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My big fat greek wedding understanding
Impact of family on human behavior
Impact of family on human behavior
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Theoretical perspectives on families come in many forms. These perspectives help to provide a basis of understanding of the dynamic relationships found within families. Lamanna, Riedmann, and Stewart (2015) define the Interactionalist perspective as the communication and face to face encounters between to individuals and their ability to be aware of one another. This family view best applies to the father-daughter relationship between Gus and Toula Portokalos from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Gus, the dominant rule setting father, has made it his goal to embrace their Greek Heritage to its fullest extent all while maintaining certain roles for each member of his immediate family. While Gus strives to protect the family’s roles and community …show more content…
While Toula kept her new boyfriend in secret from her family, the couple was soon exposed thanks to the tight connections within the Portokalos family. Gus was quick to once again comply with the interactionist perspective by first explaining to Toula the “rules” Ian was meant to follow in order to ask for permission to date his daughter. He later continues by inviting a preapproved suitor for his daughter who would help to continue and maintain their strong Greek culture. The climax of this conflict arises when Toula begins to feel the pressure from her father and tries to break it off with Ian. Luckily for Toula Ian was completely understanding of her family system; even when his own family was more “cookie cutter” in the way his family was smaller in size, they kept to immediate family, as well as weren’t as prideful of their heritage. The couple continues to date and Ian soon proposes to Toula. When she confronts her father with her news he begins to become outraged by the situation and the lack of respect coming from his daughter and her inability to uphold not only tradition but his own expectations of her. After Ian commits to converting into Toula’s Greek Orthodox faith as a way to make her father and family happy and more accepting, Toula proceeded to explain to her father that this is what she had been waiting for and was where she felt comfortable. Again we have some evidence of not only Toula but also her father complying with this idea of constructing a new reality to fit ones needs. Gus slowly begins to accept Ian thanks to his sacrifice and commitment not only to his daughter but the family’s traditions and culture as well. Eventually all turns out well for the Portokalos and Gus and Toula’s relationship becomes strong thanks to
In conclusion, a family is presented as a haven of care and love and a social unit of teaching values, especially for growing kids. However, the family does not seclude a person from the larger society, thereby giving all the members a choice to live their own life. Through the review of the movie, Tom and Matt were used by the director to define family and cultural values.
In chronicling how the family structure has changed in America, it is important to understanding how family was actually defined. When referencing Leave it to Beaver (further referred to as LITB) times, family took on a substantive definition, or the idea that family was equivalent to relative, or related by blood or law. While this definition of family served the time period, it failed to evolve with society. For that reason, sociologists set out to determine a “more inclusive functionalist definition,” that focuses on what families do. “A functionalist definition of families focuses on how families provide for the physical, social, and emotional needs of individuals and of society as a whole” (Witt). With that, the functionalist perspective identifies six primary functions, which include reproduction, socialization, protection, regulation of sexual behavior, affection and companionship, and...
Is High School football a sport, or is it more than that to some people? Recent newspaper headlines include such items as coaches abusing student athletes; fathers of athletes murdering coaches, and mother’s disabilitating cheerleading candidates to assure their daughters make the cheerleading team. In Odessa, Texas high school football is a major contributor to the society of a small town in Texas society. Every Friday night, 50,000 people fill the stadium to see high school students put their lives on the line to win a football game. H. G. Bissinger writes a novel called Friday Night Lights, about a year in 1988 where High School players prepare and play on the High School team, and what an impact they have on a small city in Texas.
Released in 2004, Mean Girls is said to be one of the most influential and memorable teen comedies ever produced. With a witty screenplay, written by Saturday Light Live alum, Tina Fey, very freely adapted from the non-fiction novel, Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, Mean Girls possesses a “zest and sing few high school comedies ever muster,” according to Rob Blackwelder of Combustible Celluloid.
It was a cool, crisp November evening, while five teenagers were hustling and bustling around my house excitedly getting ready for their very first showing of the live version of their all time favorite movie. They knew it would be the best night of their lives. The night of my 15th birthday party, my friends and I all piled into my parents car around 11:00 PM and headed off down the road to the Heights Theater. The movie we are about to see is an all time classic. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the best cult film of all time. The movie has all the three basic elements it should have. It has funny audience participation, wonderful acting, and a great story line.
Every member of a family fulfills a specific role that allows the group to function as a cohesive unit. In most families, these roles involve traditional genders, where the father plays the role of the “provider”, bringing in money to the family, and the mother is the “nurturer”, keeping the children healthy and content while maintaining an orderly household. When these roles are left unfilled, a family can fall apart almost instantly. In Jeannette Walls’ chilling memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette’s recollection of her childhood involves a large amount of familial dysfunction due to the lack of fulfillment of these roles. Jeannette and her siblings Maureen, Brian, and Lori grow up with their parents Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Rex and Rose Mary
According to Murray Bowen’s family systems theory, the family subsists in a system where as the individuals are inseparable from their network of relationships, but continue to strive to be individualized. Consequently, various forms of these networks are grounded in the domestic structure and the “normal” or “ideal” family and development derives from the interaction of the family members when they remain differentiated, unease is minimal, and partners have beneficial emotional communication with their own family members (Nichols, 2014). The concept of achieving individuality while remaining in a cohesive family unit may cause stress. Concepts such as differentiation of self, triangulation, emotional cutoff, and anxious attachment may aid in the elucidation of the family system. This theoretical concept along with these coinciding terms will be explored through one episode of the television series The Goldbergs called Rush.
