Ethnic Identity and Socialization: Bend It Like Beckham’

Ethnic Identity and Socialization: Bend It Like Beckham’ In April 1992, when a mostly white jury acquitted four police officers accused in the videotaped beating of a black motorist, thousands of people in Los Angeles, mainly young black and Latino males, joined in what has often been characterized as a race riot. In the summer of 2001, ethnic riots occurred on the streets of towns and cities in the north of England (Oldham, Leeds, Burnley, Bradford), involving young British Asian men and young White British men. More recently, in November 2005, riots emerged in Paris suburbs, sparked by the accidental deaths of two Muslim teenagers, and then spread to 300 French towns and cities. Most of the rioters were the French-born children of immigrants from Arab and African countries, a large percentage being Muslim. These race and ethnic riots have all recently placed the issue of racial and ethnic identity at the forefront of political debate in the United States and in Europe. In this paper, we endeavour to discuss many issues especially on gend er issues, relationship issues, family issues, notion of beauty, women in sports and migration issues. The way the characters behaved and how the other characters behaved towards them portrays the theme and the issues involved. Gender issue is portrayed through Indian beliefs as well as Western beliefs. The traditional notion that girls should not be involved in sports existed in both the Indian family as well as the England family. This can be seen in both Jesminders family as well as Catherines family where their mothers strongly discouraged them from playing soccer as soccer is meant only for the boys. Both mothers cannot tolerate the idea that their daughters are playing and enjoying soccer thus all kinds of comedies ensued because of the differing ideas mothers and daughters have. Through gender issues, the traditional notion of beauty is also depicted. Anything that is ugly has to be hidden while things that are not of social norms are frowned upon. For example, in the Indian family, Jesminders mother was shocked that her daughter would reveal her scars just to wear shorts to play soccer. Indian girls are supposed to cover up their bodies and must not dress up like the boys. Jesminders mother also does not want Jesminder to play soccer because it causes her to become dark and thus she is not beautiful. This perceptions cause Jesminder to put on a faà §ade. In front of her family members, she dressed up like a dutiful Indian daughter. Behind them, she strips to her jersey and shorts in order to pursue her passion. Hilarity is created through such perceptions and the things done by Jesminder to bend the rules and yet appear to be a dutiful daughter in her parents eyes. As for the England family, Catherines mother wants her daughter to be ladylike. It is highly comical when mother and daughter went shopping and the mother insists that her daughter wears a push-up bra. This typical notion on how girls should doll up is highly comical as the mother is enforcing her daughter something that she is not. This shows that the tradition notion of beauty not only exist amongst the Indians but the England people as well. Issues on gays and lesbianism have also been touched on in this movie. Gays and lesbianism is not accepted in both societies. For example, Jesminders male best friend confesses to her that he likes David Beckham. The issue on him being gay is kept hushed amongst them as being Indians; they are not supposed to go against social and traditional norms by becoming gay. Lesbianism is touched upon when Catherines mother assumed that Catherine and Jesminder are lesbian couples. Due to her overreactions, hilarity was created. This shows that Indians still stick to their traditional culture whilst England people are not that advanced in their thinking either. The traditional issue on marriage still exists amongst the Indian characters in this movie. Pinkys boyfriend broke up their engagement just because Jesminder, Pinkys sister, was seen hugging an England boy. This shows the unfairness that befalls on Pinky for something she has not done. To heighten the comic effect, the boy Jesminder was hugging is actually a girl. Catherine was mistaken to be a boy just because she has short hair. Once again, the traditional notion of beauty on how girls hair length should be creeps in. Jesminder also refuses to inform her family that her England coach is her boyfriend for fearing that her parents could not accept the idea. Thus this shows that they are still traditional. Apart from gender issues, family issues and relationship issues, migration issues also play a large role in this movie. Their house is a symbol to show how the Indian family has assimilated to the England society. The semi-detached house is a reflection of how the family has blended into England while at the same time preserving their cultural roots and background. The occasional lights displayed on the house show the difference of the family compared to the rest of the neighbourhood. However, this difference has also been accepted by the society there as the lights gave out a beautiful effect. This film also examines women who must explain their choice to participate in a sport, which traditionally men only competed in. It was noted that how a woman who plays soccer and enjoyed it immensely and even dreamt of playing professionally, had to overcome the traditional ideas of her family in order to achieve what she wanted the most. It presents a myriad of complex issues and presents them in a way that is appealing and stimulating. In this film, women in sport is an issue, but one that has come far in the history of women and sport-now, at least in soccer, women can and do play professionally and that is not an odd or remarkable thing. Women are now able to play sports; however, there are still obstacles and stereotypes