Premium Essay

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

In:

Submitted By miserycat
Words 1329
Pages 6
Film Techniques of ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ * At the beginning of the film, she is very upset because she was different and of different culture to the kids in her school, but then the movie gradually shows that it is actually a positive because that is what Ian liked about her. * In the opening segment, there is the use of voiceover, which is a reflective technique. * What she said when in the first scene, she said she wanted to be blond girls, that later Ian likes her because she is different and not blond. She didn’t want to go to Greek school but that was what Ian liked. During the scene with her in Greek school, there was Greek music playing in the background which emphasises how distinctly Greek she is. * When it shows their house, it pans across the street and there is a medium shot of the house. Their family is mono-culture. Gus has very set beliefs and he is so convinced that all of the human accomplishments have been because of the Greeks, that’s why he wants her to marry a Greek. * The main thing is humour. It conveys the message of this film in an interesting way. * The film introduces the usage of repeated motifs with the Greek language, Windex and the idea that you have to get married, have babies and feed everyone. * We are showed that when she was young, she was embarrassed by her parents. The irony that when she was young, she didn’t want to be Greek but in the later years, this is what was made her special. They brought her grandma, just because they weren’t weird enough and the ironic part is that her weirdness is what attracts Ian to her. * There was slapstick humour such as when Ian was at the window of where Toula was working and making weird movements and expressions. * Juxtaposition of the scenes was used to compare the two scenes. The scene when they were on their first date is juxtaposed to the

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

...“My Big Fat Greek Wedding” is a charming romantic comedy that explores cultural differences in a combination of adorable romance and cute humor. The story revolves around Toula, a thirty-year-old Greek American single woman, who lives with her family in the suburb of Chicago. Like many obedient Greek daughters, she works in her family’s business, a restaurant called “Dancing Zorba’s.” Toula belongs to a traditional collective upbringing where all good daughters are expected to marry from their ethnic background. However, she struggles with her father’s limited ambitions for her and she longs for something else in life. She enrolls in college and takes computer classes. With the computer diploma under her belt, a rebellious Toula emerges. She manages her aunt’s travel agency and starts dating Ian Miller, a white high school English teacher. They date secretly for a while, before she has the courage to introduce him to her family. Her father is livid over her dating a non-Greek. The climax of the story occurs when both sides try to adjust to each other. While Ian has to let go of his rigid white individualistic upbringing and learn to accept her collective big family and Greek traditions, Toula has to come to terms with her own identity. My Big Fat Greek Wedding not only exposes the cultural difference between the individualism of Ian and his family and the collectivism of Toula and her family, it also offers a wide array of misconceptions in interpersonal communication. Collectivism...

Words: 1499 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

My Big Fat Greek Wedding Essay

...A nice romantic-comedy about a Greek-American girl which has to fight against her family's strict traditions in order to marry a non-Greek boy. I think that, for the Greek people, this movie must be full of strange topics and stereotypes, but for the ones who don't know about the Greek way of life it is pretty amusing. There are all kind of weird characters, like the grandma and the starring actress, Nia Vardalos makes an outstanding job showing us the metamorphosis of a timid girl to a liberated woman. `My Big Fat Greek Wedding,' directed by Joel Zwick, will make you laugh and make you cry, but most importantly, it will make you `feel.' It is one of those rare cinematic experiences that after watching it seems to make the sky seem bluer, a single step lighter and a smile easier to come by. It is clearly evident that the film follows the story of Toula and Ian’s love life, through all the bumps and hurdles they face....

Words: 544 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

My Big Fat Greek Wedding Analysis

...My Big Fat Greek Wedding Analysis Our culture is a part of what makes us who we are and how we communicate with others. My Big Fat Greek Wedding does an amazing job at illustrating cultural differences and all the dilemmas that occur from them. More importantly, the film shows us that with proper communication people can find a way to get along, no matter how significant the cultural differences may be. Cultural communication barriers are seen many times throughout the film. One example of this could be when Ian’s parents were attending his wedding and mentioned they couldn’t understand anything the Greek orthodox minister was saying and were astonished at the sight of people in the audience spitting on the bride. Another example might be when Ian mentioned to Toula’s Aunt that he was a vegetarian and she insisted that lamb was not considered meat. In the film we see also many instances of misunderstandings that arise due to the differences in culture. For example, when Ian met Toula’s father for the first time, Toula’s father took it as an insult that Ian did not ask permission before attempting to date his daughter. Due to Ian’s ignorance of nurturing culture like Greek culture, Ian unintentionally angered Toula’s father by his actions. Another example is when Ian’s parents meet Toula’s family for the first time. Ian’s parents also unintentionally upset Toula’s father by acting too uptight. Greek culture is classified as a collectivistic culture, so it easy to see...

