Homework: Genre and Narrative Analysis: Meet The Fockers (2004)

Genre

'Meet the Fockers' is a movie from the comedy genre. It was famed as one of the most popular movies of the year when it was released, due to its outrageous comedy. This is one of the defining characteristics of the movie which displays its genre, with the scenes in the above video supporting this idea, with sexual references and the often abnormal behaviour of the Focker family. When we as an audience see comedy movies, we expect similar stereotypes, with outrageous behaviour or embarrassing circumstances a common feature now.

Characters (Propp)

• Hero: Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) - a nurse who after the first movie seems to be having a successful life with his fiancee and together with her and her parents embarks on a holiday to stay at his parents' home. Here he fights embarrassment to gain his fiancees hand in marriage and win over her father.
• Villain/The Princess' Father/The False Hero: Jack Byrnes (Robert de Niro) - a retired CIA agent who is Greg's fiance's father. He strictly observes all happenings in the Focker family and frequently shows his distaste for Greg. He eventually believes he has shown Greg to be a terrible man, but is in the end disproved. He claims to be doing the best throughout the movie for his daughter but in the end it shown that really he wasn't.
• Princess: Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo) - Greg's fiancee and the woman he wishes to marry and who is revealed to be carrying his child. She sticks by Greg throughout the movie until towards the end where the evidence seems to show him as a poor character, but she eventually returns to him.
• The Donor: Greg's mother and father, Roz and Bernie Focker (Barbara Streisand & Dustin Hoffman) - act as the donors by offering their home for the weekend and by attempting to act normal for the weekend to help Greg's cause.
• The Helper: Pam's mother, Dina Byrnes (Blythe Danner) - she helps the couple throughout and attempts to prevent Jack from doing what he does.

Narrative (Todorov)

• Equilibrium: At first Greg's life seems to be going quite well with work and his private life, after the shenanigans of the first movie. He has managed to arrange a weekend at which his and his fiancee Pam's parents can meet and spend time together to bond.
• Disruption: However early on we are presented with Pam's Father - Jack - and his militant attitude again towards Greg and the Focker family. He declares that he will be observing the Focker family to see whether he thinks they are suitable for his own family. Consequently a number of embarrassing occurrences are used to show the breakdown in the relationships between the Fockers and Byrneses, and this results in Greg and Pam falling out towards the end of the film.
• Restoration: Towards the end of the film, certain truths are revealed such as Greg is not the father of Ray Santiago, and that Jack has been subjecting the Focker family to criticism when in fact he himself has many faults. Greg and Pam's love is restored and they are wedded by Pam's ex-fiance from the first movie, Kevin (Owen Wilson).