My Big Fat Cultural Wedding Essay -- Culture Society

The wedding ceremony is a celebratory event romanticized by couples nationwide for its ability to unite creativity and tradition in a convenient package. One need only observe the plethora of wedding trends, from outlandishly alternative to stringently orthodox, to understand how important representing individuality remains among contemporary couples. In retrospect, much of the symbolisms attributed to these trends come from centuries of applied social significance; couples see the most value in a marriage celebration which allows them to flaunt their unique qualities as individuals while simultaneously modeling the long-standing customs of preceding weddings. In the 2002 film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, director Joel Zwick illustrates the colorful combination of culture and marriage, highlighting the prevalence of rituals within a wedding ceremony, the importance of this connection to the respective bride and groom, and the societal consumption of symbolism as a whole. By analyzing the various themes of religion, family, and emotion in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, we will gauge the true prevalence of cultural inclusion as it relates to the marriage ceremony. Wedding celebrations, for all their glitz and glamour, are sentimental occasions filled with submissive connotations. Commercial industries recognize the trendsetting potential of culture, which liberally applies significance to often extraneous but distinctive practices, and are quick to promote it as a commodity of taste requiring very little convincing to popularize. People do indeed gravitate toward more culturally based weddings when the attached customs relate to one’s intimate, inner values. To clarify the reasoning behind this social attitude, Otnes and Pleck claim in... ...l no strangers to the allure of individualism, especially as it relates to wedding ceremonies. The most popular, romanticized form of a wedding encompasses deep symbolism which allows brides and grooms to define themselves in a way they will rarely ever be able to again. Cultural weddings are a phenomenon of our time which may not hold the same meanings they once did, but definitely retain figurative importance to the participants of the ceremony. They are deeply ingrained within our societal desire for tradition as well as vehicles through which we can define ourselves as individuals. Works Cited My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Dir. Joel Zwick. Perf. Nia Vardalos and John Corbett. IFC Films, 2002. Film. Otnes, Cele C., and Elizabeth H. Pleck. Cinderella Dreams: the Allure of the Lavish Wedding. Berkeley: University of California, 2003. Print.