Talk:Bend It Like Beckham

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[edit] Homosexual subtext

I'm not inserting this directly in the article, lest pro-gay editors take offense. Let them vet these observations with a fresh watching of the film, eh?

In three or four scenes, Jules looking at or interacting with Jess indicates an erotic attraction or relationship (or more to the point, makes an ambiguous suggestion of one) - or other characters think there's an involvement.

When we first see Jules watching Jess play football with the guys in the park, the look on her face could either be admiration for her football skills or the beginnings of a crush.

The football guys in the park think Jules is checking out Jess with erotic longing.

On a suburban sidewalk, as the parents of his sister's fiance pass by, they see Jules with Jess and think they saw the two kiss; they call off the wedding on account of Jess "being filthy with an English boy ... the child is a map of the parents". "They saw you at the bus stop kissing him" (apparently mistaking short-haired Jules for a boy).

In another scene, when Jules is happy about a football match that went well, she kisses Jess on the lips.

In the love triangle which his its crisis in Germany after Jess almost kisses her coach, Juliet's mother overhears part of an argument between the two girls and concludes that they just broke up a lesbian affair. Later, on the day of the wedding, she demands that Jess take her "lesbian feet" out of a pair of shoes she borrowed from Jules.

Another homosexual theme is Jess's mate (the chubby guy who invites her to play soccer). He reveals a crush on Beckham and a lack of interest in girls.

You'd have to be awful heavily into subtext to get anything but close friendship out of Jess and Jules's friendship. The whole point of most of those scenes is that they aren't lesbians, it's that some people (in the film) adhere to stereotyping tomboys as lesbians. Though there was outright non-subtext with the guy, for sure.

Why would "pro-gay" editors "take offense", though? The only absolutely gay character in the film is a sympathetic one, and the film points out how silly it is to stereotype people (e.g. stereotyping tomboys as lesbians). :P I'm all for LGBT rights and issues, and I see nothing wrong with that. Runa27 18:07, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Airplanes

An odd recurring visual theme is the appearance of passenger jets in the sky. Possibly it's a reference to immigration or a foreshadowing of the trip to Germany. The first time it's striking and a bit wierd because the sky darkens as if turning to twilight in an 8 second clip as the plane moves in regular motion. Is this done to add a surreal element, to underline how strange it is to be a stranger in a strange land during a time of women's liberation? --Uncle Ed 21:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to deny any possible symbolic interpretation, but the surface-level meaning is that Jess's family lives near her father's job at Heathrow Airport (he's an air traffic controller). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be OK then to list it as a "reocurring visual" without going into symbolic interpretations (since I've never heard a big deal be made out of the symbolic interpretations of airplanes in Bend It Like Beckham, so even if it's a common one, it's not a particularly notable one). Runa27 18:09, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, airplanes are a recurring theme of living in Hounslow. During peak times, a passenger jet flies over Hounslow every 20 seconds or so. Locals are well used to the slightly surreal scenes of everyday life with a Boeing 747 in the background.

[edit] Bent it like Beckham

For some strange reason the movie was promoted in Greece as Bent it like Beckham. It is usual in Greece to give foreign language movies a Greek title next to the title in the original language. So the Greek title of the movie is Καν' το σαν τον Μπέκαμ (Which translates as: Do it like Beckham).

First language speakers of the Greek language have difficulties in discerning nt from nd, d or ntd. The same applies to b, mp, mb and mpb, which is why, for example a clear m-sound can be heard in the middle of the name Bubka, when a Greek pronounces it.

What is unusual in the case of Bent it like Beckham / Καν' το σαν τον Μπέκαμ, however, is that this mistake was never corrected and stuck to the movie from the first appearance in Greek movie theatres down to DVDs today.

Iago4096 21:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)