Words: 309 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

My Big Fat Greek Wedding Review

...analyze is “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” starring Nia Vardalos, John Corbett and other bigger than life stars. This movie is about a young Greek woman, Toula Portokalos, who struggles with her identity and does not feel like she fits in. She desires more in life and is confused as to how she will fill the role her parents require of her. Toula’s family migrated from Greece to give her and her siblings, Athena and Nick a better life. Their father, Gus, is sure to remind them of this every chance he gets. He believes the Greek way is the only way and is very intolerant of pushback from his children. Toula’s mother, Maria, is a strong woman who believes in working hard, loving hard, and cooking huge meals at any given moment. Toula fights the fact that she is nothing like her family. She is quirky and finds that she is a square peg in a round hole. The Portokalos family is very big and exceptionally close. Every occasion calls for a party and every party calls for the most food any person could ever imagine. This rambunctious lifestyle has always been a thorn in Toula’s side and no matter how hard she tries, she is unable to find her niche in life. As a Greek woman, she is expected to marry young, have many children and work in the family business, a diner called the Dancing Zorbas. Not only is she to marry a nice man, he is to be a nice, GREEK man. While trying to come to terms with her cultural distinctiveness, Toula meets and falls in love with a non-Greek. When Toula...

Words: 1805 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

My Big Fat Greek Wedding Refletion Paper

...Kim May 18, 2016 After Watching “My Big Greek Wedding” The movie “My Big Greek Wedding” is about the wedding between Tula, who is a Greek-American and was wearing out of fashion style and Ian who is local American white man. Even if now she is in her early thirties, her mother and father want to find a husband in hoping of sending her to Greece. At this time, she meets a perfect guy who is American. The major conflict in this movie came out after she met him. In this movie, there are a lot of cultural things that have learned in this class. For example, dominant culture, a minority group, oppression, culture difference, and collectivism. Here are the reasons why I thought of many those concepts. First of all, this movie showed the family living in America with Greek culture, showing dominant culture and a minority group. At the start of this movie, it illustrated how this girl had grown up in America. Since this Greek family immigrated to America, the dominant culture is American culture. So, Tula was illustrated adjusting in American culture was hard, avoiding other American girls. However, her family was different. Even if they are in American, they didn’t remove their own culture, especially their house. In the movie, they lived in normal Chicago town. Whereas other houses are similar with American traditional style house, her family houses are similar with the temple of the Parthenon. Indeed, they always have their meal with Greek food. In this point, even if they...

Words: 630 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Examples of Ethnocentrism

...Ethnocentrism is a major reason for divisions amongst members of different ethnicities, races, and religious groups in society. Ethnocentrism is the belief of superiority is one's personal ethnic group, but it can also develop from racial or religious differences. Ethnocentric individuals believe that they are better than other individuals for reasons based solely on their heritage. Clearly, this practice is related to problems of both racism and prejudice. While many people may recognize the problems, they may not realize that ethnocentrism occurs everywhere and everyday at both the local and political levels. Ethnocentrism in History Present Day Politics To solidify the definition of ethnocentrism, looking at the present day politics of the United States is helpful. With instances occuring since its conception, the United States has often thought of itself as more powerful, more economically sound, and just generally "better" than other nations. This has been shown by the country's tendency to dabble in situations occuring in other nations, such as the country's current involvement with affairs in the Middle East. Although the idea of every citizen in the United States belonging to one ethnicity is certainly debatable, since the country has citizens who originally came from all over the world, the feeling of national pride can stand in for a pure ethnicity in this case. European Imperialism Imperialism, the practice of taking over other lands, was heavily...

