May the Circle Stay Unbroken: Friends, the Presence of Absence, and the Rhetorical Reinforcement of Whiteness

Abstract

Whiteness has been broadly conceived as a subject position that is discursively negotiated and maintained, yet rarely explicitly addressed in the social discourse. The television series Friends demonstrates how media texts as largely visual forms of rhetoric function to reinforce notions of racial identity without overtly speaking race. Presenting the closed circle as a visual metaphor, Friends turns to the presence of absence to achieve two rhetorical aims: to perpetuate whiteness as a subjectivity that claims an exclusive racial position, and to defend whiteness’ perceived purity through active exclusion of Others.

Keywords:

• Whiteness
• Rhetoric
• Visual
• Absence
• Friends

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 annual conference of the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Antonio, TX. The paper is also based in part on the author's 2002 master's thesis, written at the University of Kansas (thesis advisor Dr. Shannon B. Campbell).

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 annual conference of the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Antonio, TX. The paper is also based in part on the author's 2002 master's thesis, written at the University of Kansas (thesis advisor Dr. Shannon B. Campbell).

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr. Eric King Watts and the anonymous CSMC reviewers for their insightful comments and valuable suggestions regarding previous drafts of this essay.

Notes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 annual conference of the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Antonio, TX. The paper is also based in part on the author's 2002 master's thesis, written at the University of Kansas (thesis advisor Dr. Shannon B. Campbell).

1. See, for example, Armstrong (1992), Berg (1998), Bernardi (1997), Binder (1993), Bogle (1992), Calafell and Delgado (2004), Campbell (1995), Cloud (1992), Dixon and Linz (2000), Domke (1996), Entman and Rojecki (2000), Fitzgerald (1991), Gandy (2001), Gray (1989, 1993), Hall (1995), Hochschild (1995), hooks (1997), Jeffres (2000), Lipsitz (1986), Manatu-Rupert (2000), Myers (2004), Pan and Kosicki (1996), Prosise and Johnson (2004), Wellman (1997), and Wilcox (1996).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Phil Chidester

Phil Chidester is an assistant professor in the School of Communication at Illinois State University