"My Big Fat Greek Wedding"
95 Minutes
PG-13
Time Warner

A Greek family moves to the united $tates and keeps an extended family
with its traditions. The daughter dates and then marries an Amerikan and the Greek
family goes through turmoil.

The daughter has found a way to break away and still retain her family.
In the end she lives next door to her father and mother, but promises
her daughter not to raise a stink about who she marries.

Many immigrant families from various ethnic groups see themselves in this
portrait. Certain things that may not be unique to Greek culture show up in
other cultures. Also, certain odd ways of relating to Amerikan culture show
up in recognizable ways, such as using Windex for scrapes and pimples, devaluing
pound cakes with holes in them and thinking that food without meat might just be
cheap and not a preference.

The Greek father reminds all who encounter him how many English words derive
from Greek. Like many of various ethnic groups, the Greek father in this film is obsessed with
proving Greece's value to the world--going back as far in history as possible.
For a long time to come, it will be difficult for various cultures to coexist
with national chauvinist pride interfering. Fortunately the father concludes
that his Amerikan son-in-law is a member of a larger family that he also belongs
to, beyond the Greek family, but at first he did not want his daughter to date a non-Greek.

This film is centrally about romantic love breaking through the suffocation
of family narrowly construed, no matter how large
it may be in an extended sense. It may have had some progressive value in feudal times and cultures
where romantic love is still at issue. It's hard to see this film continuing
to have value today. If this film is still necessary in any social way, it's 
a sad commentary on how imperialism fails to drag history forward. A large portion of the
world still cannot handle cross-ethnic marriage--and not because their culture is about to 
go extinct as in the case of some very small nations, but simply from a narrow outlook.
In the United $tates, disapproval of Black/white marriages still hovers in the 40 to 50% range
in some states, but in some countries, cross-ethnic marriage would face an even greater social
hurdle. Hence, this may be a rare instance in which the export of a Hollywood film might
be progressive.