My Big Fat Greek Wedding Summary:
This is a story about Toula Portokalos, a 30 year old second generation Greek woman who is caught between being a Greek woman and wanting to be her own person. She is faced with the family pressure to marry a Greek boy, have Greek babies, and feed everyone. Toula decides that she wants more out of life and convinces her family that it would be in their best interest to support her going to College to study computing. Toula’s mum is supportive of the idea but her father is not to keen on the whole idea. Toula begins College where she blossoms; she changes her image and becomes a happier person. She starts to be the woman that she wants.
Toula falls in love with Ian who is not Greek. She initially lies to her parents, knowing that they would not approve of the relationship. When the relationship starts to become serious so does the situation at home as her family find out she is seeing Ian. Her father is devastated and cannot believe that she is doing this to him. She is told to stop seeing him, and her parents begin to invite a lot of single Greek men around for dinner. Toula continues to see Ian despite her parents' demands, but she can no longer hide the seriousness of the relationship from her family when Ian proposes to her and she accepts. Gus is still not happy about the situation, and Ian does everything he can to be accepted by her family. He is baptised in the Greek Church by cousin Nikki so they can be married in the Greek church. There is continuing concern expressed about Ian by Gus through out the movie as the wedding is planned, planned by everyone but Toula and Ian themselves.
The wedding day comes and everyone is happy. In the bride’s attempts to help her family come to terms with the situation, she learns about her culture and heritage.
The movie ends on a nice message when Gus gives his 'father of the bride' speech, finally giving his acceptance that we are all different but the same. This is a movie that relates to many people of many ethnic races. One reason why this movie was so popular was because you were looking at real people. The traditions that you see in this family could just as well be one of your own family. Its main purpose is not to insult Greek-Americans but to show
The movie presents a view of the world of traditional Greek culture, the loudness, the food, the guilt, the negativity, and the strong family values. It’s a romantic comedy rooted in the rich, gorgeous immigrant American culture, My Big Fat Greek Wedding considers the potentially woeful case of a frumpy, despondent 30-year-old woman who has been raised to marry a Greek man, produce Greek babies and feed everyone. The couple has to face the cultural and religious differences between their two families and convince Toula’s father that he should give his permission for them to marry. Mr. Portokalos begrudgingly gives his blessing and the meshing of the two families begins.
To me, this is a quintessentially American story of the fabled melting pot and how it works. But its story line of how two products of extremely different families fall in love and have a wedding, with all its attendant nerve-wracking pressures, is universal. You don’t have to marry a Greek-American (or even a Greek) to identify with the hair-raising rituals of meeting the prospective in-laws and working out a whole bunch of new relationships with virtual strangers. It shows cross-cultural marriage. The film, which is fairly cartoon-ish in its depiction of the Greek-American family as well as the bridegroom’s incredibly white-bread parents, is blessed with some deft casting. This movie is really, really funny. It teaches us that we are all equal despite ethnic backgrounds. It shows importance of family and the strength of family bonds; love; respect and tolerance of differences shown by Ian and Toula; acceptance of differences. Gus finally tells a story about apples and oranges at the end of the movie, showing that he accepts Ian into the family.
The movie shows the key sociological concepts of accommodation because the film portrays the need to overcome ethnic differences while not diminishing the beauty of ethnic tradition. Mr. Portokalos explains that “Miller” has its roots in the Greek word for apple and portokalos means orange in Greek. He notes that “apples” and “oranges” sound as if they cannot mix, but since they are really all “fruit,” the families should mix freely. In Toula’s case, she did not sacrifice her faith to marry Ian, who admitted to not having a strong religious background. But Ian’s case shows acculturation since the priest baptized Ian to bring him into the church and allow for Ian and Toula to be married in the Church. Therefore it can be concluded that Ian’s decision to be baptized can lead to showing key sociological concepts of assimilation because he will be with his wife everyday and will see how to be in a Greek Orthodox family and may do traditions or actions of his wife’s family.
This movie is absolutely hilarious. It portrays some true yet comical cultural dynamics that are true for many other European countries as well. What makes the movie so meaningful is Toula's journey against the forced stereotypes of society and to the fulfilment of her dreams and desires.
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