which the characters still come into contact with and deal with on a daily basis. Jules, one of the main characters, has to live with her mother who tries so hard to make her more feminine; while Jess, the main character, must live with the traditional notions and experiences of her family. It can be said that Bend It Like Beckham really presented a more realistic example of the obstacles that women face, by looking specifically at one individual and her specific circumstances. It allows for a situation in which Jess must fight for what she believes in and try to move her own family forward. This film also brought in questions of not only femininity but also gender issues and gender relations, and what it means to be a woman playing sports today. There are still stereotypes and ideals about women that are not necessarily written in stone any longer, and it appears that we can look forward to a future where those stereotypes may no longer be so deeply imbedded. The families learnt to assimilate into Englands culture through their childrens experience. Pinkys ability to find an Indian husband and moving on with her life creates satisfaction amongst her family members. This shows that they belong in the society. Jesminders achievements in her A Levels examinations and her ability to qualify in an England soccer team for girls also show that assimilation and acceptance has taken place. The comic effect that was produced in this movie reflects the things that occur in the society and shows how the society adapts to it. The Indian family managed to preserve their traditional and cultural roots despite being far away from India. Westerners are also not spared from traditional thinking. We conclude that intense forms of ethnic identity and socialization appear to be formed in social contexts in which the minority ethnic trait is mostly threatened either directly by the actions of the majority group or indirectly simply by being exposed to the interaction with the majority norm of behaviour in a mixed neighbourhood. Bend It Like Beckham is all about a young girls search for cultural identity in the 21st Century England. Referencing Stevenson, D. Women, Sport and Globalisation; competing discourses of sexuality and nation Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Vol 26, No. 2 May 2002 Messner, M., Duncan, M., Cooky, C. Slience, Sports Bras and Wrestling Porn; women in televised sports news and highlights shows Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Vol 27, No. 1 February 2003 Wearing, B. (1996) Gender; the pain and pleasure of difference, Longman, Melbourne Chapter 8 Leisure Grosz, E. (1994) Volatile Bodies: Towards a Corporeal Feminism, Allen Unwin, Sydney Kell, P. (2000) Good Sports: Australian sport and the myth of the fair go, Pluto Press, Annandale Chapter 7 Golden Girls, Lesbians and Sexing Up; Women and Sport Jarvie, G. Maguire, J. (1994) Sport and Leisure in Social Thought, Routledge, London Chapter 7 Feminist thought and the boundaries of sisterhood Young Murdock, I. (1990) Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Philosophy and Social Theory, Indiana University Press, Bloomongton Company Analysis: Value Proposition Of eBay Company Analysis: Value Proposition Of eBay The secret that can be considered behind the success of E-bay is by increasing its customers ad their satisfaction. To spread the business globally, an e-business strategy has to be implemented which can address the management and adopt new market culture. The new process implementation will change the services offered from local market to global market. Strategic planning process will bring all these changes in the way services are offered and improves the market globally. The strategic planning process involves several phases as shown in the figure 1.1. E bay is one of the leading websites in e business, when it comes to selling and buying of products online. At present the company operates its services through the worlds most popular website www.ebay.com for online selling, buying ad biding of products. In 1998, the revenue of e bay was $4.8 million in the US, in 2008 revenue increased to $ 5.5 billion revenue worldwide and sold $60 million merchandise. The page rank of e bay was rated the first in 2008 with 85.4 million visitors. Today, from 2009 reports, the figures appear very promising; they have increased to $24 million despite unfavorable economic conditions gaining 71%. The core competence of E bay were the other online auction websites like Amazon, fixed price retailers, search engines and comparison shopping websites which were offering the services at fixed lower prices. These are attracting the consumers more and e-bay has started to revive their 3 year plan after the revenue fall in 2009 and trying to meet the consumers demand and achieve higher customer satisfaction. 1.3 Market analysis and trends: Market Analysis is a major task that has to be performed before launching a new service or product. It is important to perform this to determine if they really require that new idea that company is going to implement. In the process of developing a new product or service the market needs should be very well understood and how the competitors service the same product/ service should be analyzed too. By conducting such type of market analysis, company can: Be fully prepared to enter a new market Can launch a new product/Service The main steps involved in performing market analysis are Definition of the problem Analysis of the current situation acquire data that is relevant to the problem study and understand the data Get ideas and resolve the problem Market analysis determines strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of a company and one of the most common methods to achieve this is SWOT analysis. The major competitors for E bay are Amazon, online search engines, fixed price retailers. The results of SWOT analysis on E bay are given in table 