It is simultaneously progressive – in respects even radical – and conservative. It would be unfair to subject such a light-hearted film to too stringent political criticism but it is in important respects political, and can be usefully discussed politically. That Bend It Like Beckham hasn’t “got old” reflects, I think, its deft combination of warm, even silly humour with serious, even world-changing issues and themes. The twentieth anniversary has seen a fresh stream of tributes to the film’s personal impact. For younger working-class South Asian women, particularly football fans like heroine Jesminder Bhamra, the buzz was surely that much stronger. As a middle-class 22 year-old second-generation man, with no interest whatsoever in football, I instantly felt that particular buzz. It undoubtedly had special resonance for British Asians. There are pages of statistics for its success. At the top of the UK box office for over three months in 2002, Gurinder Chadha’s film became a hit worldwide: the only film ever, believe it or not, officially released in every country, North Korea included. I must have watched Bend It Like Beckham a dozen times – most recently on the twentieth anniversary of its release, last week. Assessing Bend It Like Beckham in the social and political context of Blairism, Sacha Ismail considers the Gate Gourmet industrial dispute at Heathrow and union bureaucracies’ longstanding failure to fight for workers, particularly black, brown and migrant workers
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