Character Analysis: Toula Portokalos

1. Toula Portokalos is a 30-year old American-Greek woman working as a waitress in her family’s restaurant. Toula is a shy wallflower who has never been in a real relationship before, also her family wishes nothing more than seeing her being married to a Greek man, has already given up hope of finding a husband for her. Toula starts taking courses at a local college to make more out of her life, she gets to know Ian and suddenly turns into an attractive independent woman. The only problem is that Ian is not Greek and he is a vegetarian, two facts that are not tolerable for the Greek family. Toula and Ian meet secretly for a while and falls in love until her family finds out about them. Although Toula’s family does not accept Ian at first

Ethnocentrism is defined as your culture is superior to other cultures; it’s often, but not always portrayed in a humorous, light hearted manner. One example of Ethnocentrism portrayed in a light manner would be, where a Greek family (i.e. The Portokalos Family) believes that being Greek is the one and only acceptable way of living. In the beginning as Toula was growing up, Ethnocentrism plays a role when the father Gus constantly states that he can trace any word back to the Greek origins and that the Greeks are loyal to their culture. When one looks at their house, we see that they are Greek because of all the status and the Greek flag on the Garage. All the Portokalos children have to go to Greek school from a very young age, while the American children are going to scouts and brownies. Cultural relativism, is the idea that people such as their actions, beliefs, etc... should be judged not only on a universal scale but on a scale to the culture he/she belong to. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, is centered about the issues of planning a Greek wedding. In the start of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Toula defies cultural relativism. Gus, takes a culturally relative, nationalistic approach to a woman’s role and his view of other ethnicities, an example would be Toula’s parents only wanted her to marry a Greek guy and make Greek babies, because “…Greeks marry Greeks to breed more Greeks, to be loud breeding Greek eaters (Quote from Toula to Ian on My Big Fat Greek Wedding).” Towards the end of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, cultural relativism was resolved by Toula’s father, Gus’s discovery that one culture can exist without eliminating the