1.3.1. SWOT ANALYSIS FOR E bay STRENGTHS excellent service refined technologies used Largest market share in till 2008 Had very Good reputation Good customer satisfaction User friendly software WEAKNESS No proper marketing strategies Lacked global presence Missed its name in the list of all web directories Lack of social sites usage OPPORTUNITIES Increase market shareholder International demand for Ebay services will increase Increase in number of business partners THREATS More number of competitors Cost of software and hardware may increase Price competition with present competitors Table 1.3.1: SWOT analysis for Ebay 1.4 Evaluation of the business in terms of Porters business model: The five forces business model by Michael E. Porter can be used by the company to analyze the competition in the market with respect to the profitability and attractiveness of the services in all the aspects. Figure 1.4.1 shows clearly about the five different competitive forces. Figure 1.4.1: Porters five forces business model Source: http://www.anythingresearch.com/Strategic-Planning/Porters-Five-Forces.htm These five forces are very important in the implementation of new business plan by E bay as shown below: Threat of Substitute products or services Negatives: Every company website creates a substitute to the services offered by ebay and this way they can be a threat to eBay. Positive: Good market environment can be established with internet and will lead to healthy competition. All firms need an improvement to survive in todays market. Bargaining power of suppliers Negative: Customers are given bargaining power than suppliers as they have multiple choices. But with internet, suppliers also have more access to many customers. Bargaining power of buyers Negative: The internet can reduce switching costs for E bay. Positive: Improves bargaining power over traditional channels. Rivalry among existing competitors Negative: The increase in the number of competitors will be created by internet both nationally and internationally. It may also create competition in price among different companies offering similar service for cheaper rates. Barriers to Entry Positive: As E bay is an online business, there is no requirement of offices, sales staff rent for offices. All it requires is a hosting cost for website 1.5 Information and communication technology (ICT) challenges: As E bay is going to spread globally, there is a possibility of some information and communication technology (ICT) challenges. Some of the major challenges are described in terms core business process and system including legacy systems, B2B system integration, and efficient use of ICT infrastructure, security and standards. 1.5.1 Core business process and systems including legacy systems: As E bay is a online auction website, it deals with the customers private information, and the customers expect the company to keep their information very confidential. They have to use very effective CRM applications. The main challenge for CRM is that it should meet the concepts of Confidentiality, Availability and Integrity triangle. As E bay business is spreading globally, it is very crucial to consider business process and systems such as customer relationship management, supply chain management, and also knowledge management. 1.5.2 Efficient use of ICT infrastructure: As The E bay business runs on its auctions via internet it is important to implement proper ICT infrastructure with right technologies such as disaster recovery plan(DRP) to make sure that their business keeps running without any system hurdles such as system failure or any other natural disasters. With the help of DRP the resumption of hardware, data, communications, applications and other it infrastructure can be planned and made safe. Apart from DRP E bay should also include Business continuity plan (BCP) to make sure that their business will never discontinue .Unlike DRP, BCP includes plans for non IT related aspects. Nowadays BCP is well supported by Virtualization which also provides effective and easily manageable disaster recovery (DR) solution. The infrastructure of virtualization along with Disk-to-Disk (D2D) backup helps to build DR infrastructure with very easier and cheaper methods than ever. 1.5.3 B2B system integration: Business to Business e-commerce (B2B EC) also known as electronic B2B (eB2B) or simply B2B refers to transactions between the businesses conducted electronically over the internet, extranets, intranets or private networks(Turban et al. 2008).The B2B system integration is classified into two types Integration with the existing internal infrastructure and applications Integration with business partners systems ( Turban et al. 2008) Through e bay, customers can make reservations in one or more restaurants at a time and make a single payment for all the reservations with the help of these two types of integration systems. This makes transactions between E bay and customers very safe and secure. 1.5.4 Standards: As e bay runs the business electronically, a high level of standard should be used to spread the business globally. At present E bay is not using any ISO (International Standard for Organisation) standard. The best suited ISO standard for E bay is ISO/TS 15000-5:2005ISO/TS-Electronic Business Extensible Markup Language (ebXML).This standard is employed in businesses that work in open area or worldwide and transmit/exchange information between organizations, government agencies and other business related firms. This standard will form the basis for standard development work of business analysts in E bay. 1.5.5 Security: The major risks involved in any business would me information exchange and electronic transactions between organizations. To overcome such type of risks, it is advised that E bay should install use Firewalls, security socket layer (SSL), virtual private networks (VPN), Digital signatures etc while making any transactions.