pivot
shut up shut up shut up this is friends
a beloved 90s three camera sitcom about
six friends in their 20s living in new
york city becoming romantically involved
and engaging in quintessential sitcom
hijinks do you guys think that the cops
are going to go through our stuff what
are you afraid of curtains let's just
steal a kiss and hide in an envelope
i have a bag of meth in my closet and
this is new girl a sitcom from the 2010s
about four friends in their 20s living
in los angeles becoming romantically
involved and engaging in quintessential
sitcom hijinks
is new girl secretly the same show as
friends yes but the reason might
surprise you the 90s had a specific tone
to the sitcoms that were produced during
that time yes the standard odd couple
dynamics were on full display but
overall the shows produced focused on
appealing to the slacker mentality
attributed to gen x youths of the day
shows about dead end jobs friend groups
with no real ambition and people just
struggling to keep their head above
water became the norm the comedy within
these shows took on a very yeah that's
cool shrug fest vibe friends created by
david crane and marta kaufman both
played into these tropes but also made
them palatable to a wide audience by
layering them with a sugary coating of
broad comedy attractive actors and a
heaping serving of earnestness the show
ran for 10 seasons became the most
popular program on tv and propelled its
six leads into cultural icons and then
911 happened and america changed forever
post september 11th americans didn't
want to see earnestness and popcorn
narratives the comedy that they accepted
and heralded as great from that point on
fell into one of two camps acidically
sarcastic or so light and fluffy that it
basically had no connection to reality
anymore look at the massive success of
curfew enthusiasm or arrested
development had during the 2000s they're
cut from a different cloth instead of
punchlines it was more about snide
comments regarding social faux pas did i
notice a uh
log cabin republican in the parking lot
was that you did you let that one in ken
and mismatched attire on the flip side
you have according to jim or the rules
of engagement what i like about you or
reba all of these shows just came and
went they were so bland they didn't
leave a mark furthermore all these
sarcastic or dry shows tended to be
single camera as in a show that's filmed
like a movie with a subjective one
camera style as opposed to multi-cam
shows recorded in front of a live studio
audience the rise in popularity of these
single camera shows could be attributed
to technology becoming more affordable
and also the fact that americans post 9
11 were more self-centered we were more
concerned with what we were experiencing
and less concerned about the experience
of others multicam shows are a communal
experience single cameras tend to
reinforce individual experience even
just on a meta level a multi-camera show
is broader inherently it's more like a
cousin to theater there's a large studio
audience and they laugh when we're
supposed to laugh they act as a guard
rail for us but a single camera show is
more of an authorial perspective the
audience is being placed in the
perspective of a single character you
could take the same story and film it as
a multi-camera show and then a single
camera show and it would feel 180
degrees different is this era of network
sitcom shows literally a reaction to
september 11 2001 no of course not but
they're created in the cultural ripple
of those events which formulated an
american identity that we're still
grappling with 20 years later on paper
friends and new girls seem pretty
similar but if we take a closer look
it's even more surprising just how much
overlap there is between the two
programs one of the main reasons why
people don't usually notice how similar
friends and new girl are is because of
this format friends is multi-camera new
girl is single camera the aesthetic
difference that it produces can't be
overstated it makes the shows feel
different even when they're ostensibly
extremely similar our casts spend a
majority of their time either in their
apartments or a central hangout for
friends it's the coffee shop central
park for new girl it's the bar the
griffin jess played by zoe deschanel is
a girl fresh out of a breakup and
seeking a new start so she moves in with
some strangers rachel played by jennifer
aniston is a girl running out on her
wedding who moves in with a forlorn
friend she hasn't spoken to since high
school outside of the protagonist
friends has a quirky girl in phoebe
played by lisa kudrow new girl's weird
old soul counterpart is winston played
by lamorne morris they both occupy the
same narrative real estate they're there
to be the weirdo zany character of the
group does either show have a sarcastic
funny man that's afraid of commitment
eventually overcoming it yes chandler
played by matthew perry and friends and
nick played by jake johnson in new girl
both chandler and nick find success in
their careers they find love with the
type a girl they've pined after and they
settle down and settle into themselves
