Gurinder Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges

So there's the whole culture clash film genre, about attractive ethnic boy or girl, usually a girl, whose family is strict and oppressive and how they fall in love with a white (usually blonde) American and how they have to choose between family and tradition and the American way. I don't think I've ever seen a film where they choose their family, but maybe there's one out there.

Now I think this genre is pretty well established and there's not much else to do, which is why I don't know why Gurinder Chadha and her husband Paul Berges have made not just one but three. The well-known Bend It Like Beckham, the Jane Austen remake Bride and Prejudice, and the upcoming Mistress of Spices. To top it all off, there's another film, which bills itself as the first Pakistani American film called Night of Henna, where the plot twist is that both the boy and the girl are in love with beautiful blonde white people. I don't have anything against interracial dating, but I just wonder when in these films, White Americans are essentially fetishized for their Americanness.