My Big Fat Greek Wedding Essay

The director of My Big Fat Greek Wedding film, Joel Zwick, tries to represent two different cultures, American and Greek, he manages to portray characters, values and events in a rather conventional manner. In our analysis we will mainly focus on the family representation, religion, eating habits, outward appearance standards concerning hair and dressing style, and finally on Greek nationalism concerning Greek history, relationships with other peoples and Greek language.

The first matter that we would like to discuss about is on is the representation of the Greek and American family. Family for Greeks, as the film reveals, is a highly valued institution that has to be respected. It seems to be a common practice for the Greek’s to have weekly

Greeks are very proud of their national cooking and eating habits. They claim to follow a very well-balanced and healthy diet, but they usually use too much olive oil and eat too much meat. It is unusual to hear Greeks claiming that they are vegetarians. Taking this into consideration, one should not be surprised when they hear Aunt Voula, breezily stating, after hearing Ian is a vegetarian, “That’s all right, I’ll cook lamb if Greeks have guests, they will serve them anything available and the guests had better accepted it. Therefore, when mama Maria asks Ian if he’s hungry, and he replies of “No, I just ate” she continues “Okay, I’ll fix you something.” That is typical behavior for a Greek mother. It is also weird when you see Greeks eating alone. Toula herself explains that the way things go in her family, everyone ends up as “Loud, breeding, Greek eaters although the director manages to present the Greek eating aspect in a rather informative plus funny way, he is misleading in many cases as he excessively shows Greeks eating with hands only, serving their guests with no plates and drinking ouzo shots.

Conversely, in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the cultural differences are not viewed in a negative side . Toula has personal problems with her heritage, and this is what is pushing her away from her family. By falling in love with Ian, who is not from their Greek culture, Toula ends up avoiding herself away from her parents, especially her