The Clash of Cultures in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Movie Review Example

The 1992 film My Big Fat Greek Wedding, written by and starring the Greek-North American actress Nia Vardalos, uses as its central narrative motor the tension between two ethnicities and their respective cultural norms. In the case of the aforementioned Vardalos, this is a Greek culture, herself being a first generation immigrant, whereas her love interest in the film comes from the dominant Anglo-Saxon cultural group. Vardalos, as raised in this dominant cultural milieu, sees her own Greek heritage as something of an embarrassment, wishing to conform to the values of the Anglo-Saxon world. Accordingly, her ultimate love affair with an Anglo-Saxon male becomes an attempt to reconcile her status as existing between these two cultural worlds: she must strive to reconcile her Greek normativities with those of the hegemonic culture.

Vardalos, although portrayed throughout the film as somehow adverse to her own normativities, wishing to assimilate into the mores of the alpha group, nevertheless comes to accept her culture at the end of the story, as does her husband, who fully accepts her Greek culture, for example, supportive of their daughter going to Greek school. The male protagonist never feels the same hostility Vardalos does in regards to her Greek heritage, instead accepting the cultural differences and even embracing them. This becomes clear, for example, when he converts to Greek Christian Orthodox at the behest of Vardalos’ parents. Accordingly, the central tension of the narrative is almost entirely located in Vardalos’ feeling that there is a certain irreconcilable cultural gap between her Hellenic culture and that of the Anglo-Saxon culture.

The story thus functions, it can be said, by essentially exaggerating cultural difference to the benefit of attempting to gain comedic effect. For example, the portrayal of the Greek family as almost idiotic and primitive is clearly a viewpoint upon Greek culture from the dominant Anglo-Saxon group which Vardalos wishes to be a part of. This is the fundamental problem of the film which so heavily relies upon the clash of cultures to its plot: the film in essence never does critique the dominant Anglo-Saxon discourse, viewing the Greek culture as some type of anomaly, and that the most the Anglo-Saxon culture do is accept this difference.

Certainly, there are critiques of the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture in the film as well, for example, in the portrayal of the male protagonist’s parents as conservative, quiet and essentially reserved as opposed to the explosive extroverted nature of Vardalos’ Greek family. The film therefore heavily relies upon certain stereotypes to present both sides of the story, and from a sociological perspective can be seen therefore as entirely supporting these prejudiced discourses, as opposed to offering any type of critique of them. The most that the film has to say is “we can all get along, despite our differences”, instead of asking why do we perceive these differences and why do they in fact exist? What is the reason for such differences?

Arguably, the reason why the film cannot even perform an inquiry into such questions is because it relies upon such a caricature of its two prominent ethnic groups that the question about difference is off limits, other than in any entirely superficial way. The worst cultural stereotypes are instead throughout the film forced upon the viewer, who is imposed to view, if one is from an Anglo-Saxon background, the strangeness of the Greek culture. If the viewer is from a minority background, however, one can understand that there are fundamental differences in culture that do exist, and one rather sees the dominance of the Anglo-Saxon culture throughout this film.

In other words, My Big Fat Greek Wedding does nothing to question into the histories that are so crucial to the film, in so far as the film is supposed to deal with particular cultures. For example, why is the Anglo-Saxon culture dominant in a land that was essentially colonized, in a land where all are immigrants, and a land founded upon the genocide of another people, the Native Americans?

Certainly, this can be easily answered: the initial colonists to North America, or the majority of them, fit this particular cultural profile. Hence, their norms became the dominant norm, and Vardalos’ character essentially accepts this ascension to dominance, only learning that her family is important and not so strange in comparison to the dominant cultural discourse. Her mores are not incompatible with the culture, they are just a “little off”, and therefore there is nothing wrong about being different. But why do these differences exist?

The film therefore shows us how we are ideologically assimilated into particular cultural norms without even realizing it. And in this sense, the film is effective at portraying this assimilation, precisely because the film itself is not even aware of this question. The film is a perfect example of dominant social discourses are unconsciously accepted by the population at large. Accordingly, despite being a film that is apparently dedicated to showing some quirks of a minority culture, by portraying these minority culture norms as “quirks” one is subscribing to the notion that this culture remains an Other and will always remain an Other in relation to the dominant group. Vardalos’ My Big Fat Greek Wedding is therefore an excellent example of cultural ideology at work, using the motif of the clash of cultures to merely underscore the dominance of one cultural group amongst others, without ever asking the question about why this dominance is the case and how social groups are defined in a certain hierarchical manner.