Friends Forever: Sitcom Celebrity and Its Afterlives

Abstract

Following work by John Ellis and John Langer, scholars often define television stardom against film stardom, a dichotomy that depends on a view of television as lesser than film, and which impedes our understanding of television stardom. Taking Friends as a case study, this article argues that situation comedies freeze stars in time, limiting their abilities to work both outside their character type and as they age, while offering limitless possibilities for the circulation of the star in a media culture characterized by self-referentiality and intertextuality. While previous scholarship on stardom might suggest that this failure to transcend character makes television stardom less valuable, in the television economy, the character is more valuable than the actor who plays her. Following Derek Kompare’s argument that the rerun is the quintessential television form, stardom gained from a Nielsen-dominating sitcom with an ever-present afterlife may be the most valuable form of television stardom.