Does Monica Gain the Weight Back Again
'Fat Monica' is the ghost that continues to haunt Friends 25 years subsequently
Fat Monica continues to be a polarizing figure, not only in pop civilisation history but also in the bear witness that created it.
Friends
Discussing the legacy of Friends tin lead to a lot of disagreement. Some praise information technology every bit i of the funniest sitcoms of all time. Some dismiss it as a Living Single rip-off. Some rightfully telephone call out how white and homogenous information technology was for a evidence based in New York in the '90s. Some adopt to view the bear witness with rose-colored, cornball-tinged glasses. Some point out characters like womanizer Joey (Matt LeBlanc) accept certainly non aged well.
And speaking of characters from Friendsthat did not age well, "Fat Monica" is some other big point of contention for some fans. Countless call back pieces accept explained why the character was problematic. "Problematicness" is i matter, only it'southward more authentic to say that Fat Monica is an intrinsic office of Friends'catechism that it cannot seem to escape, even 25 years later.
Why is that?
Fat Monica is an incredibly lazy office of Friends' comedic relevance
Fifty-fifty if you overlook the fatphobia that follows this character around like a shadow, yous'll find that the biggest problem with Fat Monica is how the testify used her to garner cheap laughs in the laziest ways possible.
Everything from how the graphic symbol was designed — à la the svelte Courteney Cox in a fat suit rather than an bodily person who was, gasp, fat — to how the character acted was greatly exaggerated to arm-twist laughs — and non much else. In an alternate opening sequence, Fatty Monica hops onto the gang's couch and almost tips information technology over — and we're supposed to laugh. Fat Monica is oft seen eating sloppily, wiping chocolate from her face, or licking powdered sugar from her fingers. In "The 1 That Could Have Been" a two-parter where Monica never loses weight in an alternate timeline, she remains a virgin for the longest fourth dimension (because apparentlyfat people didn't have sexual practice in the '90s?). And the testify plays up the character'south hallmark neuroses for laughs when she is overly concerned with someone having sat on her Kit Kat bar (considering being neurotic or struggling with OCD is circuitous…unless yous're fat) in the same episode.
Could the show accept treated her better? Sure. Just that would have deprived it of "reliable" laughs at the expense of a fictional fat grapheme doing normal things similar eating, dancing, or simply living. Fat Monica worked in a horrendously offensive sense in that — in an era where SlimFast was popping, extremely thin models like Kate Moss were I tgirls, and "heroin chic" was the prevailing fashion trend — popular culture fed a hysteria over being or becoming fat. And Fat Monica allowed people to take those anxieties about fatness, project them onto the grapheme, and laugh at them. And be comfortable in laughing because any happened, they would neverbe as fat, sloppy, and socially inept every bit "Fat Monica."
The "Fat Monica Dance" is a wildly important instance of this
Nostalgia chasers volition remember her trip the light fantastic toe equally "cute" or "ambrosial," but that'south not exactly the case. On one manus, Fat Monica appears to be unbothered and unconcerned with people staring at her while she dances, which itself would be great, but her dancing is played for laughs and is ordinarily washed with some type of nutrient in hand — famously a donut. A scene that could have been used to demonstrate that Fat Monica was absurd and confident regardless of living in a fatphobic society instead becomes some other example of Friends'lazy approach to fatness equally comedy. It morphs into a recurring gag of, "Hey, look at this fatty person MOVING. Come up sentry her make funny faces! And her fat jiggle! Hilarious!" It'due south ugly, especially in a 2019 context, but to be clear, information technology was ever ugly, and that "trip the light fantastic" continues to be a litmus test on determining how much the general public finds joy and hilarity in laughing at and ridiculing fat people.
What is likewise ugly is the fact that this grapheme is weaved into other parts of the series past being the affair that normal (read: skinny) Monica is repeatedly slapped over the caput with. Even outside of increased appearances in flavor two, the rest of the Friends ensemble continuously revisit Monica's fat by, unearthing home videos to kiki at and, in more than farthermost cases like Ross pointing out that she used to exist fat as some sort of Yu-Gi-Oh! trap card (like his recurring nightmare of her eating him and her patently crushing a horse) when he thinks she'south gotten the better of him. Joey, who never knew Fat Monica famously shouts, "Some daughter ate Monica!" at ane of these videos in "The One With The Prom Record." And while information technology's played for laughs, it unintentionally makes some very of import points.
Monica'south character trajectory plays directly into the dreaded "Reformed Fattie" trope, and positions Fat Monica equally the "lesser" version of Monica
It is unfathomable to people like Joey that Monica existed and would have certainly eaten "the real" Monica if she had. In "The One With All the Thanksgivings," a young Monica and Chandler (Matthew Perry) finally meet and though she develops a crush, she is put off past him when she overhears his cloy at her weight then gets "revenge" on him a year afterwards by losing weight and finally revealing herself every bit — what the show deems — an attractive adult female.
Credit: Danny Feld/NBCU Photo Depository financial institution
Disallowment the absurd (but relatable) quest to lose weight and then that a human tin see you lot as fully (and attractively) human, it's a grim demonstration that even her friends and family didn't value her until she was no longer fat and thus "normal." This is aggravated by the fact that information technology'due south also her then-chosen friends that deem it appropriate to routinely use her fat past as some sort of "gotcha" against her presently skinny cocky. Thus, Friendsaccidentally demonstrates how fatphobia and fat-shaming are used as forms of control and regulation regarding beauty and specifically respectwhere cis women are concerned.
Information technology didn't affair how much skinny Monica had grown. And it didn't matter that she was ironically the same assured, uptight, competitive, and caring person that she was even as Fatty Monica. Information technology didn't even matter that in an alternate timeline, she would have supposedly concluded upwardly with Chandler even with her being fat. Her beingness fat, to begin with, and the bear witness's treatment of information technology, still lingers similar a putrid stench or an unshakable specter in the background of the show, telling united states of america — with the aid of a express joy track — that being fat is a disqualification for basic human being decency, but does sure brand for a expert laugh.
And that'due south something Friendshas to live with.
Related content:
- An exclusive look at the making of Friends
- Hither's why Monica'southward apartment walls were purple on Friends
- Friends: A-to-Z Guide
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Source: https://ew.com/tv/2019/09/04/fat-monica-friends-25-years-later/
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