Abstract
 
    Friends as an American situation comedy started in 1994 and finished in 2004. This series comedy is about stories of six friends with different characteristics. And it shows us the daily life of six friends as well as their love, career and familial affection. Although it is just a series situation comedy, we can analyze the true values of love and marriage of American from it. From research I found the essence of American value of love and marriage is individualism. The core of American culture value, which represents the western countries, is individualism. The contribution of my thesis is that it takes the film script of Friends for concrete examples and analyzes the negative effects of individualism on American’s attitude of love and marriage. Furthermore, it will try to provide us with an all-directional view and understanding of American’s attitude of love and marriage. Meanwhile by comparing the merits and deficiencies of individual-oriented and collective-oriented value, we can gain a rational eye on the differences of the two cultures and strike a balance in our daily life.

Key Words: Love; Marriage; Individualism

摘  要

    《老友记》又名《六人行》(Friends)，是美国自20世纪90年代开播，连续播出10年的著名情景喜剧。这部电视剧讲述了生活在纽约一间公寓里的六个好朋友的日常生活，叙述了他们的感情起伏、事业波折和生活中的喜怒哀乐。《老友记》虽然只是部情景喜剧，但是它反映了美国人真实的爱情观和婚姻观。通过研究，笔者认为美国人婚恋观的本质是个人主义。美国的个人主义代表了西方国家的核心文化。本论文的创新点在于，以《老友记》为文本实例，具体分析了个人主义给美国人婚恋观带来的消极影响，从而让读者全方位了解美国人婚恋观的真实状况。同时，通过对西方个人主义和东方集体主义观念的比较，使我们可以用一种更理性的眼光重新审视两种不同文化的差异并在其中寻找到平衡点。

关键词：爱情；婚姻；个人主义

1.    Introduction
This essay tries to start with the global-known American situational comedy Friends, which distinguishes from Chinese situational comedy. Friends brings the audiences a new concept——“community spirit” which varies from “family” in ordinary Chinese situational comedy. This new concept reflects the unique American culture and gives Chinese audiences the conflict between the two cultures from China and America. I try to choose the value of love and marriage in Friends to analyze the advantage and disadvantage of the two cultures.
1.1 Chinese and American situational comedy
Chinese situational comedy has been springing up in recent years. Chinese situational comedies which major in Shanxi dialect and Lanzhou dialect had broken through the limit that old Chinese situational comedies are major in Mandarin and northeast dialect. However, just as Wang Qiong said, “But no matter how the artistic method changes to improve Chinese situational comedy, the stereotype of ‘family’is still the focus. Undoubtedly, the concept of‘family’is deeply rooted in Chinese tradition. It is implacable.”