Fat suits are funny, right? Eddie Murphy basically squeezed a few more millions out of his badly flagging career by putting one on, and Martin Lawrence followed suit, so it's not at all surprising that Friends would do the same sort of thing to give Monica a funny backstory. After all, what is more hilarious than seeing a sexy person who used to be disgustingly fat? For Friends, seemingly nothing. For the Friends characters, obesity represents failure and not being attractive to the opposite sex, which is a truly heinous crime. Even when the opposite sex are as mean-spirited, obnoxious and cretinous as Chandler used to be. For fatties, the suggestion is that the only aspiration they should have is to be cherished, and that within every fatso there's a Courtney Cox or a Brad Pitt waiting to burst out, if only they could just stop being lazy and realise that they too could be loved like a normal person. And it's not just Monica or her formerly fat friend - there are literally no chubbies in this version of New York, no background fat folk ruining shots. And that's far from a true reflection of America - or indeed any major city - and there's very little to suggest that Friends sees fat people as anything other than a mistake to sweep under the carpet. They aren't successful, they can't be inspiring, and they have no inherent worth, which is precisely why the writers should all have been introduced to a fellow by the name of Winston Churchill.