Words: 979 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

My Story

...thought and the most important things that define me are my adoption, heritage, and passion for the game of softball. It is not just one aspect that defines me. It is through my past experiences, and future ones that shape who I am as an individual person. My adoption would have to be what defines me the most because being adopted shows a person that they can’t take their family for granted. Building and keeping the strong relationship with my family is very important to me. These relationships continue to grow every day. Without my family I don’t know where I would be right now. The basically saved my life and that’s what family is for. Another thing that adoption has taught me about is inclusion. My family took me in when I needed it the most and they didn’t treat me like I was an outsider even though they didn’t know anything about me or where I came from. Including someone is something me and my friends are doing could change someone’s life for the better. I was taught that I shouldn’t exclude anyone and if they are shy go over to them and ask if they want to join. Continuing with the family idea and the adoption, my heritage is also another thing that defines me. With being adopted I was only introduced to my adopted family’s heritage which is Irish, German, and Scottish. However, this summer I decided to ask my mom what my true heritage was and she told me that I was Greek. By me being Greek it explains a lot about my...

Words: 681 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Wedding Power Film Analysis

...explore the layers of structure of power, I find the history of wedding tradition to be fascinating. “He uses history to dispel the sort of routine, instituted self-assurance people have about reality of such entities as the mental disorders they fear they may be suffering from, or the inner sexual needs they believe they have to release. Foucault has examined various kinds of systems of thought through which people have come to identify themselves as subjects.”(Rajchman) And then another good quote about Michel Foucault is “For more than a decade, his elegant shaved skull had been an emblem of political courage-a cynosure of resistance to institutions that would smother the free spirit and stifle the right to be different.” (Miller 13) I will be exploring how the present days views are reinforced; the dominant message of how a wedding should be and then how in some movies, the post-feminism is displayed which slightly alters this dominant image. I will be also exploring the mix of cultural traditions within the wedding to see how the structure is similar or drastically different. I will discuss Marx’s Materialism ideology aspect of the domination of the ruling class and explore the aspect of the base and superstructure with the mode of production/the system of economic relations within the institutions surrounding wedding ideology. Through close textual analysis, I will show the dominant ideology of the wedding industry as illustrated through media and the attitudes of various...

Words: 4740 - Pages: 19

Free Essay

Wedding

...had the chance to attend a Catholic wedding at St. Michaels Catholic church. I had never been to a wedding before.I was very anxious to experience this ceremony.Wedding always look so beautiful and full of love in the movies.On my way to the church,i thought to myself "It would be interesting if an ex boyfriend would come and stop the ceremony,just to make it even more interesting." When I arrived at the church, I quickly found a seat in the back so I could see the bride coming in before everyone else. I hadn't been in a church in a very long time and I didn't remember what it was like.The sanctuary was nothing like what I was imagined it to be. It was dark and everyone was extremely quiet. It reminded me of the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding.It was a dark church with a lot of loud family members.A lot of the women were wearing black,not because they were mourning the marriage,but because dominican women do everything to look thiner for special events.If it was not for the obvious wedding decorations and the loud couples you would think it was a ceremony for the dead. When the wedding started, a woman began playing the organ. The bride walked down the aisle to the usual with her divorced parents.The tradition is usually for the father of the bride to walk a bride down the aisle,but like every other self centered hispanic mother, she insisted that she be included.The ceremony was two hours long,but it felt like forever. My favorite part was when the couple was...

Words: 725 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Immigration

...declared. "We are the world's most diverse democracy. And the world looks to us to show that it is possible to live and advance together across those kinds of differences. America has always been a nation of immigrants....We started as an experiment in democracy fueled by Europeans. We have grown into an experiment in democratic diversity fueled by openness and promise...We must never believe that diversity is a weakness — it is our greatest strength." [State of the Union Address of February 9, 1997, President Bill Clinton] What some people fail to see is that immigrant has become a greater part of American culture. To signify this there have been movie portrayals of immigrants celebrating how they have changed America for example My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Coming to America. One thing that has not been addressed, is that how immigrants have changed America, how do they contribute to the U.S.A.? In the United States immigration has always been controversial issue. Americans in the past thought that immigrants would not be able to conform to the American lifestyle in a way that could contribute to America. In modern day America the same fears are raised about immigrants from all over the world. But like their counterparts from previous eras, their criticism of immigrants are just as wrong. Immigrants has given America diversity of ethnicity and religion which has been lucrative for the country. This has enriched the American culture, enhanced Americas influence in the world, and...

Words: 480 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

The Powerless In Uncle Tom's Cabin

...Necks of the 1800s: The Influence of the Powerless in Uncle Tom’s Cabin In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a movie about a woman that goes against tradition to marry a man of another religion, there is a scene in which the main character and her mother have the following conversation: Toula: Ma, Dad is so stubborn. What he says goes. [Quoting her father,] “Ah, the man is the head of the house!” Maria (mother): Let me tell you something, Toula. The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants (IMDb). During the 19th century, one had to be a white male in order to hold any official power or influence in society. Women, as well as African Americans, had little to no economic or political power until the...

