Culture Differences

In Bend it like Beckham the fact that Jess is not only Indian, but her parents are also very old school when it comes to their culture, she has a hard time fitting in with everyone on the soccer team and trying to find out who she really is. Once Jess is accepted on the team she still has to sneak from her parents because they disapprove of her playing. Her dad doesn't want her to play because he doesn't want her to be ridiculed like he was when he tried to play cricket. Their culture really affects the way Jess's parents treat her because her mom expects her to get married to an Indian boy at a young age and her dad just doesn't want her getting hurt. Her parents don't really approve of her hanging out with anyone that isn't Indian especially boys. In this movie you can tell that Jess just wants to be a normal English teenager because of the way her room is decorated. Their living room is very classy and has a bunch of pictures of their God hanging on the wall, while Jess's room is full of soccer jerseys and Posters of David Beckham hanging around her room. During that time pro women's soccer teams were not that big in England, so that pushed Jess and Jules to really work hard so they could go to college in America on a soccer scholarship. This is huge for Jess because her parents are pushing her to quite, while she is actually bending all the rules just to play. Her parents have a huge impact on Jess because they want her to go to law school, fix a traditional Indian meal, and settle down with an Indian boy. When her sister gets engaged it's this huge celebration and her parents expect Jess to be there every step of the way. When her parents push Jess into stopping soccer this pushes her into breaking the rules even more just to play.

In a recent article at the University of British Columbia they mentioned that "home" is a metaphor for their mother country, which is India, and that's why Jess's parents try so hard to preserve it in their home. The article also mentions that an Indian women's spiritual femininity is based on her dress, her eating habits, and her social demeanor. Her parents went into a panic because she was breaking tradition by playing soccer, running around in shorts showing her bare legs to people, and she wasn't behaving like a "proper" woman. Joe thinks he is helping Jess by coming to her parent's house to talk about her playing soccer