My Big Fat Greek Wedding Movie - Essay Example

Client’s 25 September My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a wonderful movie which sheds light upon the cultural differences of Greeks and the non-Greeks residing in various parts of the world. The movie centers around Fotoula "Toula" Portokalos, she is a woman who is facing midlife crisis, she is an unmarried woman. She helps in running her family restaurant, the movie is fascinating because it tells a very unique story of different cultures and how two different cultures can come together. Athena is Toula’s sister; the latter is married and has three children this adds to the pressure of her sister because she is unmarried and still looking for her match. Toula is going through a very tough time in the initial parts of the movie because she thinks she is doomed and she will never find herself a suitable match but all this changes when a handsome young man enters her restaurant one morning and she completely falls head over heels in love with him. She acts really weird in front of him out of her awe for him, she was really swept off her feet when she first saw Ian Miller. The Greek culture expects women to make Greek babies and to take care of their family until the very end but Toula was a different girl, she did not want to do the same as her sister Athena. There are several cultural differences that have been clearly highlighted in the movie. The Greek culture expects women to marry and take care of their family, women are required to give up on their career but Toula was a very ambitious girl and she begins to take computer classes in spite of knowing that this decision will not go down too well with her family members. These are some cultural patterns that this movie clearly exhibits. Edward T. Hall wrote a book called The silent language (1959), he was an anthropologist. He wrote on a variety of topics in his book. He shed light upon masculinity and how men acquire wealth and become competitive as opposed to women who focus more on building relationships, this is appropriate when it comes to the movie because Toula is not expected by her family to acquire wealth or to be competitive. She is just expected to get married and to start a family, like a typical Greek family she is also expected to feed her family members until the very end. “Hall developed several key concepts with which he attempted to explain the problematic nature of non-verbal communication in non- Western cultures. In particular, Hall popularized the field of proxemics, or the study of interpersonal distance and its effects on communication in different cultures. Hall’s main contribution to the field was to highlight the role that culture plays in influencing human behavior.” (Hall, Edward) The culture of Toula in the film is very important to shed light upon, she is not expected to fall in love with a person who is not Greek but she goes against the wishes of her family by marrying a non Greek person in the movie. She is expected to "marry a Greek boy, make Greek babies, and feed everyone until the day she dies." “Culture is one of the most used but misunderstood concepts of recent times. It is used by politicians, academics, managers, schoolteachers and students all the time, usually as an explanation for abnormal behavior. Linguists, anthropologists, sociologists and organizational theorists have variously attempted to define culture and the lesser term subculture. While we all seem to have some idea of what is meant by culture, defining it precisely is difficult. Informally, the word culture refers to a way of thinking and acting that is somewhat related to people speaking a common language (but not always).” (Hall, Edward) Cultural differences portrayed in the film Toula and Ian started dating in the movie and the latter proposed the former, she accepted the proposal but when Gus came to know about this he was infuriated and did not want Toula and Ian to marry each other because he believed that a Greek woman must only marry a Greek man but sadly, Ian was not from Greece and he was not Greek. There are clear cultural differences that can be seen in the movie. Toula changes her appearance when she gets a new job, she was mindful of the fact that she had to look good to woo Ian, she also started using contact lenses so that she could get rid of her glasses. “The way in which we dress, the hairstyles we adopt, and the make-up and jewellery that we choose to wear are all indicators of our status and our socio-economic class. Dress and appearance are important signifiers of our social identities, but we are constrained by the acceptable limits of our culture. We can think of dress and appearance as a sort of uniform that we choose to adopt in order to belong to a particular group of people in society.” (Hall, Edward) Going to the Greek school is another cultural peculiarity, Toula was sent to the Greek school so that she could write letters to her mother-in-law, this is really funny but culture sensitive. She can easily do the same even if she goes to another school but her family forces her to go to the Greek school but she was least interested in going to the Greek school. Toula and Ian finally get married in the movie after facing countless obstacles; they also give birth to a daughter in Paris. Toula gives Paris the complete freedom to marry whoever she wanted to marry, this is because Toula did not want her daughter to go through the same obstacles as she had gone through in her life. Toula learns to be flexible and to appreciate the people belonging to different cultures which her family members could not accomplish in doing. Hofstede’s five dimensions Hofstede’s five dimensions are really important when it comes to understanding culture and cultural differences of different individuals. Uncertainty avoidance is an extremely important finding which says: “The uncertainty avoidance dimension expresses the degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. The fundamental issue here is how a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known: should we try to control the future or just let it happen? Countries exhibiting strong UAI maintain rigid codes of belief and behaviour and are intolerant of unorthodox behavior and ideas. Weak UAI societies maintain a more relaxed attitude in which practice counts more than principles.” (Dimensions) These principles can be applied to the movie, Toula’s family was an orthodox family. They wanted her to get married and start a family but she wanted to do something different. She also married someone who did not hail from Greece and this was opposed by her family members. They were non-flexible when it came to marrying outside their community. IVR is another really important Hofstede’s findings. It stands for indulgence versus restraint. “Indulgence stands for a society that allows relatively free gratification of basic and natural human drives related to enjoying life and having fun.  Restraint stands for a society that suppresses gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms.” (Dimentions) To conclude it is fair to say that Toula’s family practiced restraint, they prohibited her from enjoying her life and wanted her to follow her culture. Her culture wanted her to produce Greek babies by marrying a Greek man which she did not want to do. She was restricted from enjoying her life and to indulge in activities that she wanted to do. She finally broke all the rules and married outside her community and also gave birth to a daughter called Paris. She completely changed her appearance just to please Ian and things worked out well between the two of them, Ian proposed to Toula and she accepted his proposal, her family opposed the marriage but she went ahead and married Ian and lived a happy life. There are many cultural differences that have been clearly highlighted in the movie and the same makes the movie really interesting. References Dimensions (2013). The Hofstede Centre. Web. Retrieved from: Hall, E.T.1959, The Silent Language, New York, NY: Anchor Books. Hall, E.T. 1997, Beyond culture, New York, NY: Anchor Books. Hall, E.T. 1983, The Dance of Life, New York, NY: Anchor Books Read More