1. “Meeting the parents” is all about impressing them, sometimes stretching the truth, and the slot is driven by these lies snowballing and catching-up with Greg Focker.
2. Jack and Diana are foils because Jack is very hard and serious all the time, whereas Diana is loving and compassionate towards everyone. Greg and Kevin are also foils because the rest of Pam’s family loves Kevin because he’s very smooth and talented, where Greg is very awkward and constantly and consistently embarrasses himself in every conceivable situation.
3. While DeNiro portrays the same hard-ass personality that he is famous for but transfers it to his non-traditional role as a fairly normal father.
4. Pam’s family is very judgmental of Greg because there are several peculiar things about him: he works as a male nurse, his full name is Gaylord Focker, and he is Jewish where the rest of the family is Christian.
5. Kevin’s character serves to further augment the terrible embarrassment of Greg because Kevin responds perfectly to every situation and Greg continues damage himself by repeatedly looking foolish.
6. My favorite scene is the volleyball scene, and it draws on several techniques to create its comedic effect; the scene itself is an anecdote of another situation gone awry for Greg, Greg commits an offensive blunder in smashing Pam’s sister’s face with the volleyball, Greg’s last name of “Focker” serves as a double entendre throughout the entire movie, the relationship between the foils of Greg and Kevin are completely exposed, and the slow-motion, silent instant of the volleyball striking the poor woman’s face is a perfect example of a visual gag.
