Humour can sometimes get lost in translation and this definitely seems to be the case when it comes to the Irish people’s love for Matt Le Blanc following the recent Friends reunion.
Numerous memes have been created using a picture of the star, sitting with his arms folded, giving a wry smile, which compare him to every Irish auld man.
The Joey Tribiani actor has completely overtaken Matt Damon as Ireland’s favourite Matt in the past few days. While the memes are affectionate those outside of Ireland seemed to think the nation was fat shaming the star.
Jays Collingwood from Cananda took to Twitter to express his outrage saying: “All of the Matt LeBlanc fat shaming isn't fun or funny.”
Yorkshireman Adam Kelly Williams wrote: “Stop fat shaming Matt LeBlanc. He's the only good one.”
Victoria from Blackburn also chimed in: “Stop fat shaming Matt Le Blanc on my feed it’s MEAN (Also, he isn’t fat he’s normal FFS)”
Even beloved author Marian Keyes wasn’t immune to the accusations. The Dublin writer had been gleefully sharing her favourite Mattie Bán (as she called him) memes saying: “Oh!!!! These Matt leblanc being Irish memes are LOVELY!”
Unfortunately one of her followers took umbrage retweeting one of her posts and commenting: "Imagine if we were doing this to Jennifer Aniston?" leading Marian to write: “And just like clockwork, in comes the po-faced killjoy to throw 'righteous' judgement about. Sometimes I absolutely hate people. There was nothing but love in the whole Mattie Bán thing, a uniting sweetness that made me so happy and now I feel sad and hopeless.”
However Irish Twitter quickly leapt to the defence of the memes.
Academic and author Dr. Jeneen Naji from Maynooth University said: “We are not fat shaming Matt LeBlanc we are claiming his as one of our own, because of his body language, because of his tired but amiable expression and the way he seems to be bracing himself for a long event full of people he loves that he would rather not be at but has to.”
Niamh Tumelty echoed this sentiment writing: “Anyone else a little offended at idea that Matt LeBlanc as everyone’s favourite uncle is fat-shaming? Suggests that there’s something to be ashamed of in being a nice, normal fear gan nósanna ar bith. All I see is an outpouring of affection, recognition and invites to the pub.”
Daniel Mullane was so keen to make his point that he typed it in all capitals writing: “NO ONE IS FAT SHAMING MATT LEBLANC. HE IS OUR IRISH DAD/UNCLE AND WE LOVE HIM.”
A user called Kassi who goes by the handle @joyourwarrior said: “I totally don’t think anyone is fat shaming Matt LeBlanc…He is beloved."
Meanwhile a user going by the name Pursuit of Balance tweeted: “Some people seem outraged at the way Irish people have started commenting on Matt Leblanc at the reunion. It's not fat shaming, most hardly mention his weight. They are endearing to him and seeing him as family. I love it"
Matt himself did actually address his weight gain on the reunion show. He and Jennifer Aniston were discussing how much smaller the set looked when Jen commented, "Which is WEIRD because we're no bigger now!" Matt waited a beat before responding: "Speak for yourself."
Ironically Matt has had to defend Friends against accusations of fat shaming in the past. An ongoing plot point and joke in the show was that the character of Monica, played by Courtney Cox, used to be fat and the extremely slender Cox even wore a fat suit in flashback scenes but when asked about this in a 2018 interview he said: “Everyone gets up in arms about one thing or another these days. I think that will go as quickly as it came. I don’t think it’s something Friends will be judged by.”
