also idk why, but it seems like some comments are disappearing after they're posted? i tried replying to a few but now they're gone 😳 (unless multiple people deleted their comments) but just to let you know if i don't reply to your comment 😩
bend it like beckham as it is = cultural reset. bend it like beckham if it had been gay = literal cultural redefinition. loved this video - insane job on this analysis !
I didn't like the coach and Jess being put together it felt wrong. but I didn't think she liked Jules in "that way " either. I think she could have done the whole "I'm a independent women I don't need any man" TM trope just was well.
@@12Kyra121I feel like this is very generation dependent. Watching it now, with a lot of other examples of queer romance, I can see how teens these days would take the potential romantic relationship between Jess and Jules much more seriously. Watching it in the 2000s that wasn't considered an option for a film. I also think that it's funny they talk about not wanting to offend an Indian audience, because a lesbian film coming out in the UK in 2002 would definitely NOT have blown up the way the film did. People wouldn't have been offended, they just wouldn't have gone to watch it because it's "gay."
I don't know I kind of like the fact that they were straight "tomboys". Not every heterosexual women is ultra feminine. But it is sad that they felt that they had to change the love story from a lesbian romance to a friendship with the Indian girl dating the white coach. Though I found it weird she was dating a coach. Like how much older was he to her. Was she an adult in her 20s all along and I didn't realize?
They talk about colleges and stuff and they don't seem to go to high school so I'm assuming they're all around 18 - 20 ish? But yeah the fact that he was their coach always weirded me out too 😩
@@cherrybepsi they are in the UK right? i thought the school system was like 2 years of high school and then 2 years of college then university (which is different from college and is the equivalent of college/university in the US). idk just guessing from what i've seen in other UK entertainment.
@@JordannGeorge High school in the three tier system is 3 years from around age 13 and then 2 years of sixth form or college. In the two tier system it starts around age 12 and lasts 5 years then 2 years of sixth form.
I always thought they were made to be straight purely to break that stereotype that everyone was pushing on them throughout the movie. It's just sad the two girls had better chemistry then the actual romantic lead.
@@carennrodrigues7631of course that but to me it’s clear they shouldn’t couldn’t even feel free to explore the possibility that they were simply not straight
To be fair the Troubles had only just ended, He probably was getting shit and being called a terrorist and if he was pro IRA getting told to go to his own country when they were in the news for terrorism
it's definitely unfortunate the way society progresses so slowly with these things..... every time I hear something about how "audiences aren't ready" for this or that I just want to say "hurry up and get ready then!!"
honestly I think its so understandable for directors and writers to censor or change parts of the story to make it more palatable if its a story that hits close to home like, I was a little sad that in ek ladki ko dekha the two women barely even held hands but a director from the lgbt community making that choice is different than when they put one gay line in a marvel movie and call it diversity. They're trying their best to have their stories heard!
Yesss I think that's such a good point! Decisions about "censoring" or diluting progressive elements in media carry a different weight when the person changing the story is a part of that group (or not).
my class watched this and i was like ‘why do they like joe?’ I couldn’t see the chemistry between jess and joe and i really wanted jules and jess to be together because it felt to sudden that jess liked joe
literally and the way they forced them to fight over him like you expect me to believe these women would fight over THAT man?? i can only suspend my disbelief so far
I know this is 10 months old and I can’t tell if this is a joke or not but if it’s not u do know either works don’t u? They mean the same thing. A lesbian is a gay woman. Sorry if this is just a joke and I misunderstood.
i'm just wondering what it would have been like if it had been lesbian or bi and whatever it wasn't, I still had a crush on both jaz and jules regardless but like also it kinda makes me tear up imagining if it had been and what seeing it at that age would have felt like about being either of those things and brown. anyway, great video as usual qween
Jess literally got called a slur and Joe had the NERVE to say “Of course I understand!” Edit: Yes I know that Irish people have to go through racism but Joe is still white passing so it’s not the same as it is with Jess
bruh tf my grandmother was irish and had to change her accent to british when she moved to england to not be discriminated thats one of the only reasons my dad talks with a british accent
Thank you. Thank you SO MUCH for this incredibly valuable video. I figured you'd mention Fire, one of my all-time favorite movies. And I'm loving your channel more and more with each new video I watch.
