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Jewish World Review July 31, 2002 /22 Menachem-Av, 5762
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Friends told me that I should see My Big Fat Greek Wedding. They said that I would enjoy the movie because there are so many aspects of the depiction of a Greek American family that parallel the American Jewish experience. They said that issues of conversion and large families, of WASP versus "ethnic ways," are well-handled in the film.
They were right. The film is a delight in every way.
The main character, Toula, beautifully played by Nia Vardelos, who also wrote the fine screenplay, is told in the opening scene and in many others, by her own father, that at thirty she is "starting to look old," and should marry right away. And yet he and her mother will not let her out of the house or the family restaurant (Greek, of course), where she and her younger brother work. Her older sister has already fulfilled at a young age the family and ethnic mandate, in Toula's words, to breed "loud, breeding, Greek eaters."
Yet out of sheer desperation and unhappiness, Toula, who has always been a computer geek (no "r"), takes programming courses at a city college and graduates from what she calls her "frumpy" stage into contact lenses, tight sweaters and large hair. She finds a job with computers through family connections. (That's important.) And fortunately and romantically, the heart-throb WASP who once stopped her heart when he entered the restaurant, one Ian Miller (John Corbett, of Northern Exposure fame), teaches at a prestigious private high school and hangs out near her new job and can't keep his eyes off of her, either. It seems that Ian, scion of a North Shore Country Club family of lawyers, is bored with all the blond, slender socialites he's being fixed up with.
Toula's father is a Tevye of sorts, who wants only Greek sons and daughters-in-law and who recognizes no marriage outside the Greek Orthodox Church. He is constantly lecturing anyone within earshot on the contributions of the Greeks who, he says, were the "first" to invent astronomy, philosophy and democracy. He and his wife and relatives all have their, let us say, quirks and eccentricities, but these are, in the main, charming, not at all off-putting. Ian falls in love with the family, and so do the moviegoers.
Sure, we get a lot of the dialogue usually found in movies and television programs about Jewish-Gentile relations. When Toula, afraid of breaking her father's heart, considers ending the relationship, Ian observes: "What's to work out? We're not a different species. Yes, we come from different backgrounds. But my life is boring." Ian goes on to say that Toula is interesting and beautiful, and so she becomes, in that very moment, if not before. He wants to be baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church so that their marriage will bring no pain to Toula's colorful family. After all, he says, religion is important to her parents, not to his. He will not "skulk away" to elope.
Toula's mother sits her husband down after he cries, "Why is she doing this to me?" Mama explains, "She didn't do this to you, to me. They fell in love. It happens." As reality sinks in, Dad cries out again, "Why is he doing this to me?", referring to his son-in-law to be. Yet we, the audience, know that Papa could well be referring to his own son, who has dreams of developing his own talents, and who will be venturing out on his own, as well. The son has already quoted wisdom to his sister: "Don't let your past dictate who you are, but let it be a piece of who you will become." Papa will be hard put to find some Greek background behind the oracle to whom that wisdom is ascribed--Dear Abby.
This film should give pause to Jewish moviegoers and to producers and writers of Jewish background. Toula's family has an uncompromising pride in their nationality and in their religion. Not once is Greek culture or the Greek Orthodox Church mocked here. True, the family, as individuals and as a family, have their quirks. But these come across as endearing because the family cares so deeply about its heritage. True, the point is made that in a free and open society, people of different backgrounds will meet and fall in love. But here conversion is taken seriously, the next generation is shown attending Greek school, and thus it is the continuity, rather than the break in tradition, which is stressed.
In one touching scene, Mother tells Toula that the family endured much suffering in the Old Country during invasions of Greece by the Turks and the Nazis. She says that both sides of the family came to America so that their children could be happy and achieve what they wanted to achieve. The scene downplays suffering and persecution as a continuing phenomenon, something that could not rightly be done in a discussion between the Jewish generations in these times of resurging Jew-hatred, particularly in the Arab world and in Europe. It makes you wonder how Jewish characters might communicate affirmation of Judaism despite Jewish suffering, especially the Holocaust, but also terrorist attacks in Israel and elsewhere.
