My Big Fat Greek Wedding

The film My Big Fat Greek Wedding takes place in a Chicago Greek Community background where Toula Portokalosa and her family live comfortably. Toula’s father, Gus, is only interested in regards to seeing his daughter get engaged to a man with Greek background (Hanks & Zwick, 2002). On the other hand, Toula, who is 30 years old, is increasingly becoming concerned about her age and thinks that she may be time barred as far as getting a marriage partner is concerned. For this reason, she is willing and ready to be married to anyone regardless of his race, religion, or ethnicity. The importance of this setting is that it shows the cultural challenges that especially the immigrant families in America experience. While the parents may retain their cultural values when they migrate to America, children are born and bred in America and so for the children, the American culture is what they may know. Due to the differences between children and their parents, conflicts of values often arise.

After 14 years, the sequel to the romantic comedy ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ is back at the Box-Office.

The consequences of these people making their relationships expendables means they are pushing away and sacrificing the people that love them the most in order to obtain something they think they want/need, but overall has very low importance to their lives.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding focuses primarily upon the tribulations of Toula, whose Greek heritage invades all aspects of her life, including her relationship with the markedly American, culturally lacking Ian Miller. Toula’s family perpetuates all the customs of a Greek household down to specific female values among which Toula recites, “Nice Greek girls are supposed to… marry Greek boys.” Her heritage emphasizes marriage and breeding within the race, proving that

“My Big Fat Greek Wedding” stars Nia Vardalos as Toula Portokalos, a 30-year-old daughter in a Greek family living in a city. The movie opens with Toula’s father, Gus Portokalos (Michael Constantine), picking her up in a rain storm and telling her she needs to get married because she is getting old. Toula then recounts her childhood, telling of the difficulties involved with growing up in a Greek family. Toula’s life has been less than stellar to this point, but that all changes when Ian Miller (John Corbett), a teacher at a local school, walks into her parent’s restaurant. It is love at first sight for Toula, but she is too awkward and nervous to converse with the handsome stranger. He leaves.

2 Toula would like to work in her aunt’s travel agency, but she had no power to make the decision on her own, even her aunt. Finally, her mother, her aunt and she cooperated together and worked out a good idea that helped Toula realize her dream.

Homer’s epic poem, “The Odyssey” reveals many aspects of ancient Greek life and culture through character and plot. Through each of the tales circling the life of Odysseus and the Greek people, Homer depicts the history, legends, values, and merits of the ancient Greeks. Greek culture is known to be one of the most flavored and thorough in history, and each facet of it—from religion to ideology to mentalities and beliefs.

Ian’s family is American and they are the opposite of Toula’s family, they are part of the low context culture, like many other American families. One of the biggest differences is that Toula’s family is loud, big and always together and Ian’s family is small, quite, and only see each other on special occasions.

Coming into college most students struggle to find a place where they fit in. Greek life provides individuals the opportunity to find people that are similar to them and share the same values as they do. In the article

In the films Bend It Like Beckham and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, two very different folk cultures are shown. Due to the culture and traditions of the protagonists, there are some significant gender conflicts, as well as conflicts with popular culture. Both Jess, the main character of Bend It Like Beckham, and Toula in My Big Fat Greek Wedding want to have experiences that the do not agree with the ways of their families. With these differing views, there are high tensions between family and friends, and some secrets are kept. Throughout the films, the effects of folk culture on young adults in a modern society are demonstrated.

These two different worlds of conflict are between family devotion and self-realization. There is a strong pressure to obey their parent’s rules, remain a part of the community and to marry well off and bear children. Male Greeks have more freedom then girls. Women remain close to their mothers before and even after marriage (Jugrens, n.d.). Education and a career comes second, and is at times viewed unwomanly. Man are to pursue a higher education. Actually, “The 1990 Census reports that twice as many Greek men as women received university degrees, with significantly proportion of men going on to receive advanced degrees” (Jugrens,

When I was in the third grade I was extremely obsessed with the Nickelodeon soap opera, House of Anubis. If you’ve never heard of it before, it was centered around an American teengaer in a British boarding school where the faculty was involved in some strange cult obsessed with Egyptian mythology and “The Chosen One.” On top of that there was four love triangles, child kidnapping, carrot eating competitions, masquerade balls, a disturbing amount of taxidermy, and a crapload of other random things. Yeah, that existed.

What appealed to me the most in America’s culture is that we could dress however we want and in Greece they have a special dress code it’s like against religion if they dress out of it. Also I don’t think that I would like the food over their I’m not a big fan on vegetables and that’s all they eat over there. The website: www.mapsofworld.com I have been provided information about and over Greece’s history and culture. Greece is a meeting point where the eastern and western countries and that affect the people and the culture.

Cultural and psychological concerns is apparent through the use of characterization. Isolation/Alienation in the suburban life plays a big role in both the films

The first sign of change in this family is when Toula desires to go to school and learn about computers. There is resistance from her father because that is not her role in the family. He reminds Toula that it is her job to get married and have babies. But the decision to get married and start a family was more of a less of a “sliding decision” since she did not have a choice. This was the future her family had set for her.