So Bend it Like Beckham was a novel first, which is why I don't believe that the gay or bi part was "cut out of the movie" or anything. Would have been amazing tho, I shipped Jess and Jules way more than either of them with the due (both in the book and the movie)
Erasure is never good. I can only hope that the conservative crowd thought (secretly, in the dead of night when they cannot sleep) that Jess and Jules….. would make more sense. The story was definitely good and definitely queer baity. It kept them in their comfort zones, but hopefully it went in that direction just enough to kinda chip away at that solid “NO GAYZ” wall, ya know?
I got the feeling that Jess only wanted be friends and was more focused on soccer while Jules might have wanted more and had it been set in todays time line it would have created more drama .. but that's just me
kinda unrelated, i liked bend it like beckham but the way they portrayed indian culture in the movie felt like something jess had to let go of. as in it felt like the movie was telling us she really must let go of it or else she would not develop as a character. and her dating a white person means she "got over it" and succeeded in her entire character mission/development whatever. throughout the movie they portrayed indian culture and jess's family as if they were backward and traditional and a burden on her career. and while those restrictive indian social norms did hold jess back, they also show jules's supportive white family and expect us to look up to it and be like "yes this is the ideal" and it just so happens the key difference (shown in movie at least) between jules and jess's family is their culture. the core issue here is sexism and that's something that transcends culture and race, but the movie unfairly pins it all on jess's indian family. growing up in a racially homogenous environment, i also had moments where i just felt like i didn't belong with their norms, and felt like leaving. that also came with me idolising americans a LOT, feeling like i would belong there better because i speak english. but it's not as two dimensional as that. now that im older i recognize that while i dont have to hold fast to my culture, i also dont have to abandon it and join another group of people.. the way the movie promotes the latter is imo, a very lazy approach. the way the movie portrays the other white characters as people who would never judge you, and would understand you and your struggles well, if not better than your own family, is at best wishful thinking, and at worst some inner bias
That's certainly a new take on this movie, I didn't get that from it, but also I'm relying on memory from my teenage love is EVERYTHING phase. From what I remember, I didn't really get that, I got that this 1 family was accepting of Jess, and I didn't get that she was abandoning her culture or shaking it off, I felt like it was more of 'I'm flying the nest' kind of feeling. I might be wrong though, I might rewatch it soon to see if I see what you did, or if I feel differently about the story and context of the situations to see if I see it differently. Also, Joe is Irish. The Irish is a marginalized group in the Europe. Context is everything isn't it? Irony is often times cruel, and this shows that discrimination based on race is stupid. Black and brown people see all white people as white, and in some white people world, it's not so uniform, but I digress, I see your point and I will definitely watch it again with your comments in mind. I wish though, you are wrong because I love this movie and I so want to keep seeing it in rose coloured lenses lol.
I get where you're coming from and while you do have a point, I think they wanted to address the sexism and homophobia as the issue. Personally, I belong to both a colonizer and colonized cultures, so from the perspective of the latter, we get very defensive when other people criticize us, even when they have a point. in my specific case, both of my cultures have some views that are regressive (homophobia and misogyny) and the colonized culture is often used as a way to derail from the fact that the colonizers are guilty of the same shit. like, there will be more backlash towards my colonized culture being sexist, than the latter. however, i think that while my people (the colonizers) need to realize that they're no different and the only reason they've been getting away with their regressive views is privilege, my other people need to understand that by not wanting to address the sexism and homophobia in our culture, we are giving the former more ammo to hate us. with that being said, you do have a point: they could have made the parents on both sides sexist and regressive to avoid these undertones
Watching a video from the writer and the director did not say about Jules and Jess getting together. The ending was safer than the finale production. Jess's father was meant to die and Jess came home and gave up on her dream. I'd like to this that now Jess and Joe's relationship was embraced and they got together for the long shot. But now a gay storyline would also work. But core Joe is dapper.
