merely
two sides of the same white racist coin, with Seinfeld representing enduring patterns
of explicit racism in America today and Friends standing in for a more politically
correct*yet still pervasive*form of implicit, unspoken racism. Still, while Friends might be understood through a comparison with any number of related television
programs, I contend that the viewers who stand to be most influenced by Friends’
visual discourse on race*namely, those who are (perhaps only subconsciously) seeking a mediated reinforcement of hegemonic notions of whiteness*are encour- aged in any number of ways to read and understand Friends in a highly specific
manner. Rather than seeing the program’s racial homogeneity as an anomaly when
viewed in the context of racially diverse dramas, these viewers are invited to juxtapose
the program against another media text that deals with race in a highly unusual way.
In the process, viewers are invited to see Friends not as an unrealistic picture of
contemporary race relations, but rather as an idyllic setting free of any explicit
discourse on race or accusations of racial domination, a safe media haven for those
viewers most heavily invested in preserving a sense of whiteness as an unspoken
marker of privilege.
Utilizing Seinfeld as an interpretive tool for deriving racial meanings from Friends
is an act that is encouraged in audiences in a number of ways. Foremost among these
is the programs’ placement on NBC’s broadcasting roster. Throughout its nine-year
run, Seinfeld served as the cornerstone of the broadcasting company’s ‘‘Must See TV’’
campaign. Five years after Seinfeld’s debut, Friends joined the fold, filling the 8 p.m.
time slot ahead of Seinfeld’s well-established 9 p.m. perch. The programs’ four-year
run together marked a period of phenomenal critical and financial success for the
network. In fact, so solid was the carry-over audience from Friends to Seinfeld that
NBC used the half-hour time slot in between the two as a launching pad for
numerous new sitcoms (Morreale, 2000). The very fact that legions of viewers
regularly consumed both Friends and Seinfeld as part of the same viewing strip
168 P. Chidester
(Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983) makes a joint reading of the programs by viewers a
significant likelihood.
A second quality inviting audience comparisons of the two programs is the fact
that both are set in contemporary New York City, and yet they treat the city as
backdrop in widely divergent ways. In contrast to Friends’ strangely homogenized
Gotham, Seinfeld’s NYC presents its characters with innumerable opportunities to
encounter and understand the racial Other. That the program’s characters are
generally smugly condescending or even dismissive of these encounters is hardly
the point. For Friends viewers who see the sitcom’s homogeneous whiteness as
reflective of both their own segregated material experience and of television’s highly
segregated landscape, Seinfeld is a reminder that Friends’ visual and verbal
racelessness is an anomaly of the first order. It is through the lens of Seinfeld that
Friends’ racial absence is made wholly, evidently present to viewers.
It is this ‘‘difference in similarity’’ that lends potency to Friends’ understated
treatment of race and racial difference. As but one example, while the sitcoms’
narratives both speak to the characters’ desires to maintain a cohesive group of
acquaintances, the Seinfeld crew seeks unity largely as a response to encroachment by
the racial Other. At times, the core characters recoil from others’ attitudes and
behaviors; at other times, they fetishize cultural and racial difference to such an extent
that the Other is effectively reduced to an object of derision, of almost morbid
fascination, or of pleasurable consumption (Watts & Orbe, 2002). Examples of this
treatment of the Other as a means through which to valorize the (white, pure) self
abound in the sitcom’s episodes. The series regulars react to the eccentricities of an
immigrant soup kitchen owner by quickly labeling him a ‘‘Nazi’’; Jerry encourages a
Pakistani restaurant owner to shift his menu to include only food from his native
country, then shrugs off any responsibility when the business fails; and Kramer is
happy to tuck his Japanese visitors into the drawers of his bedroom dresser for the
night. Elaine, for her part, is overjoyed to be dating a man simply because she thinks
he’s black*yet is disturbed to discover that he’s dating her because he thinks she’s Hispanic. And George’s character comes to represent a middle-class American
whiteness under siege, a subject position that valorizes its own centrality while at the
same time discounting its active participation in the marginalization and exploitation
of the Other. By directly and often forcefully responding to these claims to value in
difference by the racial and cultural Other, Seinfeld works to reveal and assert
whiteness’s own worth as a marker of identity. And as a lens through which to view
and understand Friends, the sitcom reaffirms not only whiteness’s claim to superiority
through these open encounters with the Other, but also its ability to maintain a safe
distance from the Other when necessary or desired.
In contrast, the Friends crew extols belonging as a natural desire to be with like
others. The difference is telling. In the absence of any racial Others as threats to the
group’s inner unity, the Friends characters are left to defend the borders of the in-
group against even the most benign of possible interlopers, and with a ferocity that
seems out of keeping with the explicitly-stated reason for the group’s composition. If
this is simply a group of friends, after all, why refuse to include anyone new in the
Circle 169
group? It is only when the racial quality of the group is made present through
the viewing strip juxtaposition with Seinfeld, one of few contemporary sitcoms to
actively and regularly depict whiteness’s encounters with the racial Other, that the
motive behind the Friends’ careful patrolling of the group perimeter is made clear
to the viewer, and the program’s contribution to the reinforcement of whiteness is
made evident. Audiences’ proximate viewing of Friends and Seinfeld provides a telling
reminder of the former program’s purposive racial homogeneity as a media text.
