Well, it's getting late, reader!! I came back from the In America movie today, and I thought I should write something about it here, because I liked it very very much, but I do'nt think it's such a good idea, not today, anyway, because I'd be sure to hate what I write, so I figured I might as well watch the other cultural movie I've been wanting to tell you about all year through, namely "Bend It Like Bekham". So I wrote a paper for Mr Newman to correct, but then I figured I might as well post it on my blog straight up! Here you go!
“Bend it like Beckham” is an English movie by Gurinder Chadha, an English director, starring Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. It came out in 2002, and met with a great public success both in England and in other European countries.
In spite of its very popular and entertaining character, the movie, which is designed for a teenager audience, does teach the viewer a lot about the Indian community in the UK, the difficulty of blending in a society, and other issues such as homophobia both in minorities and in the English population in general.
The movie is about a young Indian girl, Jesminder (Parminder Nagra, also seen in “ER”) whose unique passion is football. She enters a girls-only football team, thanks to her friend Jules (Keira Knightley, who more recently starred in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Sense and Sensibility”). Of course, her decision to engage in an unladylike sport with people who do not belong to her community, and her falling in love with her coach, Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who play
ed in “Match Point”) do not please her parents at all. She has to fight for her right to live her own life, and has to face prejudices, both from her family, who believes that she cannot be a good girl if she does not stay at home and cook typical Punjabi dishes, and from the outside world, who keep asking her if she is already “promised”. But even though it deals with stereotypes and prejudices, the movie does not oversimplify Jess’s situation: her parents do listen to her, and try to understand her, they do not correspond to the typical Indian cliché of abusive parents who would like to see her married off to someone rich, whether she likes it or not.
In spite of its very popular and entertaining character, the movie, which is designed for a teenager audience, does teach the viewer a lot about the Indian community in the UK, the difficulty of blending in a society, and other issues such as homophobia both in minorities and in the English population in general.
The movie is about a young Indian girl, Jesminder (Parminder Nagra, also seen in “ER”) whose unique passion is football. She enters a girls-only football team, thanks to her friend Jules (Keira Knightley, who more recently starred in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Sense and Sensibility”). Of course, her decision to engage in an unladylike sport with people who do not belong to her community, and her falling in love with her coach, Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who play
ed in “Match Point”) do not please her parents at all. She has to fight for her right to live her own life, and has to face prejudices, both from her family, who believes that she cannot be a good girl if she does not stay at home and cook typical Punjabi dishes, and from the outside world, who keep asking her if she is already “promised”. But even though it deals with stereotypes and prejudices, the movie does not oversimplify Jess’s situation: her parents do listen to her, and try to understand her, they do not correspond to the typical Indian cliché of abusive parents who would like to see her married off to someone rich, whether she likes it or not. Besides, the filmmaker also deals with homosexuality, which is quite a rare fact in Indian movies, since being gay is still very taboo amongst the Indian population, both in and out of India. Jess’s best friend is gay, and tells her about how hard it is to talk about it to his parents. Her first reaction upon hearing it is to say “but you are Indian!”, as if homosexuality was such a big issue that an Indian man could not possibly be gay. But once more, the politically correct British family does not go untouched: Upon discovering (wrongly) that her daughter may be a lesbian, Jule’s mother (Juliet Steven
son, brilliant in this movie), gets very upset, but when her daughter tells her the truth, she pretends she has no problem at all with homosexuality.Jess’s father (Anupham Kher, a legend of Indian Bollywood cinema, who has been seen as a supporting role in nearly all the classics), is also a very interesting character, and through his lines and his actions, the filmmaker tells us about how hard it was for the first generation of immigrants to blend in, and to be accepted in a society which considered them as second-class citizens, regardless of their talent or their ability. But by not bearing grudges, and by giving people a chance, he is, I think, the role-model of this movie: he always keeps an open mind. At one point he says that his giving up on his ambitions, though at the time it felt like he was punishing the country for not letting him succeed, has actually harmed no one but himself.
I think it is a very good way to see integration problems, because it tells people not to bear grudges, and never to lose hope, and despair and resentment against racism and rejection are probably the main cause of integration issues in our Western societies.
Anyway. There you go. I hope it made you feel like seeing the movie, because it's really good fun, and entertaining. I think I'll go and get some sleep now, reader, because it's past my bedtime!!! Lord, what will happen!!! I'll soon be turning into a pumpkin!!!! Quick quick!! Let's go brush my teeth!!!! :)
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