GOOD SPORT

Gurinder Chadha scores against sexism and tradition with her sly, comic Bend It Like Beckham

by Andrea Rodricks

Bend It Like Beckham, the latest film by award-winning writer/director Gurinder Chadha, is exceptional for its genre, the universal theme of dogma versus tradition. The gender-bending film on inter-cultural conflicts and generation gaps tackles cross-cultural issues not isolated to Indian families in Southall, UK. Beckham centers on an Indian girl who idolizes David Beckham and an English girl who wants to play professional soccer like U.S. player Mia Hamm.

A former BBC news reporter, Chadha is no newcomer to the independent film circuit. Her debut film, Bhaji on the Beach, and her What’s Cooking have won her great acclaim.

Chadra says she wanted to make a film about what it is like going from being a girl to being a woman. Along with interesting characters, a kaleidoscope of color, and good humor, Chadha’s film has a tremendous amount of energy and a sense of fun. “Who wants to cook aloo gobi when you can bend a ball like Beckham?” David Beckham, that is. The title refers to his technique for curving penalty kicks around a wall of defenders. Bend It Like Beckham is not so loosely based on Chadha’s own family life. The film draws you in to an Indian family in Southall with traditional parents and two not-so-traditional daughters who are caught in a cross-cultural upbringing.

Growing up, she recalls a few of the battles with her mother—refusing to wear Indian clothes, being outspoken, not staying in the kitchen with the other Indian women, and not wanting to “learn to cook a full Indian dinner.” Professional soccer player David Beckham is idolized by Jeswinder (Jess) Bhamra (Parminder K. Nagra) as seen by the posters in her room. She is awaiting her acceptance in to university and is encouraged by her parents to follow in her soon-to-be-married sister Pinky's (Archie Panjabi) footsteps. Jess, however, wants to play professional soccer. After watching her in the park, Jules (Keira Knightley) asks Jess to try out for an all-girls soccer team coached by Joe (Rhys Meyers). Knowing that her father (Anupam Kher) and mother (Shaheen Khan) would not approve, Jess begins to sneak out for practices and games. When her father finds out, not only about her outings but her feelings for Joe, he forbids Jess from playing soccer. Her British friend Jules’ mother does not want her only daughter to play soccer either, but is more wary about her daughter’s friendship with her new friend Jess. After misunderstanding a conversation she overhears, she is lead to believe that her daughter and Jess are more than just friends. Jules’ mother is not so thrilled with her daughter’s soccer playing, and wants her daughter to wear push-up bras instead of sports bras. Pressured by her parents to pursue a career and settle down, Jess approaches her Indian friend Tony (Ameet Chana), only to find out that he, in all actuality, really likes Beckham as well. Chadha wanted to give the film a more serious tone by making Tony come out to his friend Jess, pointing out that there are all kinds of families living in the world today. Tackling issues around girls and sports and non-traditional careers for women, Chadha proves that being a girl who loves sports does not mean you are a lesbian. While she appreciates her traditions and values, Chadha stresses the importance of making them your own and the power of negotiating for what you want. The title works as an excellent metaphor for the film in that the girls “bend” the rules, not “break” them, to get what they want.

The lively music of composer/musician Craig Pruess adds to the mood of the film. This along with cinematography by Jong Lin and Justin Krish’s editing keeps the soccer plays exciting. Viewed as an English comedy or an Indian movie, Bend It Like Beckham is sure to be a crowd-pleaser, and for soccer fans, it’s a must see.

Gurinder Chadha she sat down for an interview on a recent swing through Houston.

Andrea Rodricks: Speaking about non-traditional careers for Indian women, did you face any obstacles becoming a filmmaker?

Gurinder Chadha: I was very lucky. The dad in the film was my dad, and that is what my dad was like. From a young age, I didn’t know that I was going to go into films, but I had no idea what I was going to do. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to be a nice Indian girl. So I did all that stuff—refused to wear Indian clothes or eat Indian food and refused even to this day to cook chapattis. I would say to my mum, “Mum, you’re oppressed. You don’t understand, it’s really sexist. The men never have to make rotis. The women do.” I used to have all these battles with her, and it would really bug me whenever we had guests over that the women stayed in the kitchen and would have to serve the men, so I used to sit at the table and eat with the men.

I broke rules like that, and at first people thought I was being very naughty, but then I kept making points about it, and as you know we are not supposed to be outspoken. As time went on, my father actually quite liked the fact that I was outspoken. My father was quite a feminist—having two daughters made him a feminist. He hated the way Indian women were treated. It was very important to him that me and my sister went to university and got careers and were able to stand on our own two feet. He felt that we should never ever have to rely on a man for anything. We had that very much in our growing up, we were never treated as second rate. I remember when my dad used to put his arms around us and say, “My daughters are my diamonds,” which is so sweet, given that, as an Indian dad, you don’t normally see dads like that. And that is why I wanted to make a movie as a tribute to him because that's exactly what he was like. And there are other dads like that in our community, too. For most people, particularly in Britain, there’s this image that Indians are totally oppressed and have very strict parents, particularly fathers saying you have to marry this person or I’ll never speak to you again. And that happens, I’m not denying that. It is absolutely part of our society, but there are an awful lot of people that have changed and adapted with time, and that was why I wanted to show a different kind of dad.

I know you lost your father recently. Did he have any input in the script or the writing?

He’s in it throughout. The sense of humor is his, because I took his sense of humor. The playfulness is his. The sense of politics, the passion is his. So all these things that are elements of me were his. He pervades the film in many ways.

Had he passed away while you were writing it? Did he have a chance to look over the script?