Very interesting! I understand why they changed the story, eventho how pity it is! As a kidand a soccerplayer I was happy they were straight, JUST because it was always said all soccerplayers were lesbians. But I guess changing the story like this was not the way. Eventho i Love this movie so much
Honestly, I don't think I would have cared that Jess and Jules (I hope those were their names) aren't lesbians had there not been that whole side plot about the mother thinking that Jules is a lesbian and that she and Jess are together. When I tell you I went to bed and cried about this movie after I saw it because of how homophobic that mother was… as a teen who was questioning her identity at that time, it was a real punch in the gut because the movie was definitely hinting at them being lesbians. There's the scene where they look like they kiss, they generally have great chemistry, even the mother thinks they are together. And then it seems to turn into a lecture about "how not all tomboys are lesbians and girls who play soccer can also be straight" which honestly just feels condescending to me. It felt like queerbaiting us and then lecturing us for being baited by it. And while the mother is never depicted as being right about how much the idea of a lesbian daughter destroys her, there is never a satisfactory victory over her and as a teen girl that just really intensified my fear of ever coming out, thinking that my parents might react like that. (But I really liked the movie! It was a good movie, that's the problem with it. It just really ripped my heart out and stomped on it)
On the one hand it'd be wonderful for sure to not have to cut stuff out of a work. But I think it functionally it just straight up depends on the work in question? If you're doing something with "Big Important" things to say, but including this one topic (presuming it's not the main topic itself which hey seems obvious but then again...) would stop like the 15 others that also need attention, it's justifiable enough sure. Far from ideal but understandable. If it's a "This is a cool movie with sick flips and one REALLY DOPE wire fu scene" and this one topic would see it lose views it's kinda...Equally understandable cause you gotta make money, job and all that, but considerably less justifiable since at that point it's like...This is already going to have huge broad audience that's gonna be down for this flick, so you may as well. Though that's probably also too simplified, cause different places have different tolerances and maybe your dumb action flick isn't the place to have a [Hot Button Topic That Makes people Do the Dumb] included for that particular flick, but maybe it'd fit and work out better in a "smart" action flick because I dunno the boundaries are already being pushed there at least a little bit so people would be at least willing to give you a bit more wiggle room on the topic?
Yeah I feel like I would honestly give way less leeway to big mainstream projects from CERTAIN media conglomerates in general as opposed to a small indie project just trying to get some recognition/publicity :/
13:36 Despite the box office success, I honestly don't think Bend it Like Beckham has had much of an impact in India. As someone who grew up in India (and in many different states/cities), I only have ever heard being discussed amongst the diaspora. It might have had a greater legacy amongst queer audiences if it was a rom-com. I also think there's a lot of different elements that made Fire controversial - explicit sex scene back when Bollywood didn't even do straight kissing scenes, references to porn, infidelity as mentioned, Sita/Radha being named after popular Hindu characters (Ramleela initially got similar backlash from the Shiv Sena, leading to the film's name change). I can't imagine a movie like Bend it like Beckham being received similarly.
5:06 just starting the video. i think it’s more important to have nuanced characters and stories and for audiences to think MORE after a movie not just “girl good at sport like boy”
To me this movie is always special. I wouldn't have cared if they were lesbians or best friends with Jess dating the couch. I feel sad that they had to pull back on their original story though.
While I'm bummed that they didn't end up together, I can also see where they're coming from, unfortunately. I belong to two sides: the colonizer and the colonized and here's my take as someone from the latter: we are so fed up with our culture having been suppressed in the past that, unfortunately, a lot of us perceive any criticism of our norms (even when it is actually valid and has good intentions) as an attack on our cultural integrity. We do not want to end up in the same position we were in the past, so sometimes we defend actually regressive ideas, thus giving our colonizers more ammo to hate us. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like the audiences were experiencing a similar dilemma. Also, to address one of the comments in the section, I feel like they should have made both the British and the Punjabi parents sexist to avoid making any bigoted undertones (especially considering the white parents were British)
personally, as an Indian, I just think a lot of regressive, right-wing groups and close-minded people have appropriated post-colonial language to suppress and justify any kind of transgression. They pick and choose what "western" ideals work for their own oppressive ideologies. For instance, a lot of Indians adopted the saree blouse as a way of meeting western standards of modernity in the early 1900s, but the right wing today says that women showing skin is because of "western culture". At the same time, they have no issues with economic liberalisation and opening up the markets to the west. They also push for a common "Indian" (or sometimes just cisheteropatriarchal & Hindu) identity by actively erasing and marginalizing many diverse groups, so it's not about protecting the existing culture against the west either, despite being presented that way. I think rationalising it through colonialism plays into their rhetoric, which has actually been very dangerous to Indians of marginalized backgrounds.
