Let me start by saying I didn’t watch Beckham because I am a football fan. What I’m really interested in is the art of spinning gold from thin air, something David Beckham and his family have excelled at. So I zoned out when it came to discussing the intricacies of Beckham and Sir Alex Ferguson’s relationship in the 1990s, or the pain he felt when leaving Manchester United, the only club he ever wanted to play for.
The Beckhams have carefully curated what they were willing to share, all under the guise of being candid
No, I was after the behind-the-scenes access to all things Brand Beckham. What does he really think of the fact Victoria has only eaten steamed fish and vegetables for over a decade? Why did he refuse to make a cameo in the cinematic masterpiece that was Spice World? What does a man who in the late 1990s and 2000s redefined popular culture think of his son’s £70,000 fish finger sandwich?
Rio Ferdinand, the former England captain and Beckham’s teammate at Manchester United, tells the filmmakers that if you could bottle up that feeling of scoring a goal on a pitch in front of tens and thousands of people you’d be a millionaire – but the real money maker is Beckham’s charm. It isn’t just his looks – it’s his likeability, his self-deprecation; he’s an everyman, a working-class lad done good. And bottle up that charm he did. Aftershave, Pepsi, whisky, anything Beckham put his name on was sure to become a success.
The documentary focuses on his back story and his stratospheric ascent from a humble Essex lad to international hero. It included never-before-seen archival footage and showed how after the fallout from the 1998 World Cup, where he was handed a red card for kicking Diego Simeone, he went from national hero to being sent bullets in the post and having an effigy of him being hung outside a pub. Beckham revealed the only place he felt safe was with the Spice Girls who, in the words of Victoria, could ‘wrap him in cotton wool’.
As ever, the Beckhams have carefully curated what they were willing to share, all under the guise of being candid. Nearly 20 years after the story broke, they finally addressed his alleged affair with his former personal assistant, which Victoria unsurprisingly called ‘the most unhappy I’ve ever been’ and the lowest point of their marriage. But we were spared any details or real revelations.
As with most Netflix documentaries, Beckham lacks nuance and balance. In its attempt to avoid straightforward hagiography, the doc includes Beckham’s faults which are limited to his OCD, which sees him scrub down the entire kitchen and trim the candle wicks before going to bed. It left out his decision to accept a reported $175 million by Qatar to promote the World Cup, despite the human-rights abuses, a curious decision for someone who has worked so meticulously to keep his PR image squeaky clean.
The show also ignores those leaked emails in which he demanded Unicef pay for a plane and five star accommodation on a PR trip to the Philippines our how he reportedly thought it was a ‘fucking joke’ he hadn’t been knighted. But Beckham is still somehow charming and self-deprecating and a master of the comeback (see The Resurrection of David Beckham). The British public has repeatedly shown that they are willing to forgive him.
Beckham said he chose to do the documentary because he wanted to tell his story before someone else did. But in being selective with what he shared and failing to be fully transparent, the Great British press will continue to speculate and fill in the gaps. Perhaps Beckham doesn’t really mind that. He is a man who loves the spotlight.
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