We’d written it way before he passed away. He knew what we were doing. He knew what we were planning. A film that he did see in rough cut, because he died after that, was What’s Cooking, and that was quite interesting because of the whole gay storyline. There was a lesbian storyline, and when we showed him and my mum the rough cut, that was very funny to me. Paul, my husband, got to the bit where the lesbian couple starts talking about things, and I looked at Paul and said, “Should we fast forward?” but then I said, “What's the point? It doesn’t matter.” My dad was laughing, and I explained to my mum, “Look, what we want to show in this film is there are all kinds of families that live in America. Sometimes they’re single parents, sometimes they’re divorced, sometimes they’re men with men, sometimes they’re women with women, sometimes they’re one black, one white.” I said that what we wanted to show in this film is that all kinds of people come together to make a family in today’s world, and in our film it just so happened that these two women are going to have a child, and we wanted to show that because that’s what happens in America. My mum watched it, and then she said, “Why are you doing this in America? This happens on our own doorstep.” That was very funny. She went with it. And my dad was very cool with it. Although my mum questions why all this is happening now, it never used to happen before, and she agreed that times are changing.

While we are on the subject of homosexuality, you touched on pre-marital sex and interracial dating. Did you know before making the movie that you wanted to talk about or bring up all these issues?

No, I wanted to make a film about what it’s like going from being a girl to a woman, and that’s what we deal with. We’re all going through that, we are all hung up on our virginity and sexuality about boys and keeping our parents happy, doing what we want as opposed to what they want. So we juggle as Indian girls so many things all the time that we never stop and think OK, today I’m fed up with dealing with this, I’m only going to deal with sexuality or Today I’m only going to deal with virginity. We deal with everything all at the same time, but the beauty is that we do it with ease because we are used to multi-tasking from a young age, having a different life at home to having a different life at work. We’re used to juggling all the balls. People who don’t have to do that often think it’s too much, but actually it comes naturally to us. The film really represents that whole new cultural force, which is about growing up in one country when your parents are from another country—trying to balance all the regular things you go through in your adolescence that also add to that tradition and guilt and all the rest of it. It’s very geographically, demographically, politically specific to the British Asian community.

I wanted to ask you about your next movie, Pride and Prejudice. What are your feelings about working with Bollywood megastars like Aishwarya Rai?

It’s going to be a challenge to get a performance out of actors from Bollywood who act in a particular way, to get them to work in my kind of movie. I did that with Anupam Kher, the father in Bend It Like Beckham. He’s very large in Bollywood movies, and we pulled him right down in Beckham. Aishwarya is very glamorous and beautiful, so the challenge will be to make her normal looking. But I’m very excited about it, and I love some Bollywood films. Manoj Kumar is one of my favorite directors. I had the opportunity recently to talk to him. I feel very affectionate toward Bollywood, and I think a lot of people parody it, which I don’t want to do. For me it’s a very affectionate film. There are little elements that for me are my tribute to people in Bollywood. The American male lead has not been finalized yet, but he is someone very hot.

How important do you think traditions are? Some might say that these Indian traditions belong in another place and time.

I think traditions are extremely important, but I think what’s important are to make the traditions your own. Find ways of making them your own. I would be completely at a loss if I couldn’t speak Punjabi. I mean I love the fact that I can speak my own language as well as English, and I’m just thrilled that I’m now working with Deepak Nayar, a U.S.-based Punjabi producer, who worked on Buena Vista Social Club and films with David Lynch. Because we’re both Punjabi, we have a fantastic time discussing finances and stuff in our own language. It’s a tremendous source of comfort to me that I can do that in my working life. So language I think is essential, and I would urge people not to lose that, as it’s your link with so many things. And then with the clothes, you find your own way. I wore this [pointing to an Indian outfit] on a Houston news show, and so I like to combine Indian with English. That’s what I mean. I think you have to find your own way. Religion again—I think there are a lot of fantastic things in Sikhism. Sikhism is a very egalitarian religion, very spiritual, if you want to go down that part—if you don’t you just take what you want. But I go to the gurudwara [Sikh temple] a lot when I’m traveling and when I’m in England, not necessarily because I’m very religious, but I enjoy going and seeing my community in those situations and being part of it.

What was your reasoning behind introducing a gay character in the film?

The whole thing about girls—the stereotype, if you like—is that girls who play football must be lesbians. It’s as simple as that. And I wanted to play around with the idea of exactly that and how silly it is and have fun with it. Hence, I gave Paula all those lines where she thinks that her daughter is a lesbian because she plays football and wears tracksuits. But we were making a serious point about all that. I also wanted to put in a thing about sexuality—when you go from being a girl to being a women, there are so many things that you are juggling about life and love and virginity, sexuality and following your dreams, doing what you want to do. It’s such a complex time that there was every reason why sexuality should be a part of it. So, while I was having fun with it with the girls, I wanted to give it a serious turn with having Tony come out, because we are least expecting it, and I thought that was the most effective way of doing it, because guys generally get off on girls being lesbians. Then all of a sudden, this Punjabi boy who helps his mum go shopping says he’s gay. It’s extremely shocking for a lot of Indian guys, and so I thought that was more powerful to do it that way.

Would you ever consider doing a movie on Indian men, how they cope in society with being gay?

Sure, yes, one of the things I liked about Bhaji on the Beach were the men in it. That was an attempt to look at men in our community and the pressures that they are under.

You always wanted to direct and write and produce?

No, I had no idea.

Were you ever told you couldn’t do something you wanted to do?

Yes, I was told I couldn’t go to university. I was told to apply for a secretarial course, but not by my parents, by society.

What would you say to young Indian girls all over the world who are being told they cannot do or be something simply because they are women?

I’d say go for it. But don’t just take the world on, negotiate with it. There is nothing like the power of negotiation, and that’s what Jess does. She negotiates her way right to getting what she wants, which is what I did.

Andrea Rodricks writes about entertainment for OutSmart magazine.

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