Coming on strong: gender and sexuality in women’s sport

nificance, yet inside there is no detailed examination of its contents. What there is is perfunctory, forming part of wider discussions, such as a brief mention of the manner in which one of the characters, Jules, co-opts the derogatory and traditionally male ‘wanker’ sign in a wider analysis of gestures. Given that on release Bend It ... became the most successful film about football (or soccer) at the American box office, and is still in the top three, and that furthermore, it is one of the few films focused on women’s sport to have achieved genuine global recognition, it seems an odd omission. This is even more the case given that Chare’s final chapter is devoted in its entirety to Whip It, which, due to the similarity of its storyline, has drawn frequent comparison with its British counterpart. Both are rite-of-passage films focused on a teenage girl who discovers herself through her chosen sport. Yet there is a key difference; while Bliss, the protagonist in Whip It, is white, Jess, the protagonist in Bend It Like Beckham, is a Punjabi Shikh. A discussion regarding the representation of her intersecting social status would have had merit. Furthermore, it would have also been worth exploring whether the success of Bend It Like Beckham is due to the film’s female-focused subject matter or, at least in part, its explicit link to a male sports star. Chare’s argument that narrative is not the only manner in which a film’s emancipatory message about sportswomen can be subverted or notions of patriarchy reinforced is valid and demands exploration. However, at times it feels this analysis comes at the cost of a full consideration of the narratives of the films in question. Again, given that the entire conclusion is devoted to Whip It, it seems odd that Chare glosses over (in just one sentence) the fact that the protagonist’s right to follow her sporting dreams is ultimately conferred by her father, thereby subverting any notion of female empowerment that has developed up to that point, while devoting a whole section to the animal motifs which pepper the film.