My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Throughout the semester, we have been introduced to many topics related to interpersonal communication. I have come to believe that these concepts have allowed me to better understand interactions that occur in our daily lives. My knowledge of these concepts was challenged when asked to relate these notions to a movie. During the time that I was watching the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I realized myself grasping onto what was going on and being able to relate certain scenes and situations to topics I had previously learned about. Interactions in My Big Fat Greek Wedding display concepts of conflict and politeness theory, which can be pointed out in a few specific scenes.

During the movie, I found that these concepts that were taught in class helped me better understand and relate to certain clips of the movie. Throughout the rest of the paper, I will be going into a bit more detail about exactly what these concepts are and mean, following that I will be giving examples from the movie that demonstrate the concepts of conflict and politeness theory.

The movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding is about a 30-year old and single woman named Toula Portokalos who although has lived a very Greek life-style up this point, decides to pursue a relationship with a non-Greek man. This, of course, is disturbing to her family since they are so proud about their culture, and do not really know anything different. Her whole life, Toula has been instilled with a very traditional Greek outlook on life. She has been expected to do three things: Marry a Greek boy, make Greek babies, and feed everyone until the day they die. Throughout the movie, Toula overcomes inner struggles to find her own identity, and she overcomes struggles with her family.

The first topic that is found in the movie that was taught in class is conflict. Conflict is expressed disagreement over perceived incompatible goals (Daena Goldsmith, class presentation, October 25, 2004). Although it may seem it, conflict is not always a negative thing. Conflict is needed and can help growth of relationships. Many conflicts are started because people have different conversational styles. In class, we learned that there are guidelines that one should follow in order to help prevent conflict or help solve it. The guidelines include clarifying goals, helping others save face, using constructive criticism skills, using empathic listening skills, monitoring nonverbal behavior, remembering positive aspects of relationships, knowing when to calm down, and over learning skills that might help. These guidelines can all help lessen a conflict.

Conflict was displayed in two specific scenes of the movie. The first scene was when Toula's parents are arguing about Toula going to school (Appendix A). Her father feels she should not go to school because girls don't need to, and that she is fine doing what she is doing; working at the family restaurant. Her mother on the other hand, feels that Toula should go to school if that is what she wants. They go back and forth until Toula's mom walks out. This argument is started because they both have different things they want. She ends the argument with a sarcastic comment, and it doesn't get settled. Throughout their argument, neither of the two used any of the guidelines for conflict that we had learned about. Perhaps if guidelines were used the argument would not have ended on a bad note. Using such guidelines such as clarifying goals or using constructive criticism might have prevented the argument to begin with.

Another scene that shows an example of conflict was when Toula's parents find out she is seeing a man who happens to not be Greek. Ian Miller (her boyfriend) and Toula's father are arguing in the dining room, while Toula and her mother sit in the kitchen listening (Appendix B). The conflict begins because both Toula's father and her boyfriend want different things. Toula's father does not want Toula to have a boyfriend, while Ian wants to continue to see Toula. Like the first conflict, two people have incompatible goals. Without taking this class, one would already know that an argument, or conflict, is started because two people want different things, or have incompatible goals. However, one might not know about the guidelines people can follow in order to prevent the conflict from getting worse, or to prevent an argument entirely. After learning about these guidelines, it is easier to notice and pay attention to arguments more, and point out when some of these guidelines should be used.

The second topic that is portrayed in the movie is the politeness theory. To begin explaining what it entails, a term that plays an important role in the politeness theory will be defined, and that is "Face." Face is an image or identity we enact in our interactions with other people (Goldsmith, p.26). Erving Goffman, a sociologist, defined face as "the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself [or herself] by the line others assume he [or she] has taken during a particular contact. Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes" (Goldsmith, p.26). Losing or saving face has to do with our ability to stay in character and behave in a way that fits with expectations for our role. Some ways of losing face have to do with basic violations of civilized behavior (Goldsmith, p.26). There are also two aspects of face to which are negative face and positive face. Negative face is the want to be unimpeded, to have certain rights not to be impeded by respect. Positive face is the want to be approved of in certain respects (Daena Goldsmith, class presentation, September 13, 2004). Brown and Levinson are two sociologists who that many actions in our everyday conversations have the potential to threaten face. Orders, requests, advice, and warnings threaten negative face while criticism, complaints, or disagreement threaten positive (Goldsmith, p.26).