My friend and I recently saw “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” a comedy about a woman from a Greek-American family who falls in love with someone who is not Greek, initially against the wishes of her family. Eventually everything gets worked out and they marry happily ever after. I thought it was a really cute movie. My friend, who is of Greek background, liked it, too, but said that “the Greeks don’t like the movie because it’s full of stereotypes.” Yes, it was full of stereotypes, but it was a comedy! How could you do a comedy about ethnic misunderstandings without exaggerating a little? And I thought the family was portrayed in a very loveable way.
Anyway, I was just wondering what other people of Greek descent thought about the movie. Did you like it? Did it contain stereotypes? If so, did that bother you?
IIRC, the woman who starred in the movie was at one point a stand-up comedian, and used her marriage to a non-Greek as material for her act. Don’t know if that has any bearing, though.
Rita Wilson discovered this movie when she saw it on stage. She took Tom back with her the next night and afterwards went backstage and told the woman “we want to buy this and make a movie out of it and we want you to star in it.”
Factoid: Rita Wilson is Greek. Go figure.
I want to see it but it is not playing anywhere near me. Not even in Charleston! I’m bitter.
I saw this movie when it first came out and I loved it. I’m glad the actress in the movie was played by an authentic Greek actress. John Corbett was pretty good in the movie as well.
I LOVED the film. And yes, it’s very accurate in picking certain greek peculiarities and exagerrating them… but then again, us greeks never exaggerate, so?
The thing I could see many greeks not liking is the way it portrays a fear or dislike of “xeni” (foreigners)…
eh… some are really like that… of coarse, the older Poles I know are like that, and my Italian friends are like that too!
I was actually shocked when I saw GREEK in a movie title that wasn’t Zorba thr Greek.
I’m half-Greek myself, but I wasn’t too impressed with the coming attractions, so likely won’t see the movie. My mother, who IS completly Greek has seen the movie (on her “name day” on August 15th) and she didn’t seemed to bothered by the stereotypes. She liked the movie.
The writing laid it on a bit thick, but it sure was funny.
The intermingling of the bridegroom’s WASP parents and the Greek hordes reminded me a lot of when my folks first met my Jewish fiance’s family. (Without the ouzo, of course.)
I come from a Sicilian immigrant family, and let me tell you, change the language, cook up some rigatonni, replace the ouzo with sambuca and you’ve got my family almost to a T. Loved the movie…went back to see it again, just to catch the little background things in the movie…like the lamp made from seashells…my grandmother has a lamp that looks almost like that…didn’t check to see if the couches were covered with plastic…but I bet they were. Anyway, I don’t think the stereotypes were that bad…and American kids of Mediterranean families will definately associate with this movie.
A friend of my girlfriend’s (she is half greek) family who came here on a boat from Greece about 30 years ago, and visits regularly, recommended it very highly. He told her that she had to see it because it’s very realistic.
What a surprise, that “Greek-Americans” get all uppity about perceived stereotypes. Hyphenated-Americans tend to get uppity about a lot of things, and I think it means they have too much free time.
The actual Greek people we know loved the movie. But we haven’t seen it yet.
What probably made the movie so charming, instead of offensive, was that if characters were exaggerated they were exaggerated on both sides of the equation. John Corbett’s family were just as much cartoons as the Greek family; the anemic, non-extended-family fish-out-of-water white people stereotype.
Besides which, the stereotypes at work in the Greek side of things seemed more universal than actually pointed at Greek families. For instance, I went to see it with my boyfriend. My family consists of my mother, my brother and my sister; we’re pretty darned white. My boyfriend is Navajo, and has enough cousins to have filled the movie theater. A huge, expressive, expansive family. We laughed until we couldn’t breathe; so many of the events in that movie have been mirrored in our experience, it was astonishing.
A really great comedy pokes fun at everyone, and lets everyone see not only how funny they are, but how beautiful.
I went to see the movie at the recommendatin of a friend who is first generation Greek-American. She loved it. And the meeting of John Corbett and his family with the Greek family parellelled my B-I-L’s meeting of our (Irish/Polish/French Catholic) family, the week of the wedding. He and my sister lived in Germany. He’s one of three and goes 20 years between seeing his sibs or parents. I have 42 first cousins, most of whom came for the wedding. To say he was overwhelmed is putting it mildly.
IMHO and in those of my friends who have seen it, the title could be to My Big Fat Jewish Wedding, My Big Fat Italian Wedding, My Big Fat Puerto Rican Wedding… with a few minor script changes. For those of us with large insane families, it rings true, even if we arent Greek!
Andrea Martin rules!
I’ve got to agree with Bedrosian Bixby and Kristi - I’m also Sicilian, and lots of stuff in the movie reminded me of my own family.
I had a roommate in college who was 100% Greek - her parents were awfully similar to those in the movie.
As to stereotyping, the movie is almost a caricature - of course it takes stereotypes and exaggerates them. That’s why the movie was so bloody hysterical!
This was probably the best movie I have seen all summer. I liked how they made the stereotypes so universal. As has been said before, switch the ethnicity to any other that supports a big family and it works perfectly.
I’m not Greek, but as my screen name indicates, I was born and raised in one of the most heavily Greek neighborhoods in the world: Astoria, New York. I saw the movie, and mostly enjoyed it. A few things were exaggerated, but hey, this is a comedy, so you expect a little of that. And it’s readily forgiveable, since the affection for Greeks and their customs is real.
Oddly enough, from what I’ve read, if the script had been discovered by anyone but Rita Wilson (who is Greek herself), the family probably WOULD have been changed to Italians or Jews! When shopping her script around, the author kept hearing “Greeks? Nobody knows any Greeks. Nobody will come out to see a movie about Greeks. Why not make them Italian? THAT we could sell.”