Blog #2- We All Different, But In The End, We All Fruit

     I have always loved the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and probably for two reasons. The first being that I love romantic comedies and weddings. And second, this movie is based around family and its relations with each other. Even though I am an only child, I grew up within a 5 minute drive of all six of my aunts and uncles. My childhood was filled with family get togethers for every holiday and birthday imaginable, cousin sleepovers, and random weeknight suppers together. We are loud, very competitive (especially in card games or softball tournaments), love to feed people, and always know each others business. So in many ways I can relate to the Portokalas family dynamic. When I watch this movie it's filled with so many cultural patterns. Because there are so many examples of cultural patterns in this movie I found it extremely hard to narrow it down, but the three that stuck out the most to me were: the pride of where you come from, women's roles in life (and marriage), and the communication between the family members and between the Greeks and non-Greeks.

    

     The first pattern I picked out in the movie was the pride that the Portokalas family (except maybe Toula in the beginning) felt about being Greek. In the first clip there are so many examples of the family displaying their culture from a Greek flag on the garage door, to sending their children to Greek school, and to teaching about Greek history around the supper table. One of my favorite scenes is when Gus Portokalas (the dad) is driving Toula to school and he says "Give me a word, any word, and I show you that the route of that word is Greek." He loves sharing and communicating with others about his Greek culture and as Toula said in the beginning "My dad believed in two things: That Greeks should educate non Greeks about being Greek and every ailment from psoriasis to poison ivy can be cured with Windex."

    

     The next cultural pattern that I found throughout the movie is the role of women in Greek culture. According to Toula "There are three things that every Greek woman must do in life: marry Greek boys, make Greek babies, and feed everyone." At the beginning of the second clip Toula feels the strain of not being married yet and constantly being compared to other members of her family who are carrying out their "Greek Women Duties". Certain members of her family start to pressure Toula into thinking that she is past her prime to find a husband "Nice Greek girls who don't find a husband, work in the family restaurant. So here I am, day after day, year after year, thirty and way past my expiration date." Throughout the movie many times this theme of a Greek woman's role to marry and have children comes up. But there is a time in the movie just after Toula asks Gus if she can take college classes that her mom Maria makes a great statement that I believe is also part of Greek women's culture that being "A man may be the head of the house, but a woman is the neck and she can turn the head anyway she wants."

     The final cultural pattern I found within the movie was how the characters varied their communication between how they talked with their family members and how they talked to other people (for example Ian's parents). Throughout the movie many of the scenes that included a large amount of the family members in one place turned into a loud, everyone talking at the same time, waving arms and making hand gestures, as well as part of the time speaking English and the rest of the time speaking Greek. But what is interesting is that when Ian's parents are introduced to the Portokalos family they change the way they talk. This is an example of communication accommodation theory where individuals will change their verbal communication to facilitate understanding by speaking more slowly, enunciating more clearly, and use less jargon (Martin & Nakayama, 2012).

     "The goal of interpretive research is to understand and describe human behavior" (Martin & Nakayama, 2012, pp. 60). I would be willing to bet that most people learn about cultures through this approach to intercultural communication. It could be through watching movies, observing a family of a different culture in a restaurant, watching speeches, or reading texts. But what this approach fails to address is "that the researchers often are outsiders to the communities under investigation, which means they may not represent accurately the communication patterns of members of the community" (Martin & Nakayama, 2012, pp. 66-67). This is especially true with observing a culture just through a movie. First off most movies are fictional and are not a true representation of a culture in its exact element. Also we (the researchers) are most likely not familiar with the culture and do not have the ability to confirm that what we observe on the screen is truly a part of the culture or just a fun part in the script.

     Like I mentioned above I can relate to this family so much and it is filled to the brim with great quotes about life, love, and family. I just thought I would share some for additional inspiration:

     - Don't let your past dictate who you are, but let it be part of who you will become.

     - My family is big and loud but they're my family. We fight and we laugh and yes, we roast lamb on a spit in the front yard. And where ever I go, what ever I do they will always be there.
     - We all different, but in the end, we all fruit.

And of course don't forget to....

References:

Dimanria. (2008, February 19). My Big Fat Greek Wedding (1) [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS1aFVVOJmg

Dimanria. (2008, February 20). My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2) [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxsDYkBROlc

Hkeener. (2008, October 8). My Big Fat Greek Wedding [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JwwOkf4j0c

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed). Boston,   MA: McGraw Hill.

Put Some Windex On It Meme. Retrieved February 4, 2013, from: http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3s073k/

Woman Is The Neck Media Picture. Retrieved February 4, 2013, from: http://media-cache-ec4.pinterest.com/originals/60/12/bd/6012bd326fe97ae797a494dbce46fafc.jpg