then there's monica played by courtney
cox a delightfully neurotic clean freak
who has a history of losing a lot of
weight and then there's definitely not a
replica character schmidt played by max
greenfield a delightfully neurotic clean
freak who has a history of losing a lot
of weight but the similarities don't
stop there the relationships both
romantic and platonic are the same the
guys were college roommates the girls
were friends in high school the groups
merged through the girl fresh out of a
breakup moving in with someone else in
the group and subsequently everyone gets
introduced the romantic relationship
between schmidt and cece played by
hannah simone mirrors monica and
chandler's a one-night mistake leads to
a secret relationship which is found out
by the group the two get married have
infertility struggles and eventually
children nick and jess are the ross and
rachel paradigm both addicting will they
won't they story lines they become a
couple for the first time in season 2
break up and eventually end up together
these are the same characters with
virtually identical set pieces going
through the same events if these shows
have so many similarities why don't
people talk about them more
aesthetics shifting the friends
archetypes and story tropes over to a
single camera show is the perfect way to
mimic one of the most successful sitcoms
of all time but have it feel completely
different but this is far from the first
show to end up working in a similar mill
you as friends in fact both how i met
your mother and the big bang theory
mimicked friends high concept and
character archetypes considerably how i
met your mother is friends in a bar big
bang theory is friends with nerds and
the difference between these two wildly
successful shows is that after they
initially started as friends clones they
were able to pull from the various
character types or subcultures that they
were centering on to pivot away from the
friend's story tropes
while new girl did the reverse it
started as something unique and distinct
but quickly adopted the tropes of
friends in order to give its universe a
sense of direction creator elizabeth
merriweather came up with the idea of
new girl based on her college years
where she spent time with a group of
friends that all shared a large
apartment in brooklyn in the produced
pilot the show bears almost no
resemblance to friends the pilot shows
jess as she finds these new roommates
nick schmidt and coach while attempting
to move on from a very troubling breakup
the finale of the episode is the three
men putting aside their plans to attend
a party in order to surprise jess at a
restaurant and serenade her with the
theme song to dirty dancing after she's
been stood up on a date this might sound
like a standard sitcom trope and in many
ways it is it's just unusual for the
time after a decade of acidic post 911
reactionary comedy the idea of doing a
single camera show that actually
unironically was heartfelt was a very
radical thing to do the show from its
inception was wearing its heart on its
sleeve it was earnest it was about
friendship and attempting to be there
for the people in your life who need you
and yet it evolved into more codified
narrative tropes many of which were
borrowed from friends the heartfelt
sincerity that new girl had played as
genuine in the single camera world
whereas if it were acted and produced in
the same exact way on a multi-camera
show the end product would have been
vastly different was this conscious it's
hard to say but it's pretty obvious that
if you're going to be influenced by the
idea of taking things in a decidedly
more emotionally honest direction the
previous biggest show on earth that
tried to craft a similar narrative is
going to get brought up in the
discussion new girl doesn't start out as
a friend's clone show but it's obviously
constructed to be a vehicle for
elizabeth merriweather's quirky sense of
humor and interest in telling
emotionally open stories over the course
of producing nine seasons and a virtual
army of writers being incorporated into
the creative process people need a north
star and the easiest solution whether
conscious or not is to mimic what you've
seen work before thus the character arcs
being similar and the will they want
they structure being employed the
characters backstories and relationships
mirroring each other it's understandable
why these pathways to success are
mimicked and regurgitated but it's the
heartfelt sincerity and new girl's take
on all these relationship and narrative
tropes that enabled it to be a runaway
success new girl replicates friends
successfully by using the same
ingredients but adding a different
visual language this distinct visual
style enables all of the characters and
new girl to navigate their interpersonal
struggles and kindness and have it not
be broad or come across as cheesy they
bring out the best in their friends and
their romantic partners in an
aspirational way and that's why
new girl is secretly the same show as
friends and that's all we have this week
let us know in the comments if you agree
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