Poster Analysis: Bend It Like Beckham by Sharuk Asab

Textual Analysis:Bend It Like Beckham by Sharuk Asab

Textual Analysis - Bend it like Beckham

The Date “Bend it like Beckham” was released in the United Kingdom was the 12^th April 2002. The director of the film is Gurinder Chadha who has also directed Bhaji on the Beach (1993), Bride and Prejudice (2004) and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008). The Genre of the film is a Comedy/Drama with a subgenre of romance.

Part one

By applying Todorov’s equilibrium model,  Jess, a young woman from a Sikh family in England, dreams of playing football, but her parents want her to attend college, find a nice Sikh man to marry, and learn how to cook Panjabi food (equilibrium). When Jess, in defiance of their wishes, decides to join a girls' football team, she learns that she may have a chance to play professionally someday, develops a friendship with Jules, one of the other girls, and becomes infatuated with her male coach Joe , all the while hiding these activities from her family. The disruption occurs a quarter of the way in the film (disequilibrium). Tony, Jess’s mate proposes and agrees to her carry on with a football career and lets her go on tour (new equilibrium).

The Binary oppositions could be western and eastern culture as the parents want her to live a stereotypical Asian British girl’s lifestyle whilst she wants to live a modern British lifestyle.   The narrative structure is closed to the audience as the film does have a beginning, middle and end. “Bend it like Beckham” end when Jess flies away on tour to play football. The narrative is omniscient to audience as nothing is hidden from the viewers.

Part two

The film explores a number of themes and gives us two main areas of study in terms of representation: gender and the British Asian experience. Jess is the central character and in the main, we follow the story through her experiences. She is shown as an intelligent young woman, who tries to be a ‘good’ girl for her mother and father, but who is also passionate about playing football. Jess has already started to move away from traditional ways (her name is westernised from Jesminder) whilst her family think that football will have a corrupting influence - ‘showing your bare legs to the boys’ says her mother. Jess is seemingly not bothered by her appearance and is not interested in ‘typical’ teenage girl activities (shopping, boys, make-up, clothes, pop music etc.). When her mother finally gets her into the kitchen to teach her how to cook a traditional Indian meal, Jess is seen playing keep-up with various vegetables.

Jess only becomes aware of her interest in men when she gets to know Joe and begins to change

(literally in Hamburg, when Jules dresses her up for the party and does her hair).

Jules complements Jess in a number of ways - their names are similar, both want to play

football, both have trouble from their mothers. Like Jess, Jules is shown to be ambitious, but she has

at least has the backing of her father. Her mother, just like Mrs Bharmra, wants her daughter

to be more ‘traditional’, trying to stop her buying a sports bra and worried that her obsession

with football is making her less feminine.

Although the film could fall within a number of areas (teen movie, sports movie etc.), the film is essentially a comedy centred on the British-Asian community and there are a number of comic traditions and situations used. It is a social comedy that addresses social issues in a comedic way.

The film not only looks at the differences between the British and Asian lifestyles, but also the clashes within the Punjabi community itself.

British people trying to ‘get’ the Asian culture are gently mocked, particularly when Jess

arrives to see Jules, Mrs Paxton responds with a feeble ‘Oooh, I made a lovely curry

yesterday’ and tells her that her mum will obviously be ‘fixing her up with a nice handsome

doctor’, as of course, according to English people, all professional Asian men are doctors.

Joe arrives at Jess’ house to explain about the crucial match and Pinky, Jess’ sister, asks

why she has brought home a ‘Gora’ (slang for a white person). ‘He’s Irish’ says Jess, to

which Pinky replies ‘Yeah well they all look the bloody same’, which turns the traditional

stereotype on its head.

The tagline on the poster, ‘Who wants to cook Aloo Gobi when you can bend the ball like

Beckham’ sums up the dilemma of Jess in one line, playing her Punjabi traditions against

her new British identity.

The storyline is typical of the genre of a drama/comedy as it starts of by her sister getting married, her parents want her to get married but she is obsessed with David Beckham and wants to be the female version, the comedic side of the film when she has to avoid her family to get to football training by leaving her kit in a bush.

Sound In the first few minutes we hear a football commentator which starts off as non-diegetic, but then becomes diegetic when Jess is watching the football on the television, as both she and the audience can then hear it. Most of the film is diegetic as it the characters conversing with each other or natural sounds in the setting which both the character and audience can hear.Mid shots are used very often whilst characters are having conversations and interacting with each other. Close ups are used to add tension and show excitement of the character faces. Natural lighting is used throughout the film which matches its genre of a social comedy.