Throughout the semester, we have been introduced to many topics related to interpersonal communication. I have come to believe that these concepts have allowed me to better understand interactions that occur in our daily lives. My knowledge of these concepts was challenged when asked to relate these notions to a movie. During the time that I was watching the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I realized myself grasping onto what was going on and being able to relate certain scenes and situations to topics I had previously learned about. Interactions in My Big Fat Greek Wedding display concepts of conflict and politeness theory, which can be pointed out in a few specific scenes. During the movie, I found that these concepts that were taught in class helped me better understand and relate to certain clips of the movie.
Throughout the rest of the paper, I will be going into a bit more detail about exactly what these concepts are and mean, following that I will be giving examples from the movie that demonstrate the concepts of conflict and politeness theory. The movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding is about a 30-year old and single woman named Toula Portokalos who although has lived a very Greek life-style up this point, decides to pursue a relationship with a non-Greek man. This, of course, is disturbing to her family since they are so proud about their culture, and do not really know anything different. Her whole life, Toula has been instilled with a very traditional Greek outlook on life.
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She has been expected to do three things: Marry a Greek boy, make Greek babies, and feed everyone until the day they die. Throughout the movie, Toula overcomes inner struggles to find her own identity, and she overcomes struggles with her family. The first topic that is found in the movie that was taught in class is conflict. Conflict is expressed disagreement over perceived incompatible goals (Daena Goldsmith, class presentation, October 25, 2004).
Although it may seem it, conflict is not always a negative thing. Conflict is needed and can help growth of relationships.
Many conflicts are started because people have different conversational styles. In class, we learned that there are guidelines that one should follow in order to help prevent conflict or help solve it. The guidelines include clarifying goals, helping others save face, using constructive criticism skills, using empathic listening skills, monitoring nonverbal behavior, remembering positive aspects of relationships, knowing when to calm down, and over learning skills that might help. These guidelines can all help lessen a conflict.
Conflict was displayed in two specific scenes of the movie. The first scene was when Toula’s parents are arguing about Toula going to school (Appendix A).
Her father feels she should not go to school because girls don’t need to, and that she is fine doing what she is doing; working at the family restaurant. Her mother on the other hand, feels that Toula should go to school if that is what she wants. They go back and forth until Toula’s mom walks out. This argument is started because they both have different things they want.
She ends the argument with a sarcastic comment, and it doesn’t get settled. Throughout their argument, neither of the two used any of the guidelines for conflict that we had learned about. Perhaps if guidelines were used the argument would not have ended on a bad note. Using such guidelines such as clarifying goals or using constructive criticism might have prevented the argument to begin with. Another scene that shows an example of conflict was when Toula’s parents find out she is seeing a man who happens to not be Greek.
Ian Miller (her boyfriend) and Toula’s father are arguing in the dining room, while Toula and her mother sit in the kitchen listening (Appendix B).
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The conflict begins because both Toula’s father and her boyfriend want different things. Toula’s father does not want Toula to have a boyfriend, while Ian wants to continue to see Toula. Like the first conflict, two people have incompatible goals. Without taking this class, one would already know that an argument, or conflict, is started because two people want different things, or have incompatible goals. However, one might not know about the guidelines people can follow in order to prevent the conflict from getting worse, or to prevent an argument entirely.
After learning about these guidelines, it is easier to notice and pay attention to arguments more, and point out when some of these guidelines should be used. The second topic that is portrayed in the movie is the politeness theory. To begin explaining what it entails, a term that plays an important role in the politeness theory will be defined, and that is “Face.” Face is an image or identity we enact in our interactions with other people (Goldsmith, p. 26).
Erving Goff man, a sociologist, defined face as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself [or herself] by the line others assume he [or she] has taken during a particular contact. Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes” (Goldsmith, p. 26).
Losing or saving face has to do with our ability to stay in character and behave in a way that fits with expectations for our role. Some ways of losing face have to do with basic violations of civilized behavior (Goldsmith, p. 26).
There are also two aspects of face to which are negative face and positive face. Negative face is the want to be unimpeded, to have certain rights not to be impeded by respect. Positive face is the want to be approved of in certain respects (Daena Goldsmith, class presentation, September 13, 2004).
Brown and Levinson are two sociologists who that many actions in our everyday conversations have the potential to threaten face.
Orders, requests, advice, and warnings threaten negative face while criticism, complaints, or disagreement threaten positive (Goldsmith, p. 26).
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Face threatening acts can threaten your own face and others as well. Politeness theory is a way of making FTAs less threatening. There are five options doing FTAs that go from least polite to most polite (Daena Goldsmith, class presentation, September 13, 2004).
The first Bald on Record; this is being direct and blunt.
The second is Positive Redress, like bald on record you do make the request or criticize but you do it in a friendlier more appropriate way (Goldsmith, p. 29).
The third is Negative Redress, the FTA is stated in a way that tries to minimize disrespect or intrusion in order not to offend or impose on the hearer. The fourth way is Off Record, which avoids actually saying the FTA by using hints or ambiguity (Goldsmith, p.
30).
The first scene that involved politeness theory was when Toula approaches her dad about going to college (Appendix C).
She never comes right out and asks her father if she can take classes. She starts off with off the record because she gives him this whole long background story of how the way they take inventory needs to be updated, but they should get a computer, and she used to get A’s in computer class. She then mentions how there is a lot to be learned and that she could learn more by going to college. This is an example of positive redress because she softens the way she asks, and starts off by being very indirect.
“Through indirectness, we give others an idea of what we have in mind, testing the interaction al waters before committing too much- a natural way of balancing our needs with the needs of others” (Tanned, 72).
Toula did exactly that, she tested the waters first because she was fearful of how her father would react. After she asks him, he immediately flips out and starts crying, and asking her why she wants to leave him. You can see the type of relationship Toula has with her dad by the way that she asks him. If she was close with her dad she would have come right out and asked, bald on record. However, since Toula spends a lot of time building up her question, you can tell that she might not have a very close relationship with her father, and in fact might be a little intimidated by him.
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After learning about the five different options of doing FTPs from Sp Com 230, it is now easier to pay attention to how others ask for things, and how oneself asks for things. The second scene that involved politeness theory was when Toula’s mother comes up with the idea of Toula working in her aunt’s travel agency, and Toula and her mother try to think of a way to ask her father (Appendix D).
They decide to make him think that he has come up with the idea. Toula’s mother could have flat out said that Toula wanted to work at the travel agency, but she instead decides to save his “face.” She basically decides to ask him in an off-record way.
It could be said that the mother manipulates the father in a very clever way, which was probably a good way to handle the situation. If she would have just asked him bald on record, or with some redress, about Toula working at the agency it may have started an argument. After completing this assignment, I am amazed on how much of a better understanding I have on these concepts. Not only am I able to connect them with situations in daily life, but even to the extent at which I can relate them to circumstances in a movie. The two topics that I chose to explore further and relate to the movie and each other were conflict and politeness theory. Not only did I realize my ability to connect such topics to fulfill this assignment, but I somehow feel that my future experiences watching movies or paying attention to others daily behaviors will be more analytical after completing this assignment..
