Intercultural Communication in Bend It Like Beckham
Bend it Like Beckham is about a young Indian woman named Jessminder who struggles between being herself and doing what she loves and pleasing her family and their traditional values. Jess's parents want her to lead a traditional life and learn to cook, work on her education, and get married like her sister. They don't like her playing soccer, which Jess not only loves to do, but is also very talented at. When Jess is discovered by another local female soccer player, Jules, and asked to play on their local girls' team, she knows her parents will never accept this as part of her life. However, Jess decides to lie to her parents and secretly join the team in order to pursue her love of soccer. The film is full of so many examples of intercultural communication; it was actually hard to focus on a specific area. However, one of the aspects in the film I found especially interesting was the culture clash between Jess's very traditional parents and extended family compared to the very modern London, England, where they lived. I realized later after studying the film in greater detail that several characters within the movie experience their own culture clash and adapt and change in their own ways. In the essay "The Role of
While the other girls quickly change, Jess slowly tries to maneuver her clothes off without showing any skin, by putting her clean shirt on over her sweaty shirt and sports bra, and then pulling both of those out from underneath her clean shirt she has put on. She wants a daughter that will shop and gossip and care about how she looks. She is concerned about wearing shorts, not only because she has scars on her legs from an earlier accident but also because it is frowned upon in her family's culture. This was evident to me as I witnessed not only Jess's family adapt to their changing environment, but Jess herself adapt and accept the "soccer player" way of life, and also Jules' mother Paula as she comes to understand her daughter's love of soccer. Later, she has obviously been able to accept the locker room situation and is shown changing and laughing with the other girls, not seeming to think twice about it. Adaptability is defined as "a family (or persons) ability to change its power, roles and rules based on situations and conditions they are in" (Dodd, Baldwin, 340). At first, Jess experienced major reservations about taking on some aspects of the soccer life. Then, to her horror, she believes Jules may be gay after she sees a questionable interaction between her daughter and Jess. Her whole family wears traditional Indian clothes and they usually speak Punjabi to each other instead of English. This is a common action when communication is low and things are not "discussable. Somehow she ended up with a daughter like Jules, someone completely foreign and confusing to her. The other girls on the team rip their shirts off after practice and have no problem walking around the room in their sports bras and underwear. This comes as an obvious shock to Jess, and she is not comfortable being in this state of undress in front of other people. All Paula wants is for her daughter to be feminine and ladylike as she is. Paula goes through various stages on her journey to accepting her daughter.
Common topics in this essay:
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Jules Jules,
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Paula Paula,
Jess America,
John Baldwin,
London England,
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traditional indian,
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jess's parents,
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jules mother,
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Acceptance Essays
