Swethaa Ballakrishnen (University of California, Irvine)

This talk uses Bend It Like Beckham (“BILB” 2002, dir. Gurinder Chadha) as a starting point to critically theorize about law and the mainstream representation of queerness in South Asia. The film is used to consider the subtle queer coding that was typical of cinematic representation of queer narratives – to be present in plain sight – that determined early queer South Asian representation and assumptions of legality and propriety.