Women and men have different characteristics. Women are commonly labeled with feminine characteristics, while men are commonly labeled with masculine characteristics. The position of women in the society is often associated with men’s characteristics in terms of action, physical condition, emotion, and behaviour. This condition is caused by the gender stereotypes formed by the society which causes women to be in need of the equality treatment in any field with men. Jesminder Bhamra was a female character in Bend It Like Beckham film who became the object of this study. This study aimed to reveal the masculine traits in Jesminder Bhamra of Bend It Like Beckham film based on
Bem’s theory and to find out the characteristics of Jesminder Bhamra as portrayedin the film by using Reaske’s theory of characterization.
This study used qualitative design with content analysis approach. Thesource of data in this study was Bend It Like Beckham film script, while the dataconsisted of dialogues, utterances, and scenes related to Jesminder Bhamra’s masculine traits. From the total twenty indicators of masculinity traits, Jesminder Bhamra showed to have eight kinds of masculine traits such as behaving aggresively, becoming ambitious, being analytical, owning an athletic ability,being competitive, defending own belief, developing a leadership ability, andbeing masculine. Jesminder Bhamra character was characterized through the fivetools of characterization from the six tools in Reaske’s theory; they are appearance, long soliloquy, dialogues, hidden narration, and actions.
Key words: character, characterization, masculinity