The movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” came out in 2002 and
shows the story of a relationship between a Greek woman, Toula, and a non-Greek
man Ian. Toula comes from a pretty
strict family, meaning they expect her to have what they consider a “typical”
life where she would marry a Greek man and raise Greek babies. When her family learns of the relationship
they don’t approve, especially her Father. Eventually Ian agrees to become
baptized to become Greek Orthodox. Her family goes a little crazy after that,
they go all out with wedding planning and things don’t really go as Ian and
Toula want them to go. When Ian’s parents come for dinner the family overwhelms
them and they are perceived as rude. I think it’s appropriate because it
highlights the differences in culture that are very prevalent between the
family of Toula and Ian.
In this movie Ian (and at parts, his family) experience culture
shock. Culture shock is defined as being a relatively short-term feeling of
disorientation and discomfort due to the lack of familiar cues in the environment.
This connects with intercultural communication because whenever you interact
with anyone of a different culture things will be different. Depending on how
different things are and how they are relative to your “comfort zone” you could
experience culture shock.
In the movie there were so many examples of culture shock
and cultural adaption. Ian had to adjust quite a bit to become used to the new culture
that he was entering into. The closeness of her family was one things that
contributed to the culture shock. Toula has 27 first cousins- compared to his
2, which he doesn’t really have much contact with. When Ian and his family come
to what is supposed to be a quiet dinner, they end up at a very large dinner
(which is closer to party) that her family set up. The party had Ian’s family
kind of go into a culture shock. The way
that her Father believes that everything can be fixed using Windex can also be
included as culture shock. It isn’t considered “normal” to use Windex for
everything (especially acne!) One of the
biggest examples of culture shock could be that they made lamb since they
learned Ian was a vegetarian and didn’t eat meat. They didn’t count lamb as
meat. In general the wedding itself could be considered to be a bit of a culture
shock not only for Ian, but especially for his family.
Hi Mikayla!
ReplyDeleteI wrote about this movie too! I think it is a good depiction of cultural adaptation and it provides an insight into a culture different than my own. You did a great job of bringing in course concepts. Was there a quote from the movie that stood out to you? Overall, good post I enjoyed reading it.
I feel that it is one thing for someone's significant other to try to adapt to another person's family, but when their family is so connected to their home culture, it is easy to feel culture shock when you are living in a dominant society.
ReplyDeleteI chose to write about this movie too but wrote about Toula's experience, rather than Ian's. I loved how you made the connection of him and culture shock. One of my favorite scenes is him and his family when they meet all of Toul's Greek family, describe culture shock perfectly.
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