In a perfect world, a small-budget British film starring an unknown Indian actress as a girl who overcomes sexist and cultural barriers in order to play soccer while falling in love with another girl would become a word-of-mouth phenomenon and ultimately generate millions in U.S. and international box office revenue.

But this isn't a perfect world, and the Bend it Like Beckham director knew that wasn't going to happen; something had to give, and that something was the lesbian romance--at least according to the friend of Beckham director Gurinder Chadha.

Speaking last week at the Bombay Academy of Moving Images, Nisha Ganatra (who directed the lesbian-themed film Chutney Popcorn) revealed that Chadha (who also directed the film What's Cooking, which featured Julianna Margulies and Kyra Sedwick as a lesbian couple) originally planned to include a lesbian romance between the characters of Jess (Parminder K. Nagra) and Jules (Keira Knightley), but "chickened out" at the last minute for fear of offending and upsetting Indian audiences.

Instead, the film was re-written to develop a relationship between Jess and her (white) coach, Joe (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), which causes a rift between Jess and a jealous Jules. The film still tackles homophobia, but not as directly; Jess' male friend comes out to her, and when Jules' mom is upset when she mistakenly thinks Jules and Jess are in a lesbian relationship, Jules' response is along the lines of "I'm not, but so what if I was? Being a lesbian isn't that big of a deal."

Many lesbian fans of the film are likely to be disappointed at learning of Chadha's decision, for there are few complex, interesting lesbian characters in mainstream cinema, and even fewer Indian ones (the women in Fire and Chutney Popcorn are some of the only ones).

But as a lesbian fan of the film, I want to offer what is likely to be an unpopular opinion: in this particular context and at this particular time, Chadha made the right decision.

When India's first lesbian-themed film, Fire, premiered in 1996, it generated enormous controversy in India, including rioting and death threats. If Chadha had kept the lesbian romance between Jess and Jules, Beckham would not necessarily have created the same stir (since it's a British film and set in England, not India), but it's extremely unlikely the film would have set the record it did in India for most number of tickets sold during a single weekend for a foreign movie.

Nor would it have been likely to become one of the UK's biggest hits, or the highest-grossing Indian-themed film ever in the U.S. at $32 million in box office revenue (Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding was the second best at $14 million). British imports in general have a slim chance of commercial success in America, as do films starring non-white women, unknown actresses, or female-led sports movies. That Beckham became such an international hit in America and abroad with such strong anti-patriarchal, anti-racist, and anti-homophobic messages is astonishing--and, realistically, this is most likely due to the film's inclusion of the relationship between Jess and her coach.

The heterosexual romance acted as a balance to the film's strongly pro-feminist message, like your mom hiding your medicine in chocolate, and made it palatable to the "average" viewer who might otherwise be uncomfortable with a film that so blatantly challenges long-held, traditional views of women ("a woman's place is in the home"), sports ("sports belong to men") and ethnicity ("Indians can't play soccer").

A lesbian romance, on the other hand, would have done the opposite: amplified the feminist message to an intolerable level for many viewers (since lesbianism is considered the ultimate manifestation of feminism), or marked the film as "unsuitable" for teenagers (since any suggestion of lesbianism is considered corrupting). Since the film had almost no marketing budget and relied mostly on word of mouth, this means very few people outside of the gay community and female soccer players would have been likely to see the film.

Many lesbians will protest--and rightly so--that this is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to very little visibility (or at least, very little good visibility) for lesbians in entertainment, that it is always the lesbian characters/themes/romance that get sacrificed in the name of the greater good.

Most of the time, I agree with this complaint. Too many filmmakers edit out or significantly revise the lesbian characters or subplots of a story just to play it safe, and to make as much money as possible, often when it's unnecessary or even deleterious to the story to do so.

But if lesbian visibility in mainstream entertainment is poor, the visibility of Indian women--gay or straight--is far worse, especially in America. There are no high-profile film actresses of Indian descent in the U.S., and there has never been a woman of Indian descent in a prominent role on television--until now.

The success of Bend It Like Beckham launched its star, Parminder K. Nagra, into the public eye and led directly to being cast on the popular U.S. TV show ER, playing the first recurring female Indian character on an American television series. The success of Beckham is also a large feather in Chadha's cap and will very likely lead to more directorial opportunities for her in the future, no small accomplishment given the extremely limited number of female directors (not to mention female directors of Indian descent).

In a time of increasing cultural misunderstandings and fear between Eastern and Western countries, it is more critical than ever that film and television roles and actresses in America include women of Asian and Arab descent. We also need more films like Beckham that promote girls and women in sports, since there have been relatively few in the last several years (Girlfight and Blue Crush are among the few), and films that encourage teenage girls to challenge the sexist roles society frequently tries to keep them in.

So if I have to choose between Beckham with a lesbian romance that only my friends and I will see, or Beckham with a heterosexual romance that half the world will see, I'll choose the latter. Someday soon I hope we won't have to make that kind of choice, but for now, in the interest of improving visibility for women overall, we should be more than willing to take this one for the team.

Get Bend it Like Beckham on DVD