When Toula is young, she asks why she must go to Greek school. Her parents tell her it is so that she might speak to her future mother-in-law. When her daughter asks that question toward the end of the film, Toula responds with a promise that she will be able to marry anyone she chooses. When Ian tries to speak Greek to his father-in-law to be, the latter rebuffs him by muttering in the mother tongue that the Greeks had the Parthenon and philosophy while his ancestors were savages. One is reminded of the story of a Jew who, when put down by a woman bragging that her ancestors came over on the Mayflower, responded: "My ancestors stood at Mount Sinai with Moses to receive the Ten Commandments!"
I enjoyed My Big Fat Greek Wedding very much. It's a terrific film, hilarious and moving at the same time. In its use of occasional first person narrative, it reminded me a bit of the current television series, State of Grace, at its best. But the Jewish family in State of Grace is far more outer-directed than the Greek family here.
In fact, My Big Fat Greek Wedding makes me jealous. Some of the characters, some of the actors themselves, made me think about what has been done with Jewish characters on the big and small screen, and made my heart sink and my skin turn green with envy.
Lainie Kazan plays the mother here. And she has never been more affecting, more lovable. Yet I flash back to when she played a Jewish mother on St. Elsewhere (1988) and went around spreading ashes in a bizarre death ritual contrary to all traditional Jewish sensibilities. I recall an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 (1991) when she played a Jewish mother and grandmother, gratuitously identified as a Holocaust survivor, who confused helping a granddaughter lie to the school system with acts of reconciliation. Here, however, her character's ruses are principled, and she never comes up with rituals outside the church. But Jewish mothers are almost always depicted as hypercritical, nasty, self-centered or otherwise neurotic. Just consider Anything But Love, Mad About You, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Michael Constatine plays the father in this movie. He gives a heartfelt and, at times, a heart-wrenching performance. True, there are shades of Archie Bunker in his persona, but there is also a profound concern for the continuity of a civilization. I don't know Mr. Constantine's ethnic origin. I remember fondly that he once played Mr. Kaufman, a benign and effective Jewish principal, on Room 222. But I'll never forget his role as an abusive Jewish father in a summer TV movie, Summer of My German Soldier (1979), in which Kristy MacNichol portrayed his daughter who, in a small Southern town during World War Two, finds a young Nazi war criminal more sympathetic than her own father. I remember this film quite vividly because it offended me so much that it prodded me to take Gabriel Cohen up on his offer to become film and TV reviewer for The Jewish Post and Opinion. That was 23 years ago.
There's a grandmother in this movie. When we meet her, Dad brings her from the Old Country, and immediately his mother runs wild, accusing him and everyone else of being invading Turks. My suspicion was that the film would make her the butt of slapstick jokes--the plight and the role of the elderly in many films and TV shows. (Hollywood has no respect for the elderly, especially when it comes to jobs for most older writers and actors.) To some extent, that happened here. But overall, the portrayal of the grandmother was respectful. She went from loose canon to symbol of continuity. And never was she mocked with sexual innuendoes-a common motif in the representation of Jewish grandmothers on television. I couldn't help thinking of
The Nanny's Yetta, who, as the years went on, was increasingly depicted as bed-hopping, or the grandmother in the bat mitzvah episodes of Square Pegs, etc., etc. The writer and producers of My Big Fat Greek Wedding never crossed that line.
I know that we can't blame the way that Jews are portrayed on the actors alone. But surely the actors, and, above all, the writers and producers, should consider a few things in the wake of this movie. There are indeed hard questions raised by the pleasantness and dignity of My Big Fat Greek Wedding for Jews inside and outside "The Industry." Why is it that one leaves the theatre feeling an admiration for this family that one rarely feels for Jews after seeing movies with "Jewish" themes?
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02/19/02: Hollywood Bar Mitzvah$
Could "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" be Jewish?
By Elliot Gertel
Just click here.
Contributing writer Elliot B. Gertel, JWR's resident media maven, is
a Conservative rabbi based in Chicago. His latest book is "What Jews Know
About Salvation" (Eakin Press, Austin, TX). To comment, please click here.
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