The brief given was to tell a familiar story in a new way through extrapolating fact into fiction or fiction into fact.
One of the greatest criticisms of F.R.I.E.N.D.S is that it is fatphobic in its portrayal of Fat Monica. My take is that while the show is definitely fatphobic by today’s standards, it reflected the anxieties surrounding fatness in the 1980s and 1990s, when the show was aired. Monica lost a great amount of weight in the year 1988 on the show, probably through dangerous ways. As commentary on this, a fictional diet magazine was created as a commentary on diet culture in the very medium that those views would have been propagated.
Easter eggs to the show were planted throughout the magazine. Details can be found in the process work submitted: https://tinyurl.com/monicaprocess.
