What an interesting yet somewhat silly world we are all forced to live in. Have you seen the popular film Bend It Like Beckham? It’s a film about an Indian soccer playing teenage girl (of all things) who finds herself between a rock (her love of sports) and a hard place (a traditionalist family with a dominant mother figure). The film is the highest-grossing Indian-themed picture to play in US markets, making over $32 million.



That’s a lot of potatoes for an English made film which manages to step on a lot of toes that the film making industry considers taboo. Imagine a film in this country becoming a hit even though it had the following success killers to overcome:

• It’s a British film – which normally don’t play well in America.



• It’s a small budget film that had no money for marketing.



• It stars an unknown woman of Indian descent. Unheard of in this country.



• It contains anti-racial themes, including interracial dating.



• It sends a strong anti-patriarchal message.



• It’s filled with women overcoming pro-feminist challenges.



• It’s a sports movie. Only men like sports movies.



• It’s a sports movie about women. Sports belong to men.



• It contains strong anti-homophobic messages.

But overcome the odds it did – not only in this country but around the world as well. In India, it set a record for number of tickets sold for a foreign film during one weekend.

The film contained a thread where the lead character, Jess Bhamra (played by Parminder Nagra) and her soccer teammate/buddy Juliette "Jules" Paxton (played by Keira Knightley) are mistakenly thought to be lesbian lovers by Jules’ mother, Paula (played by Juliet Stevenson). How Jess handles this situation is a highpoint for lesbian audiences.

The movie also includes a small love triangle between Jess, her coach, Joe (played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and a jealous Jules. But the truly interesting thing is what might have been.

The film’s director, Gurinder Chadha (What’s Cooking) originally planned a lesbian romance between the characters of Jess and Jules. She chickened out at the last minute, however, for fear of offending and upsetting Indian audiences.

It’s not hard to be disappointed when hearing of Chadha’s decision. Let’s face it – there just aren’t that many dynamic lesbian characters in mainstream cinema. It would have been interesting to see the reception this film would have had in the United States if the original gay love theme had remained in the movie.

Would it have been the straw that broke the camel’s back - the one final success killer that would have been too much for movie viewers to cope with? Some say yes, others no. Of course we’ll never know for sure. I wonder if they shot any of the scenes involving the lesbian relationship between Jess and Jules and if so, what happened to them. I’ve searched but haven’t found information stating they did. Certainly none of this was brought up during the run of the film, nor is it mentioned on the DVD. Still, I have to wonder what would have happened if Beckham would have been filmed and released portraying the story as Chadha originally intended to tell it.

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