Impact of Friends on India's popular culture

"Ever since Monica, Joey, Chandler, Ross, Phoebe and Rachel started hanging out at a coffee shop in the early 90s, the concept of the platonic friend has becoming enormously popular." Source: http://monkinhotwater.blogspot.com/2007/08/its-mans-worldnot.html


This is an interesting observation by this blogger. I used to wonder why "Friends" is by far the most popular sitcom in India when there are several other sitcoms which are better/more funny. The above observation may be an interesting pointer as to why. Guys and girls hanging out in a platonic way was rarely shown on TV/Cinema in India. If an Indian movie has one hero and one heroine, they obviously get paired up. Two heroes implies two heroines, and so on. If there is an extra hero/heroine, that person is 99% probable to die, either by some incurable cancer-like disease or killed by the villains or in an accident. In the remaining 1% cases, she sacrifices her love or finds a new partner (usually a guest appearance by a big name actor).

Friends changed this equation and showed it was okay to have 'unpaired' lead actors and they could still hangout together. Maybe this influenced young people watching the show to change their attitudes regarding the opposite gender. Spending time with a mixed-gender circle of friends no longer had to be about pairing up. Of course, its not that connections don't happen; just that the anxiety and tension associated with hanging out with someone of the opposite gender was significantly reduced. I wonder if there is a formal study that describes the impact of the show on the popular culture in India, growth of coffee shops, etc. I'm sure coffee places like "cafe coffee day" owe a large part of their success to the show.