Hollywood’s ‘fat funny friend’ trope is dying – here’s why that might not be a good thing

For years, the ‘funny fat friend’ was one of the few ways fat women were allowed to exist on screen. 

Loud, self-deprecating, endlessly available for mockery, the fat actress was never the lead unless the story was about her becoming thin. 

She offered comic relief, emotional support, and often served as a human buffer to make thinner leads look more desirable, more serious, or more whole.

If she was sexual, it was a punchline. If she was confident, it was exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Her humour was a shield and a survival tactic in a culture that treated her body as a problem to be solved.

Think of Jan in the movie Grease, a Pink Lady whose only defining traits are her constant references to her size and her love of junk food. The cliché is all the more jarring given that the actress playing her wasn’t noticeably larger than the other female characters. 

The trope is so blunt in this instance that near the end of the film, Putzie (one of the T-Birds) tells her, ‘I think there’s more to you than just fat’ and she reacts like its the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to her.

And while fat men are certainly pigeonholed for their weight as well, bigger men have always had more space in media. From Oliver Hardy to John Candy to Jack Black, large male comedians were lovable, central, and often the stars. Their size might have been part of the joke, but it didn’t define them completely.

Countless other examples of the fat funny girl include characters like Fat Amy in Pitch Perfect, Melissa McCarthy’s character Sookie in Gilmore Girls, and Nancy in Stranger Things. 

But now, the fat funny friend is vanishing from screens.

At first glance, the decline of this archetype might seem like progress: Isn’t it good that fat women are no longer required to joke about their bodies just to be visible? In theory, yes. But what’s replacing her isn’t better representation, it’s just more thin people.

The rise of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro has transformed the conversation around fatness.

More people than ever – especially celebrities and influencers – are losing weight rapidly and dramatically, often without fully disclosing the methods they use. These drugs have become both miracle and metaphor: an escape hatch from shame and a pharmaceutical reset for anyone who once had to laugh their way through being fat.

But instead of challenging the cultural narrative around body size, Ozempic has exposed just how deeply fatphobia still runs.

For Emma Zack, self-identified fat activist and founder of the size-inclusive vintage shop Berriez, this moment has been fraught: ‘It’s been hard watching people who once proudly claimed the word fat suddenly slim down,’ she tells Metro.

‘I’m like, “Wait, did you just want to be thin all along? Did you secretly hate yourself?” That’s been the hardest.’

The list of public figures who’ve transformed in the age of GLP-1s reads like a roll call of former ‘fat but funny’ icons: Rebel Wilson, Melissa McCarthy, Jonah Hill. 

While few have confirmed using medication, their weight loss has invited speculation and shifted public perception. Comedians like Amy Schumer and Jim Gaffigan have been open about using weight-loss drugs, despite having built careers partly on body-related humour.

Even for those who have truly slimmed down through lifestyle changes, the cultural impact remains the same, and it’s hard not to wonder if the availability of weight-loss drugs has made thinness more attainable and, in turn, more expected. And with that expectation comes intensified pressure to conform.

Framed as personal triumphs, these transformations are often positioned as journeys of health, discipline, or self-love – which many of them very well maybe. Indeed, there’s nothing wrong with someone losing weight for whatever reason they may choose and by whatever method they deem best for them (as long as they do so safely).

But in a media landscape shaped by pharmaceuticals, it’s worth asking how much of that ‘health journey’ and ‘self love’ branding is genuine and how much is a survival strategy in a world that punishes visible fatness.

Emma admits she’s felt pressure to try weight loss drugs: ‘I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel it. I’ve had this conversation with so many others… Fatphobia is so ingrained in our culture. You can’t help but wonder if life would just be easier if you were thin.’

This isn’t just a physical shift, it’s a narrative one. When fat actors vanish from screens by becoming thin, or when fatness becomes a temporary obstacle rather than a permanent facet identity, the culture isn’t evolving. It’s regressing – just with a cleaner, more discreet delivery system.

For decades, humour was the only reliable pathway to visibility for fat women. Totie Fields in the ’60s, Roseanne Barr in the ’90s, Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, Rebel Wilson’s Fat Amy all detonated comic relief roles into something bold and physical. But even when the characters were nuanced, their weight came first and it was the filter through which every other trait was interpreted.

And even those rare moments of representation came with tight restrictions. Pitch Perfect 2 opens with Fat Amy splitting her pants mid-performance. In I Feel Pretty, Amy Schumer’s character must suffer a head injury before she’s allowed to feel attractive. The fat body, no matter how central to the story, was always the joke or the obstacle to overcome.

The body positivity movement attempted to reframe this, promoting pride, visibility, and self-love. But over time, it was diluted into marketable slogans, co-opted by brands, and rarely centered the people most marginalized by fatphobia – especially Black, disabled, trans, and very-fat individuals.

Now, weight-loss drugs threaten to replace that movement with something quieter and more insidious: compliance. Why accept your body when you can afford to change it? Why be the funny fat friend when you can become the slender lead?

But this isn’t liberation. It’s the erasure of a harmful stereotype, only to replace it with no fat people at all.

In a culture where thinness is still the price of admission, choice becomes murky. Representation becomes hollow when those who once stood outside the norm quietly conform – not necessarily because they want to, but because the alternative still invites ridicule, judgment, and exclusion.

Still, there are signs of something better. In Lena Dunham’s hit new show Too Much, Megan Stalter’s Jessica is messy, emotional, and deeply lovable and she doesn’t constantly comment on her weight. 

The camera doesn’t flinch from her softness or flatten her into a caricature. Her body is a fact; not a plotline.

Emma points to Lena Dunham’s work as another step forward: ‘Her character is way more dynamic than just the funny fat girl, and she doesn’t talk about her body in the episodes I saw. That’s so important, because usually when a fat girl is the protagonist, the whole show is about her accepting her body. Like that’s all she is.’

Moments like these suggest a future where fat women aren’t erased, but reimagined, not required to self-deprecate to be seen, and not expected to disappear to be respected.

If fatness remains something we only ever see in ‘before’ photos – or something that must be overcome for the story to begin – then we haven’t progressed, we’ve simply upgraded the tools of exclusion.

The funny fat girl doesn’t need to vanish. She needs to be freed from the obligation to make her own body the punchline and from the burden of being both mascot and martyr. She can still be funny, but her dignity doesn’t need to be sacrificed for the laugh.

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