Words: 492 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

English

...Ch r i s t i n e Ro e ll Intercultural Training with Films ilms are a great medium to use not only to practice English, but also to facilitate intercultural learning. Today English is a global language spoken by people from many countries and cultural backgrounds. Since culture greatly impacts communication, it is helpful for teachers to introduce lessons and activities that reveal how different dialects, forms of address, customs, taboos, and other cultural elements influence interaction among different groups. Numerous films contain excellent examples of intercultural communication and are highly useful resources for teachers. Additional reasons for teachers to incorporate films in class and encourage their students to watch movies in English include: • Films combine pleasure and learning by telling a story in a way that captures and holds the viewer’s interest. • Films simultaneously address different senses and cognitive channels. For example, spoken language is supported by visual elements that make it easier for students to understand the dialogues and the plot. • Students are exposed to the way people actually speak. 2 2010 N u m b e r F • Films involve the viewers, appeal to their feelings, and help them empathize with the protagonists. • DVDs usually come with subtitles in English, which facilitates understanding and improves reading skills. After discussing the importance of teaching intercultural communication and suggesting films that match specific cultural...

Words: 6086 - Pages: 25

Free Essay

Undecided

...Undecided Title Jessica Cottrill COM/156 Gerald Chouinard There are two gods in Greek mythology that stand out from a medical standpoint, in particular. Those being Hippocrates and Asclepius. Hippocrates has become known to many historians and physicians as the founding father of medicine due to his taking it and making it a rational practice, free from magic and superstition. (Osborn, 2010.) The influences of Hippocrates are vast and still provide a basis for physicians today. He was the first to document medical histories and use patient histories to study their illnesses. He factored in all aspects of their lives including past medical problems, the climate in which they live, diet and their line of work. The Hippocratic collection is composed of Hippocrates writings from his research and practice of medicine. It is composed of sixty books documenting information on every part of the human body including the brain, skin and eyes. It is unclear as to whether Hippocrates wrote all of the collection, but it is thought to have been written by himself and his students. (Truman, 2013.) The myth of Asclepius and his contributions to modern medicine are surrounded by more fantastical stories of healing than, Hippocrates. According to ancient Greek history, Asclepius was so skilled in his surgical and healing capabilities, it appeared as though he could rise the dead to living again. According to myth, Asclepius was struck down by the gods who were...

Words: 2088 - Pages: 9

Premium Essay

Sermon for Youth Group

...What is beauty? What does it mean? Well I asked people that question....and do you know what they said? I quote “when you look appealing to other people,” “when other people say you look good.” Do you know what the definition of beauty is in the dictionary? “the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the eye, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.)” I want to emphasize for a moment on the word eye..... E.Y.E. See, what God thinks is beautiful is a whole lot different from what “society” and the “general public” thinks is beautiful. The way I see it the ONLY opinion that even matters is Gods. The beauty he loves, is inner beauty. My mom always told me beauty is as beauty does. See I went through a really hard time all through elementary school and all through middle school. Obviously I am not the skinniest person in the world. I mean come on people lets face it, am I gonna be a skinny super model....no. Do I care....no! But what I did care about is what people thought of me. How people perceived me....when they looked at me did they see just some chubby teen, or do they see a vivacious, hilarious girl with a cool personality? Well, what do you think they thought? They thought the chubby teen......I used to get made fun of so badly in school. People would call me names and laugh at me. I felt extremely insecure ALL the time.............................. The reason I want to stress so hard...

Words: 1721 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

Interculteral Communication

...|[pic] |Course Syllabus | | |College of Humanities | | |COM/360 Version 3 | | |Intercultural Communication | Copyright © 2010, 2009, 2004 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved. Course Description The purpose of this course is to assist students in understanding and applying the principles of effective intercultural communication in a diverse society and in global commerce. Students will develop an understanding of why and how cultural issues influence effective communication. This course introduces techniques for improving written, oral, and interpersonal communication skills in response to intercultural settings. Policies Faculty and students/learners will be held responsible for understanding and adhering to all policies contained within the following two documents: • University policies: You must be logged into the student website to view this document. • Instructor policies: This document is posted in the Course Materials forum. University policies are...

Words: 1409 - Pages: 6