Not So Wedded to Tradition ALI’S WEDDING , THE ‘ETHNIC ROM-COM’ AND REALISTIC REPRESENTATION
We in the Lebanese community are particularly fixated on seeing ourselves in the spotlight. While we will settle for any representation at all, our chests puff up with pride when someone who is famous and well loved shares our ethnic background. Talk to nearly any Lebanese person about famous people from our community and they’ll start animatedly reciting a list of celebrities: Shakira, Salma Hayek, Carlos Slim, Amal Clooney, Ralph Nader, Wentworth Miller, Tony Shalhoub, Vince Vaughn, Zoe Saldana. The fact that, for many years, we’ve also laid claim to Keanu Reeves, even though his only tie to Lebanon is that he was born in Beirut, tells you everything you need to know about our desire for representation.
There’s something powerful about seeing people who look like you on the silver screen. When you’re used to not having your life reflected back at you, or not hearing the stories of your community among wider society, you start to think that maybe these stories – and people like you – don’t matter.
For years, growing up as an Australian-born Lebanese woman, I held on to films like My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Joel Zwick, 2002) and Looking for Alibrandi (Kate Woods, 2000) – films about Greek and Italian families, respectively – as I found something relatable in their stories about the immigrant experience. I, too, am from a migrant background; my family immigrated to Australia around the same time as many of the Italians and Greeks. It felt like we had enough in common that our experiences would meld together, as though nuance and specificity didn’t matter. In my youth, I saw us all as groups desperately trying to fit into this country we’d called home.
It’s clear now that a
