In Gurinder Chadha’s most recent fi lm, Bend It Like Beckham (2002), British Punjabi Sikh Jess (Jesminder) Bhamra and her white Brit counterpart, Jules (Juliette) Paxton, seek a gendered and racialized haven for female soccer players. A fi lm that is part of both the successive waves of antiracist diasporic fi lm production in England since the 1980s and also the new globalized cinematic commodity assimilated under the category of “Planet Bollywood,” Bend It Like Beckham is set in the outskirts of London near Heathrow airport and foregrounds the stereotypical culture-clash narrative: soccer-loving Jess faces off with both the traditional expectations (education, marriage) of her immigrant parents and the racism of British society toward Asians.1 The same-sex eroticism between Jess and Jules is toyed with endlessly throughout the film–they both fall for their male soccer coach, they are mistaken as lesbian lovers embracing at a bus stop, they join forces for the strategic assist-and-shoot lineup on their soccer team, and eventually both receive offers to play soccer at the same college.