Smith, S. R., & Hamon, R. R., (2012). Exploring family theories. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a film made in 2004 directed by Joel Zwick that evidently portrays several sociological concepts throughout the film. This film highly demonstrates the sociological topics of gender and culture all through the movie. The roles of gender, gender stratification as well as gender stereotyping are exemplified during the film. As for culture, the film displays subculture, counterculture, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism and cultural diffusion. My Big Fat Greek Wedding focuses on a single 30-year-old Greek woman, Toula Portokalos, who works at her family’s restaurant. Toula’s life takes a turn when she unexpectedly falls in love with a man who is not Greek. The film revolves around Toula’s family as well as her boyfriend,
This paper will include the analysis of the movie Hope Floats. It will start with a short summary of the movie describing the characters and the plot. It will then discuss the family dynamics that are shown in the movie based on the class discussions and the readings. It will also include a variety of issues that are shown throughout the movie. This paper will discuss three key family system’s issues that includes the family concepts, assessing one from Bowen’s concepts, one from Minuchin’s concepts, and one from General Systems Theory/Anderson and Sabatelli concepts. There are many different scenes and examples in this movie that will give a better understanding of the many different family dynamics, family issues, and family system concepts.
The characters of the book reside in present day Indiana. The main characters Hazel and Augustus are two teenagers who both live in Indianapolis in average homes with their families. Hazel spends a lot of time in the hospital and her house due to her cancer. She meets Augustus at a support group in her church and they start spending a lot of time together. Hazel shared her favorite book with Augustus and this book stops mid-sentence with no ending. They both love the book and contacted the author who lives in Amsterdam for answers about how the story ends. The author of this book, Peter Van Houten denies giving them any information because he does not trust that Hazel and Augustus wouldn’t just share it on the internet or record the telephone call. Peter Van Houten says he would only tell them in person. It becomes Hazel’s dream to go Amsterdam which is where Van Houten lives. Augustus uses his one “wish”, from the Genie foundation (which grants wishes to kids with cancer) for him and Hazel to go to Amsterdam. On the plane to Amsterdam, Augustus tells Hazel that he is in love with her. Amsterdam is described as being picture perfect and the opposite of their hometown. I think that the characters felt confined and limited in Indiana but were set free in Amsterdam. In Amsterdam they finally speak to Van Houten, who was an extreme disappointment to them, visit tourist sites and have dinner by the canal. The major climax occurs in Amsterdam when Augustus reveals to Hazel that his cancer has returned and is going to kill him.
"A family is a small social group of people related by ancestry or affection, who share common values and goals, who may live together in the same dwelling, and who may participate in the bearing and raising of children. They have a physical or emotional connection with each other that is ongoing" (Vissing, 2011) and is the foundation of all societies. They can be formed by a grouping of father-mother-children or even more complicated combination of relatives. In the primary stage of family life in the United States, everyone from every generation lived together in one house. Subsequently, the idea of traditional family evolved and a married couple with children is at present, often called the traditional family. There are many types of families; however, this paper will focus on the traditional family. It will describe how the functionalist perspective, conflict perspective, and the interactionism theory apply to the sociological institution known as a family. It will explain some of the similarities and differences between the sociological theories in regards to families and how they affect the family members.
“Year after year, twenty-something women come to New York City in search of the two L's: labels and love” is the very catchy line that opens the film with Fergie’s ‘Labels or Love’ as the soundtrack and The Big Apple as its introductory shot. The scaling deduced from the bird’s eye-view-point of New York City, showing its Metropolitan atmosphere with skyscrapers and the famous Brooklyn Bridge; to the urbanites of the City; then to the lead actors of the film. A fifteen year-old girl watches the film, mesmerizing the ecstatic city while admiring the skinny white bodies of the ladies. And last but never forgotten, she gets carried away with the funky upbeat rhythm of the song emphasizing “Gucci, Fendi, [and] Prada . . .” That is the introduction of Sex and the City and the focus of its cinematography. With its elements, the movie can honestly influence teenage girls. Yet as much as critics such as Maya Gordon of Psychology of Women Quarterly say how media contributes to the sexual objectification and values women “based on their appearance,” this film should be an exemption.
Hutter, M. (1985) "Symbolic Interaction and the Study of the Family" In Foundations of Interpretive Sociology: Studies in Symbolic Interaction, ed. H. A. Farberman and R. S. Perinbanayagam. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press