My Big Fat Preconceived Notions

by Sandra Fu

When the dust of the last few months cleared, My Big Fat Greek Wedding had grossed nearly $200 million, at the same time becoming the Hollywood standard for word-of-mouth marketing. It also etched its name into cinema history along the way. To date, My Big Fat Greek Wedding:

• is the highest-grossing independent film of all time, passing The Blair Witch Project on 10/4/02
• is the highest-grossing wedding genre film ever, passing Runaway Bride on 10/11/02
• is the second highest-grossing film to never reach the #1 spot at the weekend box office. Right now, it's got a great chance of beating number one, Dances With Wolves, which brought in $184.2 million
• is the sixth highest-grossing film of 2002, as of 10/27/02
• is the 64th highest-grossing film of all time, as of 10/27/02
• holds first place for spending the most days (10) at the top of the daily box office chart without ever topping the weekend chart
• is the 11th slowest film to reach the $100M mark since 1982, taking 148 days to do so
• grossed $68,881,216 between 8/30/02-9/29/02, making it the highest grossing film for the month of September, even though it had already been in release for 19 weeks

So yeah, My Big Fat Greek Wedding made its nationwide debut way back in June, but a movie that posts a 400 percent return on its paltry investment is still worth talking about six months later. Especially since it's broken a few dead-end onscreen conventions, as well.

Let me explain.

Reversal of fortune. "I wondered why old geezers always ended up with the hot babes? Or worse, why a mullet-sporting David Spade ended up with some goddess? Why didn't it ever go the other way around? And here was My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a movie that dared to do what I always dreamed and I was spitting all over it."

During the first fifteen minutes of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I was laughing with the rest of the audience over frumpy Tuola Portokalos's (Nia Vardalos) seemingly meaningless life full of nosy relatives who meet at the Dancing Zorba -- the family restaurant where she still worked at the ripe-old age of 30 -- and scheme to get her married. During the close-ups, I couldn't help but scrutinize Tuola's average face for some sign of exquisite beauty, some clue the makeup artist couldn't hide behind layers of spackled special effects, or some glimpse of the gorgeous woman that would emerge during the inevitable Hollywood makeover (a la Pretty Woman). "You'll see soon enough what Tuola really looks like," I thought to myself.

Enter Ian Miller, played by John Corbett, who became a minor heartthrob in Northern Exposure and recently earned more sensitive hunk points by playing Aidan on Sex in the City. Though seriously needing a visit to the local Supercuts, the guy oozed sincerity, intelligence and a down-to-earth appreciation of a woman's internal qualities. In short, every woman's dream. I figured Tuola would win Ian with her wit, charm and newfound beauty. So, with the enthusiasm of a housewife fervently awaiting Oprah's latest makeover special, I braced myself for the chiseled cheekbones that would surface when Tuola miraculously lost those thirty pounds.

But it didn't happen. Instead, Tuola showed up with brighter, better-fitting clothes, big hair and a novice make-up job. Admittedly, I was kind of disappointed -- I'm actually supposed to believe Ian spots her through a window and falls in love with her? Come on, who are we trying to fool here? Ian's a great catch and she cleaned up OK, but her thighs and butt were kind of large and her arms looked squishy and …

That's when the million-watt halogen light bulb went on over my head.

Keeping it real. "I applaud My Big Fat Greek Wedding for avoiding a sickeningly cute Meg Ryan/Julia Roberts cipher gumming it up for the camera or a surgically-altered Pamela Lee/Carmen Electra bimbo slutting it up for the camera."

I hated myself, wished someone would smack me silly or jam bamboo up my fingernails. No, too good for me. How about having the Laurence Olivier dentist scene from Marathon Man reenacted on yours truly?

I can't count how many times I've complained to my husband -- and anyone else willing to listen -- that an excess of Hollywood movies suck because they usually involve some actor who once played a pussy-hunter back in the '70s and yet still manages to end up with bombshells like Catherine Zeta-Jones (who is she married to again?). Art sure does imitate life … or was that the other way around? Whatever the case, I wondered -- usually aloud -- why old geezers always end up with the hot babes? Or worse, why we have movies where a mullet-sporting David Spade ends up with some goddess? Why didn't it ever go the other way around?

And here was My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a movie that dared to do what I always dreamed and I was spitting all over it. So what if Tuola isn't a knockout? She's a normal-looking woman and I immediately penalized her for it.

I tried to blame this lapse in sanity on the three years I've been living in West Los Angeles surrounded by plastic and silicone. But the truth is that I have no excuse. I know right from wrong. I need to check myself and I need to do it constantly. The sad thing is that I hear women criticize other women for not being quite this or having too much of that all the time, whether it's an actress or a woman walking down the street.

But we automatically expect onscreen women to be beautiful, and media empires like Fox happily oblige us by filling their vacuous programs with Barbies. And the tactic seems to work because their ratings only increase. Then there are some blatantly unapologetic programs like Comedy Central's The Man Show, which demonstrates how low IQs can get and how fantasy-driven male taste can be. A show where Jimmy Kimmel -- who's really taxing the waistband of his Fruit of the Looms -- and Adam Carolla surround themselves with chicks in bikinis jumping on trampolines and other such nonsense?

