The following are texts that I've used in teaching that contain passing
references to 'Friends'. Works with a primary focus on the series are
fewer. Additionaly it might be worth building a search around the term
"time porn" where references to 'Friends' are more frequent, alongside
mention of sitcoms such as 'Cheers' and 'Frasier'.

Television Women from Lucy to Friends : Fifty Years of Sitcoms and Feminism
by Lynn C. Spangler

Empire's New Clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri
by Paul A. Passavant, Jodi Dean
(The above deals with 'Friends' and race, but only in passing)

Bitch : In Praise of Difficult Women
by Elizabeth Wurtzel

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit
by Danny Goldberg

Blonde Like Me : The Roots of the Blonde Myth in Our Culture
by Natalia Ilyin

Working Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema
by Yvonne Tasker

Heroes, Monsters, and Messiahs
by Elizabeth Hirschman

The Future of Advertising : New Media, New Clients, New Consumers in the Post-Television Age
by Joe Cappo

Service Magic : The Art of Amazing Your Customers
by Chip Bell, Ron Zemke
(about the service industries but uses Central Perk as a model as I recall)

Good luck

Ian McKay






Su Holmes <[log in to unmask]>@BAMA.UA.EDU> on 10/27/2004 02:43:34 PM

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Subject:    [SCREEN-L] Sources on 'Friends'


Does anyone know of any good work on the sitcom 'Friends', as despite its
popularity, academic work seems thin on the ground?

Thanks!

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