"Fat" Monica in Friends isn't even fat

[TallGirl24]

As per title. Rewatching all the old Friends episodes. How in the name of the wee donkey was this a recurring joke? She's basically normal sized but beside some very slim costars. I know it was a different time but it is so jarring to watch now.

She’s fat.
You may consider her to be normal size because normal size appears to be fat these days.

She's definitely fat, but maybe not quite as shockingly morbidly obese as they made her out to be when talking about it?

Yep, in the 'flashbacks' to younger Monica' she was fat! THIS is not slim, not in the 1980s (when Monica was younger and fatter) nor now! She is about a size 20 here (in today's sizes.)

I think that was the back story of why she became a chef.
She needed to lose weight but wanted to enjoy creating things with food.

Fat Monica was fat by any standards, any time. Are you watching the same show?

It was the 90s. Anyone over a size 0 was considered fat.

Fat Monica is absolutely fat.

Fat Monica was SUPERSIZED “back then” but she’s definitely still fat by today’s standards and there are significantly more overweight people now.

OK so maybe I exaggerated. But the way they go on about her weight you'd think she was way bigger than she is. The episode I'm watching shows her in the fat suit standing beside the men and she's about the same size they are. Some of those pictures definitely look worse, I agree on that. But she wouldn't need clothes specially made for her, or any of the other horrible jokes they make about her. It's crazy to think the was acceptable and a recurring theme through all 10 seasons. I agree, it's not aged well although it makes me nostalgic!

She was fat, but whenever it's referenced in the programme they make it sound like she was really enormous, which is a stretch imo.

I'm sure when the actress playing Daphne was pregnant in real life, they had her in a fat suit and there were jokes about how big she was.

She would certainly be in the obese category.

But she wouldn't need clothes specially made for her, or any of the other horrible jokes they make about her.

Wasn't it the school band uniform they had ‘specially made’? If you think of the flashback to when she and Rachel visited Ross and Chandler at college, she would have been bigger than the majority of 17/18 year olds in the 80s. I can’t imagine they just stocked school uniforms in that size.
I agree that jokes are awful, and wouldn’t be made now. But I don’t think it’s unbelievable that they wouldn’t make school clothes in that size.

I wince at the boy in the on the beach free lounge ad.

I loved Frasier - it was sharp, witty and the characters gelled together. But watching back lately, some of it does come across as sexist.

She was, they sent her to ‘fat camp’. At some point they reference her losing a specific amount of weight, and it’s the weight of her baby when they were born.

'It's just food Monica. It's not love.'

Yeah she wasn't My 600lb Life fat, but she was 80's fat.

She was definitely fat.

She's fat. I consider myself fat and she is much fatter than me.

I don’t think they had her in a fat suit - they were actually trying to play down her size by disguising it with her clothing. The storyline, including the jokes about weight gain were to cover for her pregnancy and it was actually quite well thought out. I’ve rewatched it recently and it still stands up - although l do think it’s a bit sexist in places.

Wow a lot of seriously skinny people in here.

Because today we have a very unhealthy idea of what fat is and isn't. We are so over exposed to unhealthy weight that it is seen as normal now. Someone has to be morbidly obese before they're viewed as overweight today.

Fat Monica in friends was somewhat shocking at the time. And now it's pretty much the average.

Yes, she was fat.

Not sure how you could think otherwise, tbh.

She was.