My Big Fat Greek Wedding - Individualistic vs Collectivistic Culture

672 Words3 Pages
In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I analyzed the scene where Toula’s family is having a party, and Ian Miller’s parents are going to come and meet the family for the first time. This is an extreme clash of individualistic vs. collectivistic culture. Ian’s parents seemed to be a traditional white, American couple with no sense of foreign food, customs, or culture of any kind. When the parents originally start walking up to the house, and there have to be at least 30 people outside partying, it is an instant sense of confusion and intimidation that they seem to feel. Ian’s parents hand Toula’s parents a Bundt cake and Toula’s parents had never even seen one before. They were so confused about it, that later in the scene they brought it out…show more content…
But because I was culturally conditioned to be afraid of Compton, I went into that experience already with a negative attitude, and was unable to curb that until I got that feeling of relief when I left.

I find that Compton story funny, because it is still related to American culture. I consider myself a world traveler. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit the UK, Greece, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, Mexico, Spain, and Turkey. In all of these situations, I have found myself easy to adapt and learn from these cultures. I find foreign cultures fascinating, and love to immerse myself in them. I honestly feel fearless and no intimidation by them, and do not consider myself to be ethnocentric at all. When I travel with my Dad, he gets annoyed when things aren’t as he expects them to be, and when I mean “expects” I mean American. I realize when I travel that they aren’t supposed to be like America, and that is the whole point. So to get to the final question, adapting to foreign cultural norms and values is a lot easier for me to do that adapting to different American styles of culture. When in another country, I use it as education: to better myself, and to understand the world. Being somewhere like Compton, because the media has already familiarized myself with the “idea” of what Compton is and all about, I have a preconceived notion about it, and in the end, ruins any kind of assimilation possible, if there could have
Get Access
Related

  • Management Course: Mba−10 General Management

    215330 Words  | 862 Pages

    Management Course: MBA−10 General Management California College for Health Sciences MBA Program McGraw-Hill/Irwin abc McGraw−Hill Primis ISBN: 0−390−58539−4 Text: Effective Behavior in Organizations, Seventh Edition Cohen Harvard Business Review Finance Articles The Power of Management Capital Feigenbaum−Feigenbaum International Management, Sixth Edition Hodgetts−Luthans−Doh Contemporary Management, Fourth Edition Jones−George Driving Shareholder Value Morin−Jarrell Leadership

    Read More

More about My Big Fat Greek Wedding - Individualistic vs Collectivistic Culture

Get Access