Does 'Friends' promote incest? Turkish daily blurs bare arms of Phoebe, Rachel and Monica over 'homosexuality'
Yeni Akit, a Turkish daily, has a reputation for being ultra-conservative, which favors Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the authoritarian President of the country. The newspaper, reportedly, has a long track record of being anti-Semitic and homophobic. It has once again stirred controversy by attempting to censor a poster for the sitcom ‘Friends’, the ‘90s pop culture phenomenon.
The bare arms of actors Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, and Lisa Kudrow -- who play Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe on the show -- have been blurred out in an article in the conservative daily about the show. But, that is not the most disturbing part.
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After Netflix Turkey reportedly announced that it would be adding the globally-popular TV show that ran for ten seasons from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004 to its streaming catalog from April 1, Yeni Akit came out in protest against the idea.
The article claimed that Netflix hoped to target Turkey’s youth with a “depraved TV show” that will allegedly inject the young men and women of the country with ideas of "homosexuality, incest, infidelity, sexual scenes, drugs, and child abuse". The article claims that Netflix is part of a coordinated attempt to degenerate Muslim society by legitimizing “immoral behavior”.
The article also demanded that RTUK (Radio and Television Supreme Council), the Turkish state agency which monitors and regulates the media, step in and stop Netflix from airing the series in Turkey. ‘Friends’, while having featured gay and trans characters, has been overwhelmingly a heterosexual show -- to the point where its aggressive heteronormativity has often been criticized in recent years.
But incest has never been a theme on the show ever -- barring two episodes. One was when David Schwimmer’s character Ross was sexually attracted to a distant cousin. There was also an episode where Ross and Monica (played by Courtney Cox) realize that they had once kissed each other by mistake at a drunken college party. Drugs and child abuse have also not been featured as themes in the comedy series.
But Yeni Akit’s stance -- one that is so severe -- comes as no surprise. In the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting that unfolded in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016, Yeni Akit published a disturbing headline that read, "Death toll rises to 50 in bar where perverted homosexuals go”.
In 2008, Yeni Akit reportedly printed a story titled "Üskül prefers perverts," about Zafer Üskül, the head of Parliamentary Human Rights Commission at the time after he attended an "International Anti-Homophobia Meeting" organized by KAOS GL, a leading support LGBT advocacy group in the country.
KAOS GL filed a lawsuit against Yeni Akit, seeking compensation for the headline and the related piece. But the lawsuits were rejected by two Ankara courts on the grounds that the newspaper was "within the limits of criticism." But the High Court of Appeals later overruled the decisions of the two courts, saying, "The freedom of the press does not encompass the freedom to insult the personal freedoms of individuals."
‘Friends', created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, has been nominated for 62 Primetime Emmy Awards -- it won the Outstanding Comedy Series award in 2002 -- was ranked no. 21 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, and no. 7 on Empire magazine's The 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.