The Flawed Friends Format

The series Friends (1994-2004) was widely regarded as one of the most popular TV shows of the last decades. Although Cheers (1982-1993) may be considered the first to use the specific format, Friends became an international success, providing confidence and security for new adaptations. Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place (1998- 2001), That 70s Show (1998-2006), How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014), The Big Bang Theory (2007-), and perhaps even South park (1997-), are based on the same concept and have been thriving. So what is it that makes Friends & Co so popular?

The engine of ‘The Flawed Friends Format’, as we dubbed it, is a group of misfits who live together in a family-like manner. Although Friends usually is described as ‘a couple of friends hanging out in a coffee place’, there is much more behind this TV show. The characters, all flawed in some way (Rachel is a spoiled rich kid, Monica is neurotic, Chandler has trouble with the ladies and Joey isn’t very bright), have found a family like relationship within their group of friends. Their relations with their actual families, however, are often disrupted. In this sense, the ‘Flawed Friends Format’ is a product of Western individualism. First, the nuclear family used to be the cornerstone of Western society, but in the last decades it is normal that children are moving out, to live in ‘the big city’. This has eroded the relationships with the parents and friendships have taken its place.

Eventually, most viewers can identify with the characters and their problems: even though the characters have specific traits that makes  them a certain ‘type’, they are complex and growing as their journey continues. The series secures their viewers that, even though they might have weird flaws or have had a troubled youth,  it is possible to become part of a great group of friends and be appreciated for being yourself. This way the show teaches social conventions, it instructs audiences. Viewers learn how to deal with a break up, with fights between best friends but also what to think of foreigners, homosexuality or monogamy.

As Friends was a product of the 1990s, it is good to question how other more recent formats have dealt with these social conventions. Friends, and also Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place, have,  in Tasha Orens terms, adopted a Martha Steward approach: they are very implicit or nuanced in pronouncing their critiques, jokes or sexual anecdotes (Oren: 2103). For example, they only depict references to nudity in the show and the most explicit sexual joke probably might just be ‘That’s what you get for licking my muffin’-when Monica is teasing Chandler for not being able to make a joke with his mouth full and referring to the act of Chandler actually licking Monica’s blueberry muffin. How I met Your Mother is in that case a much more explicit version. Instead of drinking coffee they drink beers, they use more explicit language and have a more radical way of living, but they still don’t show actual nudity and when they are smoking pot they are shown eating sandwiches. That 70s Show, which is more about youngsters in a decade where drugs, sex and conservatism lived side by side, has a more cynical and provocative tone, but Southpark has taken it to a whole different level. Here, they resemble Orens term of ‘the darker theatre of sado masochism’(Oren: 2013). As we can see, entertainment is highly political and The Flawed Friends format in general mostly wanders between uncritical populism and subversion. Southpark on the other hand, can be considered as radical subversion, using the Flawed Friend Format, with their terrible family encounters, as a basis for postmodern critique.

In the Netherlands Friends still circulates on TV every year. This raises several questions. Why does the Flawed Friends Format seem to fit so well in Dutch society, but haven’t we adapted the format here? Why do we use the American TV shows? Is it a sense of authenticity, the idea to watch the original version of the show, or do the Dutch channels try to reach a specific audience? And, would Friends work in other countries where the Western concept of individualism is not as prominent? How would they adapt it? Theoretics talk a lot about talk shows and reality television, but why don’t we take a look at these television series, as they have such a great impact in our social lives and attitudes.

Chalaby, J.K. (2011), ‘The making of an entertainment revolution: How the TV format trade became a global industry’, in: European Journal of Communication 26 (4), 2011, pp. 293-308.

Oren, T.  ‘On the Line: Format, Cooking and Competition as Television Values’, in: Critical Studies in Television 8 (2), pp. 20-35.

Meizel, K.  (2010), ‘The United Nations of Pop: Global Franchise and Geopolitics’, in: Idolized: Music, Media, and Identity in American Idol. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 192-219.