Please.

Talk about your Reality TV. A stretch of the imagination is one thing, but arguing that The Man Show is a brand of misogyny appropriate for television is like publicly declaring Battlefield Earth a science-fiction masterpiece and expecting someone to actually agree with you.

Which one of these guys doesn't belong? "Arguing that The Man Show is not misogynist is like publicly declaring Battlefield Earth a science-fiction masterpiece and expecting someone to actually agree with you."

What's wrong with a little misogyny, you ask? Nothing -- if it were a little. But men -- and women -- are inundated with data such as The Man Show on a daily basis and personally I find it dangerous. Bottom line: as human beings, it should be our primary objective to improve ourselves. We have the knowledge; we have the conscience.

Let's really take a moment to think about what men and women can learn from The Man Show and others like it. Men might learn that it's quite acceptable to strip women down to G-strings and booby tassels -- because it's not like women have minds, you know -- and harass them with abandon. Hell, the fat-ass "Bitter Beer Face" from those Keystone commercials got a hottie simply by switching beers. Harmless fantasy many would argue, but it's setting a very dangerous sexual precedent in motion.

Boys who are fortunate to have good fathers as role models will understand it's all fictional hype, but it's the others you have to worry about. Similarly, girls who have strong mothers or strong female role models won't buy into these images. But again, it's the others you have to worry about: the massive throng of teenage girls I see everyday who -- not only in how they look but how they act -- could easily be mistaken for whores. They emulate what they see and they want the attention that emulation brings them.

And they are everywhere.

I'm not saying women shouldn't be sexual creatures. Quite the contrary, they should find strength and personal pleasure in it. But don't do it just for somebody else and don't do it for status. I've met too many women willing to sell themselves to some sugar daddy (and that, girls, is prostitution). Or too many women willing to let a guy play bongos on their ass for a short stint on the Howard Stern show (I saw this ad on Craig's List, no lie). The inevitable corollary is that women think that manipulation of men through the sexual spectacle of their bodies leads to power and money. And, sadly enough, it usually does. Hell, Clinton has his own stable of mares that found big bucks -- be it Celebrity Boxing or a purse-designing career -- and held the nation captive with their sexual exploits. Is there any room in this messed-up equation for love anymore?

More Morphizm

"In a segment that, on the outside, seems designed to honor yet another one of rock and roll's seminal yet fallen heroes, MTV just can't help talking about why it, not Nirvana, mattered so much."

"I think that there's been a lot of difficulty in defining what is American, what is considered American. There's a lot of difficulty with acceptance within our community of foreignness at this time."

"But at the time it was as if he had announced to the whole world that I was wearing a training bra. So I turned around and delivered a swift kick to his crotch."

"How is it that our media has convinced women to envy one another while encouraging men to ogle the requisite T&A that graces their magazine covers? I want equality. I want justice. I want scantily clad, gorgeous men on my magazine covers."

"The guidelines for white people will be different than for others. They will be advised to refer to the U.S. Federal Standard 595B Color Chart (or the Ralph Lauren color chip guide at Home Depot) to determine the range of colors permissible in a potential spouse..."

"There's something in the American psyche, it's almost this kind of right or privilege to resolve our conflicts with violence. There's an arrogance to that concept. To actually have to sit down and talk, to listen, to compromise, that's hard work. To go for the gun, that's the cowardly act."

Channeling Malcolm X, Public Enemy once asserted that "It takes a nation of millions to hold us back." But in these Britney Spears-saturated days, it feels more like it's taking a nation of whores to run the country's media.

So I applaud My Big Fat Greek Wedding for avoiding a sickeningly cute Meg Ryan/Julia Roberts cipher gumming it up for the camera or a surgically-altered Pamela Lee/Carmen Electra bimbo slutting it up for the camera. I also thank it for defying the age-old standards of the Hollywood love story. In other words, I love this movie for everything it isn't.

The characters in My Big Fat Greek Wedding seem like people you would catch walking down the street. They are heartfelt, unique, hilarious, cheesy and tragic, locked in a family controversy of comedy, love and happiness. The film gives you an honest look at the strange workings of another culture -- and thank god for it. Watching it made me think of the bizarre things my Filipina mother tortured me with as a child. I still sometimes wish that I could just have a normal family. But thank god I don't, because my family and our crazy times together have only made my life that much richer -- and I'm not talking Gucci or Prada richer either.

Which means that there's at least one more woman in this world spared from turning her butt cheeks into bongos for some extra cash and a few minutes of fame. And who knows? If more women start using their consumer power to go see films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding we might be able to put the ass-percussion sector out of business altogether.

14 November 02

Sandra Fu has published articles for Migente.com, drDrew.com, drKoop.com and more. She's currently finishing her first novel, Sycamore Circle.