My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a Hollywood-style romantic comedy, about Toula Portokalos a 30-year-old single woman in Chicago, A Greek descendant, being raised in a highly traditional family. I am going to compare the American culture to that of the Portokalos family.
The movie starts at her family’s restaurant, Dancing Zorba’s, where she is incessantly reminded that her clock is ticking. In conformity with her family’s standard, women that are not married and popping out babies, work in the family restaurant, and are seen as disappointments. Toula comes from a traditional Greek upbringing in where all women are expected to marry from their own ethnic background namely Greeks. According to Toula “There are three things that every Greek woman ought to do in life: marry Greek boys, make Greek babies, and feed everyone.” Toula’s family loves the Greek
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While hesitantly getting to know him, and accept him. Toulas parents then host a dinner where the two families are to formally meet. Just before Ian arrives at Toula’s house with his parents, Toula’s numerous cousins and family members show up and a substantial party starts.
When Ian’s family peeks through the window of the car, outside Toula’s house, they expected a quiet dinner with the Portokalos family, instead they find a wild party with Toulas entire Greek family, and it is quite the shock for them. This is a significant cultural difference, at least where these two families are concerned, because whereas the parents of Ian expect a quiet dinner with proper conversation, Toula’s parents want it filled with food, drink and lots of dancing, Toulas dad even says that Ian parents are “dry”.
On Toula and Ian’s wedding day in the church it is noticeable that Toula’s side of the wedding has more guests than Ian’s, because it is common for Greek to have many children, whereas a traditional American family only has two to three