My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the title itself foreshadows the movies main theme. In this movie, Tula has been raised with all the Greek culture and customs, but she doesn’t appreciate it enough because it stops her from mingling with others. She’s almost 30 and working in her family’s restaurant, depressed about her uneventful life. Though she does not hate her culture, she does feel as if it constraints her. When she tries to ask her father to let her complete a course in computers, her father says “marry a Greek boy, make Greek babies, feed everyone”. After her mother convinces her father, Tula finally is released into the diverse world, where she finds her true self. She attracts the attention of Ian, who isn’t Greek. She starts dating him and finally comes to a marriage proposal. Ian is baptized and finally becomes Greek; he’s accepted into the family, where he begins to learn the customs. Throughout the movie, Tula almost seems to be criticizing her family for being too Greek, and sometimes hating the customs. The audience gets
introduced to the negatives of the culture in the perspective of Tula. This allows the audience to understand the culture as much as Tula does. During the process of arranging her wedding, Tula learns more about the importance of her culture and how it makes her unique. In a way, the audience is portrayed by Ian’s parents who barely know about the culture. One of the scene portrays how bizarre the parent’s view the customs. Ian’s parents are invited to a dinner organized by Tula’s parents. Tula believes that her immediate family along with a couple of friends will be invited. Once she arrives, she see a large group of people dancing, feeling a little embarrassed in front of Ian’s parents, who seem to view the culture as barbarian. However, at the end of the movie, the parents appreciate the culture for its uniqueness and try to assimilate into the Greek culture. The audience is almost taken on a similar journey, where their opinions about the bizarre culture involve into opinions of appreciation. This evolving of opinions is caused by the negative tone Tula displays toward the Greek culture. Toward the end, Tula and other important characters start appreciating the culture creating a tone of admiration. Through this movie, the American society learns about other cultures in the world and the hardships they face while assimilating, helping the American society to globalize. Many would think the American society is already globalized since it is a melting pot. Though many cultures are present in the community, many of the culture’s customs and rituals are not known to the community. In a sense, globalizing the American society refers to educating them about the different cultures around the world. My Big Fat Greek Wedding helps to attain this goal by showing the audience a glimpse of the customs of this unique culture. Whereas My Big Fat Greek Wedding had globalization in its title, Gran Torino doesn’t really seem to foreshadow a story about the Hmong people. This again is a culture barely known to the American society. The story starts off with Walt’s wife’s funeral. His conservative attitude is shown through his disapprove of his grandchildren’s behavior in church, although not a churchgoer himself. At home he proves that he doesn’t like many people and tends to be anti-social. He sees most people as hypocrites, even the priest who takes on the challenge to take Walt to confession. Walt tends to show the normal stereotypes toward his Asian neighbors and tends to not like them much. After an eventful night where Thou is beaten up by
Hmong gangsters, Walt slowly begins his interaction with the Hmong community. Because of a Hmong custom, Thou’s mom asks Walt to give Thou some work to do to repay for the mistake he committed. Walt initially gives Thou jobs such as repairing the community. McCarthy quotes how Walt and Thou build a “quasi-father-son-relationship.” Walt also becomes a protector of Sue, and appreciating the culture of the Hmong people. In the end, Walt quotes on he has things more in common with them than his own family. Through the journey of the movie, Walt learns many things about the Hmong culture allowing him to accept the culture and the people. He learns that the Hmong believe that the soul rests on the head, so it is not advised to touch anyone heads. Though at first he thinks of them as barbarians who eat dogs, he later accepts them as his own. This movie again shows how the American society is more like a salad rather than a melting pot. Though Walt has been living in the same house for many years, he does not know the customs of the Hmong people, prevalent in his neighborhood. Globalization of cinema helps the society become more of a melting pot by increasing 
their knowledge about other cultures (Dargis). Walt in the beginning treats them as wild barbarians, showing a certain kind of racism (McCarthy). After understanding the culture, he becomes less hesitant to mingle between the Hmong people and less prone to committing injustice against them. Globalization in this movie is shown through the education of a different culture, helping America erase misunderstandings of different cultures.Though both movies, globalization of the Hollywood industry can be seen but in different manner. My Big Greek Wedding focuses more on explaining a culture through a comic way in a much different setting (Truby). Gran Torino is shot in a more serious location, helping Walt, Clint Eastwood, understand the inner complications of the Hmong culture in America. Both movies initiate with either a group, such as the groom’s parents in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, or a single person, such as Walt in Gran Torino, who find the respective culture bizarre, almost “harboring ill will” (Messier). In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the culture is slowly accepted by groom’s family but in a somewhat of a cliché manner (Harvey). This in turn does not send a strong serious message to the American audience, but rather one with a comic tint. However the manner, the message that was portrayed was the fact that there are many unknown cultures that people cannot be critical toward.
Everyone should learn to accept each other’s uniqueness, portraying the very idea of globalization: increasing connectivity between different parts of the world. The movie also portrays the fact that there is a need for globalization. In the beginning, Tula, the main character, brings Greek lunch to school, which all the popular white girls laugh at showing the tolerance of Americans for different cultures. Gran Torino also starts off in a critical manner, underlying the low tolerance level for accepting other cultures. Slowly he becomes accepting of the culture and is people more than his own family. In one scene he says, “I have more in common with these gooks than with my own spoiled, rotten family," showing his acceptance of the family and culture. This sends a message that though the culture’s manner of regular habits may be different from one’s own, the people’s mentalities are not different enough to differentiate them from others. The difference between both the movies is based on the depth of knowledge given about the culture. In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the comic approach seems to touch the
surface of the culture showing the prominent parts of the culture such as the dancing, the food, and the immense generosity. It does to show the hardships the newer generation seems to face, such as acceptance in American society. Gran Torino tends to find the social tension among the Hmong people in the American society. The boys usually find their ways to gangs while the girls try to make a living for the family. Through these tensions, Walt discovers the Hmong culture compared to the comic sense Ian, Tula’s boyfriend, discovers Greek culture. Both of the movies focus on cultures situated in America. In a way, globalization has already taken place in the specific culture. In Gran Torino, Sue describes how the Hmong people are mountain people back in their homeland, nothing similar to their actual situation in America. This shows how globalization is already in effect in the immigrant cultures, but there is no globalization in the American culture. This is because many cultures are not accepted yet in the American society. This is clearly portrayed by how Walt and Ian’s parents view the customs of the Hmong people and the Greek people as bizarre representing the American society. While the movie progresses, characters in both movies being to accept the unique cultures. Walt grows fond of the Hmong people while Ian’s parents appreciate the culture, showing how the American society too can integrate different cultures in their society, globalizing.
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