Monica Geller "The Michigan Daily" appreciated the fact that "Cox brought moments of sincerity and severity to Monica". However, "The Washington Post" panned Cox's performance as "degrading", while Mike Ryan of ScreenCrush dismissed Monica as a "fairly normal, but boring" character. In 1999, Cox was nominated for an American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Female Performer in a TV Series. Although continuously praised for her performance, Cox never received an Emmy Award nomination for her role on "Friends" during its entire run, although each of her five co-stars did. Both female castmates Lisa Kudrow and Jennifer Aniston remain the show's only main
Monica Geller to "The Hollywood Reporter", Hollywood professionals voted Monica the 47th best fictional female character. ChaCha collectively ranked Phoebe, Rachel and Monica the 11th, 12th and 13th best female television characters of all-time, respectively. Maria Tallarico of "Cosmopolitan" observed that a number of Monica's storylines, specifically one in which the character unintentionally has sex with a high school senior, "probably wouldn't fly on TV today". Writing for Mic.com, Samantha Allen believes that Monica helped "set the standard for how sitcoms could and would talk about sex" by both engaging in casual sex and dating a much older man. According to Dustin