YMMV / Meet the Parents

• Adaptation Displacement: Very few people are aware that Meet the Parents is based on an independent film from 1992, written by, directed by, and starring Greg Glienna, that Universal Pictures bought the remake rights to. It doesn't help matters that this earlier film has rarely been distributed.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Greg a hapless and sympathetic Butt-Monkey who can never catch a break, or is he a chronic liar who is unworthy of Pam, just as her father thinks? Or does trying to get Jack to like him simply bring out the worst in Greg? In the second movie, his mother points out the fact he’s terrified of Jack, and in the third movie, his own son points out Jack makes him crazy.
  • Should Greg have even bothered staying with Pam? In the first film, she rarely stood up for him against her family's nonstop bullying until the very end and was constantly dropping little bombshells on him, such as the fact that she was engaged, that Kevin was the best man at her sister's wedding, and that her relationship with Kevin was primarily sexual.
  • Jack too: a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who sincerely has Pam's best interests at heart or just a manipulative, domineering bully who likes to control other people (including his family)?
• Corpsing: A passenger on the airplane ducks out of sight after Greg's "kung fu grip" remark, apparently laughing and trying to avoid ruining the take.
• Crosses the Line Twice: A little exchange between Jack and Bernie during a football game in the second film; Greg's actual name was made fun of once in the first film...but Bernie really set him up for this one.
  Jack: Fine, we'll play three-on-two, but somebody needs to be the official quarterback.
  Bernie: Gay goes both ways.
  Jack: *nonchalantly* Oh I bet he does.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Owen Wilson's character in the first movie, Kevin Rawley.
• First Installment Wins: The first movie is considered the best of all three movies.
• Fridge Horror: Jack has a hidden camera in his guest room. There is no justification for that sort of thing. Not to mention the fact that it's illegal—something that Greg and Bernie lampshades to Jack.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The Mistaken for Terrorist scene in the first movie would be a lot less funny in a movie that came out after 9/11, which happened just a year later.
  • The scene from the second film's climax where Greg and then Jack are tasered for what's meant to be a comically excessive amount of time, considering that overly prolonged taser usage has since been linked to the death of several people. In fact, it crosses into Fridge Horror territory when you consider that Jack has a heart attack in the third movie, leaving open the possibility that the taser did more damage than was initially apparent.
  • Debbie and Bob being depicted as Sickeningly Sweethearts in the first becomes this, considering that in the third film, they get divorced after he cheats on her.
• Sequelitis: The first movie was considered by many as "the funniest comedy of the year". The second one received mixed reviews, with some saying it was better than the first and others saying it was worse (making it a Contested Sequel). Critics universally panned the third movie, and Robert De Niro said the only reason he was in it was the $20 million salary.

• Squick:
  • The Byrnes' backyard getting flooded with sewage, after Greg flushes the faulty toilet. Then Kevin gets his truck stuck, and while trying to move it out of the bog, accidentally sprays everyone except Greg and Denny with shit. (Though given how unpleasant most of them are to Greg and the misfortunes he's already suffered, this might seem cathartic.)
  • The response to seeing Jack's artificial "breast" for assisted breastfeeding is to drown one's sorrows in Brain Bleach.
  Dina: Aw Jack, you promised you wouldn't take the boob out in front of company.
  • Actually, the squick really starts when you realize that Jack evidently spent quite some time somehow taking a cast of his own daughter's breast - which wasn't even necessary. The baby would have probably been fine with a generic fake breast or, you know, a bottle.
  • In Little Fockers, Greg persuades Henry to eat some lasagna at dinner (despite Pam saying the boy is queasy). As soon as Henry takes a bite, he then vomits all over his father's face.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Jessica Alba, in amongst the bonanza of phoning it in^note Barring Owen Wilson and Dustin Hoffman and Money, Dear Boy acting that is Little Fockers.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Pam. As soon as the relationship started to get serious, she should've told Greg about how difficult her father would make the relationship and the difficulty he'd face in trying to get Jack's blessing. But she withheld this vital information from Greg for years, including her previous relationship with Kevin (which he lampshaded in the second film when she criticized him for not telling her about him and Isabel). People also criticize her for not standing up for Greg enough while he stayed there and allowing his family to walk over him. Though there were times when she defended him, outright telling her father he could be a real jerk sometimes when she proved he took the MCATS and leaving Greg a voicemail letting her know how much she loved him, some people believe this wasn't enough to make up for previous inaction.
    • During the scene where Greg's secrets were accidentally revealed (with Jinxy and the gazebo). Whilst Pam was rightfully disappointed and hurt by his lies, accusing him of lying about the MCATS wasn't really justified since she seemingly knows more about his profession than her family does (To be fair, she probably questioned him out of shock rather than malice, since she'd later confirm that he took the MCATS once Greg left).
  • Bernie and Roz Focker; despite Greg begging them to control themselves, neither can keep a secret, and both lack a filter in conversations with the Byrnes family, needlessly bringing up parts of Greg's childhood that are not only inappropriate to talk about around company, but also created a major rift between Greg and Jack that would hit a head in the end of the second film where the latter became skeptical of Greg and suspected him of lying about having an illegitimate son with Isabel, which he never did. Essentially they almost destroy Greg's relationship and ruin everything by refusing to filter themselves.
  • Even Greg, to some extent. At the climax of the first movie, when he was confronted about his lies and the damage he unwittingly caused by them, instead of apologizing and accepting responsibility for his actions, he made lame excuses for everything that happened, to which even Dina called Greg out on. At that point, considering all the damage that had been done, Jack's dislike and distrust of Greg was now justified. Blurting Jack's secrets and spoiling his surprise honeymoon for Bob and Debbie didn't help either.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The movie captures the tail end of the 20th century.
  • Jack is willing to punish his children severely if he catches them with weed. Nowadays, weed is legal in many jurisdictions, and underage marijuana is punishable with a citation.
  • Greg's misbehavior at the airport would get him in even worse trouble post-9/11.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Jack's issue of smoking marijuana in the first film now seems ridiculous considering the increasing legality of cannabis and the declining support of the War on Drugs considering, according to many experts, it has done more harm than good.
  • It was Played for Laughs and considered fairly absurd even within the context of the film itself, but Greg being mocked for his profession of "male nurse" would be even more illogical in 2019 when nurses are one of the fastest growing and most lucrative job categories, with the highest ones (nurse practitioners) averaging six figure incomes.
  • Greg getting mocked for his birth name "Gaylord" would be seen as homophobic right away today.
• The Woobie: Greg - nothing EVER goes right for him and his father-in-law is near impossible to please. His Amazingly Embarrassing Parents don't make it much better, either. Worse yet. In the first movie NONE of Pam's family members and friends, with the exception of Dina and Kevin, find him sympathetic at all. Ironically, Kevin ends up becoming Greg’s best friend by the third movie.