Thread by @TelegraphFilm

How Bend It Like Beckham changed British culture.

The coming-of-age film shaped how society viewed the Indian diaspora – and women's football. Those it inspired reveal their stories 👇

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telegraph.co.uk/films/2022/04/…

What finally made women’s professional football compete with the men’s game?

The Lionesses certainly helped, as did society’s push to champion female role models post-#MeToo.

👉 The third reason is perhaps more surprising: Gurinder Chadha’s 2002 hit, Bend It Like Beckham

📽️ The tale of a young British-Indian girl’s quest for family approval and a professional football career, Bend It Like Beckham made more than £60 million at the worldwide box office (on a modest £5 million budget) and was one of the year’s highest grossing British films

In the film, Jesminder “Jess” Bhamra, spends days that should be filled with shopping for high-heeled shoes, trying on football boots,

⚽️ Eventually, she gets the parental approval she’s so desperate for, once she and Jules win scholarships to play “soccer” in the US

The film inspired a generation of women to pick up a ball and envision a future where sport could be their full-time job.

🔴 Beth Mead, a player for Arsenal and England, says the film motivated her to pursue a career in football. When she first watched it around the age of six

🗣️ “It was great timing for me to see professional women on the screen and realise that becoming a footballer could actually be possible,” she says
telegraph.co.uk/films/2022/04/…

The film’s widespread popularity, Mead adds, “put the women’s game out there more and into the spotlight, not only for women but men, who recognised it was possible to see professional female footballers"

🗣️ As a young girl watching the film, wearing her favourite team’s jersey, Bristol City footballer Melissa Johnson remembers how the film “supported girls to know that if they want to do something which might be ‘different’ for whatever reason, that’s okay"

🗣️ Director Gurinder Chadha’s admits she was no football expert prior to making the film, but her gamble paid off –

Now, 20 years on, Bend It Like Beckham is seen as a cultural force that shaped how British society saw the Indian diaspora depicted on screen

'Its enduring legacy as a rom-com that didn’t just feature strong women, but championed them.'

Read the full story here 👇
telegraph.co.uk/films/2022/04/…