In Defense of “Fat Monica” (Friends)

1. 

   @adrivoid5376

   September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

   Her parents scapegoated her- and she ends up with issues with perfectionism, food, and a chip on her shoulder. Fat Monica is happier and still finds love and success.

2. 

   @puttybean

   September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

   I only watched Friends casually and I have to admit, this video did NOT go the direction I expected. It's just that so many sitcoms in the 90s seemed to be about genuinely terrible people.

3. 

   @StonedHunter

   September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

   Chandler deserved to get laughed in his face when he basically said he'd date her out of pity after insulting her for being fat. I hate that I saw this as a child and was unable to realize how messed up their dynamic really was and that none of the adults around me seemed to notice or care.

4. 

   @MsZandiX

   September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

   I was joking around with my brother's best friend years ago and I'd been fat most of my life, and I reaĺly was just messing around coz I thought of him as a brother. So I said something like, "Please, ur gonna end up my husband," and he immediately got serious and said, "I don't date fat girls."

   So everyone got quiet, and my brother tapped his shoulder, and punched him and made him apologise.

   But that's just my brother. Guess Ross was different.

5. 

   @radieux-aglaiah

   September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

   And Chandler could totally get a Brian! 🎉

6. 

   @zora7031

   September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

   You're definitely thinking about it deeper than the writers did.

7. 

   @nigeldouglas7885

   September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

   Have you been lifting? Delts look great!

8. 

   @Showtunediva

   September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

   I hate the fat shaming of Monica because it was the catalyst of Monica being bullied.

9. 

   @pixelbomb97

   September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

   I think there's one thing that kinda ruins this take. The damned laugh track. Even in those flashbacks, the laugh track still pops right in because a fat person dancing is still worthy of mockery and laughter because it's a fat person dancing. It doesn't matter if Monica is confident or happy in those scenes, the canned audience tells us she should be mocked.

10. 

    @Alex-ki1yr

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

11. 

    @flavs-noises

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    Fr

12. 

    @Wontoofree-k4n

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    This was excellent just excellent. Great character analysis👏

13. 

    @PatsyMayonnaise

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    How I survived as a fat girl in the 90s is beyond me.

14. 

    @invisiblegrif42

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    I think another show that explored this similarly was New Girl. I think it and Friends are both flawed in making someone being fat the butt of jokes but it explores how Schmidt was a happy and kind guy when he was younger and fatter and now that he's skinnier he's a jerk and kind-of a bad person and it happened specifically because of insecurities that arose from how other people made him feel but he needed to learn in the show that he's got enough regardless of if he's fat or skinny as long as he's being a better person

15. 

    @B98gb

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    My sister is a lot more "normal" than I am. She hates how I dress, and one time she told me I had to stop wearing graphic tees so I could find a partner (I'm not really looking for one). She said my shirts had too much personality, and distracted from me being pretty. The concept sort of blew my mind. I feel like my tee shirts sort of communicate for me and help find people with similar interests, instead of trying to look 'sophisticated' and then just meeting a bunch of people who would be disappointed by my graphic tee self. I guess it sort of is making me think of Monica's situation now. Except the pressure to lose weight is way more intense

16. 

    @kittykat8110

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    Wow half rememberd seems so cool. I actually just did a little 30 min dive yesterday with Google to find if an old mom n pop basket fry place was still open in my hometown. It was fun giving descriptions and working our way to the exact spot. Sad that its closed now though. 😢

17. 

    @FosukeLordOfError

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    24:32 I have some sitcom episode from childhood that made me scared of one of the bathrooms in my house. It would have been 90s and I remember som science project some one ate in the fridge by accident and then someone had a nightmare with a guy in a green germ suit attacking and dragging someone away. And the dream sequence freaked me out

18. 

    @kismetcho

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    I remember Fresh Prince had an episode where a 'fat' girl falls for Will and the show goes out of its way to impress that Will's the one in the wrong while the girl is the literal coolest person in the world (or maybe it's just that they cast Queen Latifah so it's impossible not to get that impression). Episodes like these were nice efforts, but still the majority of each show only centered (sometimes unhealthily) thin people. It really fucking sucked that everything back then was telling the little girl I was that I needed to get Courtney Cox thin to ever be loved. Still love both shows, but I'm glad my young daughter isn't watching them.

19. 

    @kittykat8110

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    Broo! Please! Please! Please cover how they are ruining our childhood sitcoms with these over dramatic dramas. They did it when they made the show, bel-air. And now with, a different world.
    Bel-air at least didnt bring the og cast back and keep the same name then change the format.
    It's so hard to get through one episode of, a different world. 😢😢
    The OG sitcoms did a balance of jokes and real life topics. These new shows are just drama and it lacks anything what they came from.
    In a space where we lack great black network comedy shows, this just pmo.
    Glad Ms Pat made her show.

20. 

