Culture Shock in the Movie ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’

Culture Shock in the Movie ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’

姓名 苏伦高娃 班级 07蒙英一 学号 20072204015

I. The Theory of Cultural Shock

When you go abroad you’re going to experience new cultures, people, food, music and probably a new language. No matter how well you are prepared; there are many things in a culture that you cannot find in books. This is not simply about meeting new and unexpected things, but also failing to meet what you would never have believed would be missing from any culture. Differences in nonverbal communication and unwritten rules play a large part. All of the newness combined with the lack of things and people that you are familiar with might cause you to have some anxiety. This type of anxiety is called cultural shock.

1. The Concept of Cultural Shock

Culture shock is the anxiety, feelings of frustration, alienation and anger that may occur when a person is emplaced in a new culture.

When an individual enters a strange culture, all or most of those familiar things are removed. He or she is like a fish out of water. No matter how broad-minded or full of good will he may be, a series of matters have been knocked from under him. This is followed by a feeling of frustration and anxiety. People react to the frustration in much the same way. First they reject the

environment which causes the discomfort: \"the ways of the host country are bad because they make us feel bad.\" There is no solution to culture shock except to try to learn the culture, and the way to do that is to watch and listen while withholding judgment for a while. Be careful of what you say and do, because it is easy for others, not knowing your culture, to misunderstand you. In time, you will learn the other culture and then you can participate at ease.

2. The research on Cultural Shock

Culture shock is just like a disease. It is common among immigrants and foreign students.

According to research by many people Cultural shock can be put into four stages. Once you become familiar with the stages you will be better able to combat it.

The first stage of cultural shock is the honeymoon stage. This occurs in the first few days of you arriving in your host country. During the honeymoon stage you will be poised to take on the challenges of living broad. You will feel excited and anticipate everything that you are about to experience. Everything and everyone you encounter is new and many times exciting. You’ll probably be eager to learn the language spoken in your host country

After the honeymoon stage your initial excitement may wane. You also may start to feel frustration; this is the onset of the frustration stage. During this stage

some of your initial excitement dissipates. You will have feelings of anxiety, anger and homesickness .You might reject your new environment and begin to have a lack of interest in your new surroundings and become frustrated with trying to speak a foreign language.

The understanding stage arrives when you develop a more balanced view of your experience abroad. In this stage you become more familiar with the culture, people, food and language of your host country. You will have made friends, become less homesick, be more comfortable with speaking and listening to the language spoken in your host country, become more comfortable and relaxed in your new environment and you will better handle the situations you previously found frustrating

Next is acclimation stage. During the acclimation stage you will begin to feel like you really belong in your new environment. You’ll be able to compare the good and bad of your host country with the good and bad of your home country. You will feel less like a foreigner and more like your host country is your second home and you laugh about things that frustrated you at earlier stages of cultural shock.

II. Cultural Shock in the Movie ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’

1. The main story of the movie

The main character in this move is a thirty years old Americanized Greek girl

Toula. She was born in a traditional extended Greek family. Where women are expected to do only three things: \"marry Greek men, have Greek babies, and feed everyone until the day they die.” In her family not only is there Mom and Dad and brother and sister, there are aunts and uncles. She have27 first cousins and a live-in Grandma who thinks everyone is a \"bloody Turk.” For fulfilling her parent’s wishes Toula works as a hostess at her family's Greek restaurant and has no relations with any men.

Toula dreams of some independence. She realizes she can contribute something more than being a seating hostess and cashier at the family restaurant. She recalls being in grammar school when she was the only dark brown haired girl, sitting alone eating her packed lunch, home-made food. At the next table a group of blond haired girls were laughing and asked her what she was eating. Toula told them. Afterwards, one had mocked her food, calling it \"moose kakahe girls giggle. At that age Toula felt she was an outsider. Now as a young adult, she wants to spread her wings. And when she meets her dream man she decided to change herself. She quits the family restaurant, goes to college, fixes her hair, prove her self-worth and that she is intelligent, not so different from everyone else. She receives the support of her mother and Aunt who convince her dad that she can work at her Aunt's travel agency. While working at the agency she meets the man again. He walks past the window and waves to her and tries to capture her attention. His name is Ian who is a grammar school teacher and vegetarian. Compared with Toula’s big family He comes from a only child American family. They fall in love with each other and meet and date. Toula makes excuses to the family that she is taking a class in the evening so that she can see Ian. Soon Toula

and Ian become more serious. When Toula's female cousin catches her kissing Ian at the travel agency, she mentions the family knows Toula is dating a non-Greek. They learn about their unique differences but appreciate each other even more. Ian learns why Toula and asks Toula's dad for permission to date his daughter. He reject because Ian is not Greek. But Toula and Ian fall further in love and decided to marry. Ian received great test. He was baptized in Greek Church, as vegetarians, he even eats meat and also constantly participates in numerous home parties. Toula also made a lot of efforts to accept by Ian’s parents. At last, two families agree marriage because of their insistence. Then they had a big fat Greek wedding.

2. Cultural shock in the movie

The culture shocks between Greek family and American family makes movie funny and humorous.Mainly by Gus, Toula’s father. He strongly believes that his own Greek culture is better than any other. He didn’t want Toula to marry a non-Greek, and he always say, “There are two kinds of people in the world. Greeks and people who wish they were Greeks”. And he believes any word in the world all from Greek word and glass water have many uses. There are many other shocks in the movie.

2.1 Family size

Toula’s family and Ian’s family were not alike. Compared with Ian’s only child, three members’ family Toula had a huge extended family. Not only father, mother, sister and brother she have aunt, uncle and 27cousins. Greek families are

very close knit and know what everybody in the family is up to.They all living closer, always hold party together and celebrate festivals together. When Ian visit first time they all in toula’s home and hug him one by one. Same as when Ian’s parents visit. In theirs wedding ceremony, all of the Greeks seat full of the bride’s side, because the family members invite all of the Greeks they know. But jus a few close family members in Ian’s side.

2.2 Food

Greeks like meat very much. They don’t understand if people don’t like meat. When Tula's aunt hears that Ian is a vegetarian and does not eat meat she said “What do you mean he don't eat meat?!” they think everybody eat meat. In the Christmas Greek father and uncle eat sheep brain, aunt pick out sheep eyes her niece to eat them, it is say that it can make people claver. When Ian and Toula brought Ian’s Parents over to Toula’s house for the first time, they were shocked, the whole Greek family was there, and they were roasting three lambs on a spit. And persuade them drink wine. The Greeks like dancing when drinking wine. And those abnormal customs make non-Greeks shock, for example, Greeks spit at someone to show bless.

2.3 Religion

In the movie Toula learned her culture through enculturation. Her family embraced their cultural background and weren’t afraid to show that they loved their culture and where they came from. Ian, on the other hand, didn’t really

show his what kind of culture he grew up in. His parent seemed very conservative and not very religious; since they were going to get reservations at the country club instead of the church. They seemed very simple and plain, they didn’t really show much emotion unless they were drunk. But since Ian didn’t really have a specific culture, he learned Toula’s culture through acculturation. He showed Toula’s family he would do anything to get their approval so he got baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church in order to become “Greek” since that was such a huge issue to Toula’s father and the rest of the family.

III. Conclusion

There are many culture shocks between different cultures. It really makes you think about how other cultures view your own. You may think your culture is “normal” but if another group of people from another culture view yours, they may think you have one messed up family. However, we belong to ours culture, learned and embraced our culture naturally. We want others respect our culture so we need respect others first. We should open the doors of our mind to accept what other people believe in. and should study and learn more other culture and respect it.