"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 was fat in the pics - her face is round, she is obviously overweight and storing fat

Then she loses the weight and is slim.

If she wasn't fat, she wouldn't have been able to lose all the weight and change her body shape

I think we've hit fatbashing bingo.! 🥳

Oh yes, vanity sizes - that's what we're missing.

Yes.

I don't think that's happening at all?

Quite the opposite, different times blah... sure remember "Cheryl" on The Royle Family was the butt of many jokes... a normal size for all intents & purposes

Edited spelling

16 was. But that was 10-15 years ago. I would have certainly thought that would have increased by now.

Anything different about a person back then was sadly fair game for teasing.

Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me.

Actually a lot of children are still the same.
I always say if a person cannot change something in 5 minutes, it shouldn't be mentioned.

Yes the Frasier thing was she'd lost 9lb 12oz, which in real life was her baby's birth weight and purposefully written in as a joke. The whole Daphne weight gain and going to a retreat was purely to cover Jane Leeve's real life pregnancy, which was probably better than her having to go for a season using a cushion or basket as a prop in front of her or filming her from the neck up.
I would think if Friends hadn't been in the final season, they might have tried similar to cover up Courtney Cox's obvious pregnancy in the last few shows.
But "fat" Monica was definitely fat. The scenes where she was fat were when she was supposed be a teenager and she would have classed as obese even then. Whether the "joke" and fat shaming stands the test of time as appropriate is a whole other scenario

I can sort of see what you’re saying because if you take away her face, her torso is sort of normal. It’s really just her lower body and face that are obese. The torso and arms would be like curvaceous territory.

As we can see there’s different versions of plus sized Monica. I just watched a clip of her drinking a Diet Coke & splurting it out while she laughed at Chandler’s joke.

This really is just a vehicle and way of discussing obesity without being politically incorrect. We can even get away with calling her ‘Fat Monica’.

The world is a sad and messed up place. I feel like fat people and sex workers are the last two groups of society that people are allowed to hate.

She was fat then and would be fat now.

I wonder if “fat Monica” would have ever been in their friendship group if she hadn’t lost the weight. I think it would have been a different dynamic. Groups of men and women tend to only have beautiful women in them. I remember my husbands friends completely ignoring me at a catchup. They were a particular group of men but even a slims girlfriend was introduced they were over her like a rash. We would have been mid to late 20’s. I wasn’t obese but overweight/curvy maybe a 14/16 and most of the girlfriends were a 6/8. They barely knew me so I always assumed it was my weight.

What??? She was huuuuuuge!

@Lavenderfarmcottage I think so.
She was Rachel's friend for years, connection to Ross too.

The people you met were just rude people.

Yeah this is clearly fat.

For me the thing that got me was more the OCD jokes about her. I used to have anorexia and at my worst it was also accompanied by a cleaning obsession/ocd which was really difficult to handle. I saw so much of my own mental illness in her and it was all a joke!

Fat Monica is fat

Like fucking massive fat

Not normal by any standard

That's so interesting... I never correlated the two, the cleaning OCD never manifested in me, jesus you poor thing x

No wonder those of us who were teens in the 90’s have a fucked up body inane. Renee Zellwegger as Bridget Jones was considered fat.

Kate Winslet in her Titanic years was called fat

Mel C from the spice girls was called fat

Britney Spears too.

Fuck anyone who plays a part in this type of misogyny

It’s more the way it was written like she was absolutely gargantuan, laughably so, Fattest Woman Ever type of fat, when really that’s just a bit chubby

She was fat! Just because there are more people that size nowadays doesn't change the fact it's fat and it's not healthy.

I hate these threads to be honest. "If Friends was made these days" it would be a completely different show. But it's a sign of the times that those jokes were allowed back then. There are plenty of shows made back then who's jokes haven't stood the test of time but I still enjoy watching them.

Yes I rewatched that with the kids recently and thought he’s not even fat. In fact half the kids I see are that size!

But everyone else refers to her as fat.

Another one - Martine McCutcheon in Love Actually. “the chubby girl”. WTAF.

Mind you I think MN is sometimes like Love Actually mindset, all women are far unless they’re a size 6 or below, full of pro ana obsessions and people talking about how a few chicken nuggets and a packet of crisps will lead to morbid obesity.

Fat or not, there's no value in judging a 30-year-old TV show by modern standards.

I remember when Friends first hit Netflix; there was a huge wave of nostalgia from the generation who'd watched it on TV the first time around, and a whole lot of hand-wringing from younger people who found Ross a bit of a danger instead of a hopeless romantic, etc.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if 'Fat Monica' was actually fat or not. It's a cheap sight gag that can stay in the 90's where it belongs.

Monica was fat.
I felt sorry for her character because it obviously stemmed from her parents treatment of her compared to golden child Ross.

I think in the "one that could have been" episode, Monica is less fat than she was in the flashback episodes.