    @kittykat8110

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    Pausing at 1:08. I LOVE big Monica. Small Monica was just a shell of her former self. She was worried about eating too much cause she didnt wanna get big again. She worried about her mom's opinion of her.
    But she still made her life happy. I just feel she would have been happier if she didn't worry so much about her appearance 😢
    Like in the episode where they showed the "what if" when she stayed big. Her and chandler would have still been happy together.

21. 

    @CariadChavez

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    I've BEEN saying that! They should've just let Monica be fat. She's seemingly happier by every metric, and I like to imagine she would've been able to escape the obsessive perfectionism that seems to have caused her the most misery in her adult life.

22. 

    @VeronicaExplains

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    I had literally never considered this take on Monica before. Suddenly I want to go rewatch Friends to see what else I missed… excellent video. 🙂

23. 

    @mlgmrm

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    I'd argue not shaming is tantamount to encouraging a person to be an unhealthy weight

24. 

    @louurich9087

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    I do not care for the show Friends.
    I did enjoy this video and your commentary.
    Take that compliment as you will.

25. 

    @DarknessD42

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    As a teenager: I want whatever relationship Rachel and Ross are having
    As an adult: I want whatever relationship Monica and Chandler are having

26. 

    @neilhannan7525

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    It's nice to see that fatphobic going down and the 2000s fat jokes age badly now bbw or chubby girls are seen as more attractive than skinny ladies

27. 

    @NoPityKitty

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    Ive missed you! Thanks for the video

28. 

    @fredster2000

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    There is a TvTropes page called "Hollywood Pudgy" which basically describes "Fat Monica" to a T: a slightly overweight character on a TV show or movie who is basically treated as grotesque because of their weight.

29. 

    @ThisleBush

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    I always liked “Fat” Monica better than regular Monica.

30. 

    @georginalynnrotteau-debie5965

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    I Love Fat Monica and I totally agree with you being both a big girl and thin been big for most of my life but now loosing weight yet again for health reasons cause i realize i want to live longer and need to loose weight so i can do so and i feel better since i lost it

31. 

    @Mikhavoc

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    when the [video essay] got [strong conclusion tied back to opening statement] 😈👏

32. 

    @emiliecoteb7

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    Thanks for analyzing this. I hate seeing fat suits on the screen so I did not really pay attention to the details like that. Maybe the prosthetics weren't pleasant to look at and the concept is upsetting, but the psychology of the caracter is believeable. The 90's were brutal but society still crave having thin people even if they're unhappy or sick(from anti-fat medication or dieting) over a happy less slim or fat person. Fat joy is still something that is "provocative" to show today, ok they used a damn fat suit to show it, but they did show it. I thought Friends was too fatphobic and I would never rewatch/listen to the whole thing, but you made me curious about it again. Nice video 😁

33. 

    @jbill190

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    I definitely have a soft spot for Friends. I know it wasn't perfect, but I also can't really point to anything that really should kill it either. Like, there's a lot of homophobia, but there was also a lesbian couple from pretty early on that was "played straight" iykwim.

34. 

    @OldLadyCrinkumCrankum

    September 26, 2026 at 12:02 am

    This isn't a ridiculous take and you argue it well, but speaking as a woman who grew up fat and went through all stages of school fat, I think you're overlooking some things and putting too much weight on the handful of brief moments we see of fat Monica. For one thing, there are many more times she does reference growing up fat where we don't see her as fat Monica, and she talks about how much it sucked. The bullying in particular, which I can confirm is horrible. I also think it bears pointing out that a lot of thin people expect fat people to be jolly and sexless, and the show was written by thin people who likely had the same biases. I mean, sure she's happy when she's with Rachel the brief times we see them enjoying themselves, either at prom or in college during a party but are we really getting a robust idea of what her life would have truly been like? I feel that we don't, and while it's very generous to extrapolate a level of glee and freedom from what we see in those brief moments, I don't think it's realistic.

    I'd also argue that it is extremely likely her mother was very hard on her based on everything we know about every single interaction she has with her mother over the course of a decade of Monica's life. She is always critical, she is always wanting her to change, trying to make her change, pointing out her flaws; I always figured that that began either from the very beginning of Monica's life or from whenever in her childhood Monica began putting on weight. After all, Judy is very thin and seems to take a lot of shots at Monica that revolve around how she looks to others and how it reflects on her — we see evidence of this in one of the clips you showed where she lies to friends and says Monica owns a restaurant rather than works at a restaurant and doesn't want other people to know that.

    It's also interesting I think that it is only in an alternate universe that we see a truly confident, sexual, and outgoing Monica through the length of a two part episode, and this mythical, unreal state is the only time Chandler treats fat Monica with any dignity, So Monica wishes Chandler would have loved her and respected her even when she was fat, when in reality he never did.

    I'd also much less respectfully argue that, no, it is NOT funny that every single time we see fat Monica she is either eating or talking about eating or thinking about eating eating eating eating. You have no idea how insidious and hurtful that belief that a whole hell of a lot of people hold is for someone who is fat, and you also seem to have no clue that more often than not we restrict what we eat when we are around others specifically because of that stigma that all we do is eat. It's grotesque, not funny.

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