"My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is a wonderful movie, all about the Greek sub-culture in Chicago. This movie explores, and demonstrates many sociological points. This movie is exceptional because to me also shows the values of immigrants.
American Greeks "promotes exactly three traditional values - Marry a Greek boy, have Greek babies, and feed everyone." This is a value that the older generation of Greeks cherish, if broken it is looked at as a taboo. This taboo sometimes is regarded as a very serious matter but it is subject to the discretion of every family.
The Greeks in this movie are very ethnocentric. Everything is classified as Greek and non-Greek. The Greek way of doing things is always better than everybody else. Some how Gus is able to link any word in English to some root word of Greek. When one looks at their house, we see that they are Greek because of all the status and the Greek flag on the Garage. All the Portakalos children have to go to Greek school from a very young age, while the American children are going to scouts and brownies. Toula always wished she could fit in with the other girls. The other girls are blonde, while she has dark hair, for lunch all the other girls have nice sandwiches, while she has something the other girls call "Mousse Kaka." .
The Millers in the movie represent the average white family, they are portrayed as very stale, they are like "dry toast, without jam, or jelly." They are not in tune with the ethnic culture of Chicago. Ian's father was a little more open because he previously employed a Guatemalan person before. His mother just was very stale! When Ian and Toula brought Ian's Parents over to Toula's house for the first time, they were shocked, the whole Portakalos family was there, and they were roasting three lambs on a spit. When the Miller's arrived they were greeted with huge from Gus, and Maria, the Miller's looked very awkward receiving the hugs, and they got very drunk and refused to take meat, which is considered an insult.
