Analysis of Gender Roles in the Film "Bend It Like Beckham"
“Bend it like Beckham” is a movie that encompasses important themes and queries about different cultures existing together, and especially a minority culture in the Western culture, particularly in England. It portrays both gender issues as well as transnationalism and cultural gender expectations that have been witnessed in the real world life situations. Culture and gender are the emphasized themes, where gender depicts the use of social norms and religious believes. In addition, gender is the leading factor, which impose frontiers for one eighteen year old Indian girl. Jesminder Bhamra (Jess) is obsessed with football, and her dream is to become a professional football player. She is passionate, talented, and her idol and is David Beckham. The movie meant to show how religious beliefs, cultural traditions, customs and practices of one Indian family, who immigrated to England, can influence gender roles, and can further act as an obstacle to Jess in her quest to achieve her dreams and aspirations.
The movie reveals the hardships and struggles that Jess is facing in order to be able to play soccer and chase her dream of becoming a professional football star. Because of her Indian culture and religious beliefs, Jess is deprived of playing football. She is encouraged by her mother to learn how to cook traditional Indian meals and act in ascribed feminine manner. Transnationalism was a major theme depicted in the movie “Bend it like Beckham” and it refers to the interconnection of the social-economic and political affairs of different nations across the globe (Sandars, 2005). And as such, in my analysis of the movie, I am going to analyse and encounter how gender binaries, transnationalism, race and cultural expectations impact and tangle the life of Jess and Jules, two girls, who have different culture practices, but also assimilates in the ways their families perceive their obsession with “the masculine sport”. Most of the countries around the world tend to exhibit similarities and differences in their social economic and political spheres depending on traditions, believes and cultural practices. The movie “Bend it like Beckham” becomes a blueprint of transnationalism and conceptualization of frontiers based on cultural expectations and gendered division of rules.
The movie starts with an imagined scene where Jess is a professional football player and her mother is in the commentator studio stating that “she should not be running around with all these men showing her bare legs to 70 000 people! She is bringing shame on the family (Gurinder, 2002). Jess’ family strictly adhere and try to preserve the values and practices of their Punjabi culture. According to Indian traditions, women are supposed to be docile homemakers, stay home, look after kids and be subordinate to their husbands. Mrs. Bhamra is the perfect example of ideal Indian femininity for her daughters, she is always shown being in the house preparing meals and looking after her home obligations. Her aim is to teach Jess how to cook and make her an ideal Indian woman, who is ready to get married (Berghahn, 2013). However, Jess is showing disinterest despite her mother attempts to teach her how to prepare a traditional Indian three-course meal, and she acts outside of the assigned gender expectations.
The assigned gender roles in the Indian culture are very conservative and modest. Indians are very aware and mindful of social order and their status with other people, including her family, acquaintances and aliens (Sandars, 2005). The movie depicts a scene where Jess is having an argument with her mom because she had discovered that Jess is playing for the local girls’ soccer team. Her mother is expressing anxiety for the future of her daughter in the statement “What family will want a daughter-in-law who can run around kicking football all day but can’t make round chapattis?”. Her desire of imposing the Indian culture through cooking is a way to insure that her daughter will not divagate from the gendered expectations imposed by their culture, and will eventually get married. For Jess though, the cooking lessons and prohibition by her mother to play football are ways in which her mother controls her life, and this forced image of becoming the perfect Indian woman is recognized by Jess as commanding and oppressive. She does not fit into this category, and she makes it clear when she preludes football techniques into the kitchen as an allegation of her identity. On the other hand, we encounter Jules, who is an English girl, also obsessed with soccer. She is a member of the local girls’ soccer team called “Houslow Harriers”. Even though Jess and Jules originate from two different cultures, and the English culture is more democratic, both of the two girls’ mothers Mrs. Bhamra and Mrs. Paxton oppose their daughters to “bend” established cultural and gender roles.
