Reading and Writing Skills for Students of Literature in English: Postwar; Postmodern; Postcolonial Enric Monforte Jacqueline Hurtley Bill Phillips

Gurinder Chadha

Filmography: Bhaji on the Beach (1993) What’s Cooking? (2000) Bend it Like Beckham (2002) Bride and Prejudice (2004) Paris, je t’aime (2006) Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging (2008) It’s a Wonderful Afterlife (2010)

Bend It Like Beckham Bending the ball Gender-bending

Gender as a construct

Who says? “All I'm saying is, there's a reason why Sporty Spice is the only one without a fella!” What is the significance of these words?

Female vs. Feminine Female: a matter of biology Feminine: a social construct (patterns of sexuality and behaviour imposed by cultural and social norms) Femininity: a cultural construct Toril Moi, “Feminist, Female, Feminine.” The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. Eds. Catherine Belsey and Jane Moore. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1989.

“One is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes one”. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex. New York: Vintage, 1973 (1949), p

And Therefore Male Masculine Masculinity

Defining Gender “[A] social category imposed on a sexed body.” Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.

“Gender out not to be construed as a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts follow; rather, gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an exterior space through a stylized repetition of acts. The effect of gender is produced through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and styles of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self.” “If gender attributes … are … performative, then these attributes effectively constitute the identity they are said to express or reveal.” Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and London: Routledge, 1990, pp

Gender becomes political An exhaustive revision of gender roles seems to be the most effective way of changing the power relations between men and women Towards abolishing gender stereotypes

The view of gender in Bend It Like Beckham Which view of gender does the film encourage? Look for examples of the notion of gender as a social construct in both its male and female characters

Race: Multicultural Britain?

The absence of sexuality

"While Chadha presents Jess and Jules as brave and independent 21st century women, the director then mistakenly gussies things up with a steady stream of shallow (and, for most girls, unattainable) sexualized images." -- Nick Schager, Slant Magazine Do you agree?

The invisibility of lesbianism

The presence of the closet

In favour of Bend It Like Beckham Overcoming race barriers (Jess, Jess’s father, Joe) Overcoming gender barriers (Jess, Jules)

A critique of Bend It Like Beckham Absence of sexuality Invisibility of lesbianism Tony’s homosexuality: condemned to be in the closet Treatment of race