Cultural Understanding on the Movie Example “Bend It Like Beckham”

The main aim of this report is to describe, analyze and understand Indian culture and integration Indians with British culture in a connection to movie: â€Å"Bend it like Beckham†. The aim is also to assign every character to stage of intercultural sensitivity and define what kind of cultural development is possible for each of them. Findings: Jess: In my opinion she is on the fifth level of intercultural learning, she adapts to the british culture, she knows it and totally accept it, e. . she can greet in her language, she wears traditional dress during the engagement and the wedding, she knows that she suppose to have Indian husband, that she should not show her legs and the scar in front of the man. She tries to live like â€Å"normal† teenager from Europe, but she respects all the traditions of her family. She has got problem with learning how to cook traditional meals and when she was younger she often ate been on toast, which is common in UK. She likes british culture more, because it gives her more freedom, her idol is Beckham, she loves playing football, she would like to be independent to make her own choices in such easy issues like choosing shoes or outfit for the wedding. She would like to choose if she can play football or not. Her mum does not want her to play but she shows her resistance even though she should not , because in her mum’s opinion, it is spoiled behavior. She does not like to lie and she feels bad with that but she does not tell the truth because she has high respect to the elders. I can predict that in the future, of course if she stay in the UK, she will be totally integrated with the british culture. Mother: She is on the first level of intercultural learning. She does not like british culture, for her it is like pure evil. She does not want her children to integrate with the European culture. When they are complaining and Jess wants to choose the dress by herself for her sister’s wedding or she does not want to learn how to cook, for her mum it is spoiled behavior. She is scared that Jess will start to wear short skirts etc, that is why he does not let her to play football, because in her opinion the integration can go further than it should. She is defending herself but she even has not noticed that she is already connected to the british culture e. g everybody were checking their mobiles during the engagement, which is a part of fast lifestyle in the UK. She just want to protect the good name of family and she creates perfect image of the members, so that her children will have no problems with finding appropriate husband. Chances for further development: second level – because she finally agreed and accepted that her daughter is playing football, so she is not so closed like in the beginning. Father: Jess’ father seems to realize the differences between his own culture and British one but he thinks that this second one have too big bad influence on his doughter, Jess. He is afraid of this. He finds his own culture as better one that is why he tries to defend somehow against the bad influence of the other. Probably, that is why he does not want to accept that his younger doughter plays football. He thinks, it is a man sport and he does not understand how and why Jess can like it. The piority for her should be to find a good husband, be a good wife, who can cook and takes care of house. She should be also well educated. And it should give her happiness. In his opinion, girls or women should not have got such hobbies like playing football. Additionaly, he has got his own, bad experience with sport in the UK. When he was younger, he used to play cricket but his career did not finish very well because of his origin. It was in former times, so now everything has changed, but he is afraid that his doughter can also suffer as he did. Fortunately, his open-minded position and love to his doughter win and he lets her to play. During his older doughter’s wedding he tells Jess to go and play in final game of a tournament if it makes her happy. In the end the gives Jess the permission to play in the American’s proffessional team. He has got an opportunity to go on ‘higher level’ of the intercultural sensitivity (III) or even he has already achived it. Jules: A wonderful Jess’ friend, who from the very beggining have not seen any difficulties in â€Å"contact† with the other culture. Jules plays in a local football team and thanks to her Jess also has started. She encoureged her friend to play and to find solutions how to deal with the culture differences. Jules also has got some problems with her mother, as Jess has. Her mother is afraid that because of doughte’s hobbies she would not find a boyfriend. So it is not so different as in Jess’ home. Thankfully, Jules has got a great father, who totally accepts doughte’s interests. She is on a high adaptation level of the intercultural sensitivity. She does not have to deal with the cultural differences because for her it is just natural. She can see some problems, which are â€Å"normal† for every teenager (boys etc. ), not problems with other habits. In my opinion she does not have to achive other level of the intercultural sensitivity because this,where she already is, it is perfect.