In the movie “Bend it like Beckham”, the plenteous Indian culture is illustrated through Jess’ sister Pinky and her wedding. In the Indian culture, marriage is seen not only to unify a man and a woman, but also to enhance the cohesion of their families. One of the scenes in the movie tend to show how conservative and strict the culture is; Jess’ sister wedding is abated because the groom’s mother wrongfully depicts Jess hugging Jules on the street and claiming that she had seen Jess kissing a boy on the street. The act of premarital kissing in Punjabi culture is perceived as inferior, immoral and lewd; therefore Jess is seen as emancipated, and in this way her family is put into a bad category, because according to their culture “the honor of a woman is the honor of the family”. When Jess is denounced of kissing a boy before marriage, this act is characterized as shameful and contemptible, which degrades her family’s honor.
In the movie, “Bend it like Beckham” gender stereotyping has been portrayed in many instances. This has been attributed to the Indian traditional beliefs about gender. In Jess’s case, because of gender stereotyping women should not practice men’s sports. The widely accepted narrative of what is considered right or wrong based on society’s assumptions acts as a frontier and obstacle, which Jess constantly experiences, and tries to overcome in order to be able to follow her dream.
Gender expectations and social norms play significant roles in the lives of Jess and Jules and their families. In Jess’s case, her family lives in a neighbourhood called Houslow, which is known as a community with predominant Indian immigrants residing in this region. Even though Jess’ parents immigrated to England long time ago, and their daughters were raised in England, they had never entirely integrated with the English society. They strongly try to preserve their culture practices, religion and traditions, and they continued to live according to Indian rules. Their appetence is to discipline their daughters in the same way in, which they were raised, and keeping them away from assimilating with the English society. That is probably why throughout the movie, we only observe how Jess and her sister only communicate with people from the Indian diaspora.
On the other hand, Jules’ family is a traditional English family, but in a similar manner with the Indian family, Paxton family share some similarities based on gender expectations. Mrs. Paxton evokes a depiction of femininity and expects her daughter to correspond to her gender expectation of how a woman should dress and behave. Jules’ mother condemnation is derived from the fact that playing soccer and dress in loose and “unfeminine” clothes will affect Jules’ sexuality and prevent her from having a boyfriend. According to Mrs. Paxton “no boy is gonna want to go out with a girl who’s got bigger muscles than him” (Gurinder, 2002). Mrs. Paxton is convinced that playing soccer will affect her daughter sexuality, and when she overhears a conversation between Jess and Jules arguing because both of them like their coach Joe, Mrs. Paxton interprets the conflict between the two girls as a couple’s dispute, and she is convinced that Jules and Jess are lesbians. By wrongfully interpreting what she had overheard, she thinks that her daughter became a lesbian because she plays soccer. She realizes that she has disconnected with her daughter, and she attempts to understand and accept Jule’s mania about football. She attempts to become closer to her daughter, and by mentioning that she had done a research and found out that some of the women who play soccer are married and have children. In this way, she is trying to emphasize that Jules should also consider taking this path and establish a family.
According to Algeo (2017), transnationalism typically refers to an increased interconnection between people and the social economies among many nations. In the movie for example, transnationalism was portrayed in many instances, and particularly seen as transnationalism in terms of culture. An example would be when Jess’ family emigrated from India to England. Jess and her sister are afterwards brought up in England. However, their parents’ establishment in the new country did not affect their adhering of the Indian culture. Although they live in England, Jess and her sister are compliant to act differently and acquire different identities, when they are inside and outside of their house.
The movie “Bend it like Beckham” indeed demonstrates the various gender issues in the society as well as the effect of transnationalism. Gender issues can bar an individual from exploiting its talent and chasing its dreams. However, cultural traditions and gender stereotyping made Jess to face many hardships and resistance by her family until the end of the movie, when they realized that Jess is following her dream and that is what makes her happy. Jules is also accepted for who she is by her parents. The happy ending of the movie emphasize that we should always combat for our dreams, and not matter how many hardships we are faced with, we should never give up of doing what makes us happy.
Bibliography
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