Once this understanding has been established through viewing strip exposure of
Friends to the intertextual influence of Seinfeld, Friends is free to generate and
reinforce its own messages about the centrality and value of whiteness as a hegemonic
subject position.
Conclusions and Implications
It is difficult to argue against Friends’ potential to contribute in a significant way to
the overall visual/cultural web that continues to enable whiteness’s mute, pervasive
privilege in contemporary American society. Neither is it easy to dismiss the
potentially useful insights that are gleaned when critics consider the broader themes
generated when audiences read individual media texts through the lenses of other
texts. It is vital to investigate the persuasive power that is brought into play when
media executives invite, and when viewers themselves work to create, media
environments that serve to reinforce their own perceptions of and ideas about
important social issues.
To argue that Friends may serve, at least in part, to reinforce perceptions of
whiteness’s centrality as a racial subjectivity among some viewers is to contend that
there is some benefit to be gained from such efforts. The advantages to media
producers and performers are clear: offering attractive products to audiences,
regardless of the nature of the interests that are activated and reinforced by the
products themselves, cannot help but boost a company’s bottom line. Further,
reading executives’ decisions through the textual representations they produce and
market reveals the extent to which they are invested in reinforcing comfortable*and profitable*status quo social norms, including perceptions of race and racial difference. But what of the viewers who are drawn to such racially-centered media
fare? For those who are most heavily invested in the idea of whiteness as a marker of
racial privilege (Gibson, 1996), Friends represents, in times of perceived racial turmoil
and challenge, a glimpse of what whiteness as identity was once thought to be. It is
also an image of what some would argue that whiteness should continue to signify in
contemporary times as well. For those who have felt little advantage in a white racial
identification in their own material experiences, the sitcom promises an opportunity
to continue to claim centrality (and privilege) on the basis of skin color alone. As
Brooks and Rada (2002) note, media messages on race tend to reinforce whiteness
not only as a central racial position but also as a standard philosophical site. In other
words, white people’s positions on issues are consistently presented as the expected,
rational point of view. Thus, to embrace whiteness’s centrality as a white person is
170 P. Chidester
also to argue that one’s social and political views are the most correct ones. Further,
open identification with mediated characters would seem to aid at least some viewers
in transcending a fractured sense of self and forging a strong identity as group
member (Gresson, 1978). It is easy to see how white viewers with little sense of
personal achievement could gain from such a deliberate reinforcement of whiteness as
a source of group identity.
If whiteness seems to afford few benefits in the day-to-day lives of many viewers,
Thursday evenings offered for nearly a decade a cherished opportunity to see race as
power, if only in brief 30-minute installments. Considering the contributions of
Friends and other television fare to this reinforcement of perceptions of whiteness as a
subject position, then, is also to acknowledge the considerable forces that stand in the
way of our society’s efforts to deal effectively with enduring patterns of racial
discrimination and violence. It is a powerful motive for scholars to continue to
interrogate mediated treatments of race in contemporary America.
As an essay more concerned with examining the rhetorical processes engaged by
the episodes of Friends than with considering the actual effects of viewing on the
sitcom’s legions of rabid fans, this effort has sought to encourage greater awareness of
and attention to visual messages as they variously reinforce, contradict, and diverge
from mediated products’ verbal content. At the same time, as a text emerging itself
from a material and symbolic society that remains highly segregated in nature, this
analysis of Friends has worked to reveal the ways in which both material reality and
mediated symbol may continue to resist racial understanding and cooperation by
insisting on an essentialist, polar view of race as difference (Flores & Moon, 2002;
McPhail, 1994; Rockler, 2002). Finally, by actively questioning the network decisions
that so actively reinforce viewers’ conceptions of whiteness, this essay has invited
further interrogation of the political economic production of media texts. It is hoped
that this and other revelations of media messages’ complicity in furthering the racial
divide may be a useful step in achieving some measure of racial understanding in
contemporary America.
Note
[1] See, for example, Armstrong (1992), Berg (1998), Bernardi (1997), Binder (1993), Bogle
(1992), Calafell and Delgado (2004), Campbell (1995), Cloud (1992), Dixon and Linz
(2000), Domke (1996), Entman and Rojecki (2000), Fitzgerald (1991), Gandy (2001), Gray
(1989, 1993), Hall (1995), Hochschild (1995), hooks (1997), Jeffres (2000), Lipsitz (1986),
Manatu-Rupert (2000), Myers (2004), Pan and Kosicki (1996), Prosise and Johnson (2004),
Wellman (1997), and Wilcox (1996).
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