Chess queen sues for £3.6m over ‘sexist’ Gambit scene
Soviet champ, 80, enraged by claim she never played men
MIllIONS of us were hooked by the story of the orphan girl who grows up to conquer the chess world in The Queen’s Gambit.
But not all viewers were impressed by the Netflix series.
A Soviet chess legend who was the first ever female grandmaster is furious with the show for ‘belittling’ her trailblazing career.
Nona Gaprindashvili, 80, has filed a £3.6million defamation lawsuit against Netflix over a single line in the hit series which inaccurately states that she never competed against men.
The line is said in the final episode, in which Beth Harmon, played by British actress Anya Taylor-Joy, takes on fictional player Viktor laev in Moscow. Speaking about Harmon, the announcer says: ‘The only unusual thing about her, really, is her sex. And even that’s not unique in Russia.
‘There’s Nona Gaprindashvili, but she’s the female world champion and has never faced men.’
Miss Gaprindashvili said she was ‘humiliated’ by the ‘grossly sexist’ line, which the lawsuit is calling to be removed.
‘They were trying to do this fictional character who was blazing the trail for other women, when in reality I had already blazed the trail and inspired generations,’ she told the New York Times. ‘That’s the irony.’
She added: ‘This was an insulting experience. This is my entire life that has been crossed out, as though it is not important.’ The lawsuit claims that by the year the episode is set, 1968, Miss Gaprindashvili had competed against 59 men, 28 of whom she beat in simultaneous match in 1965.
The complaint alleges: ‘In a story that was supposed to inspire women by showing a young woman competing with men at the highest levels of world chess, Netflix humiliated the one real woman trailblazer who had actually faced and defeated men on the world stage in the same era’. It claims that Netflix ‘brazenly and deliberately lied about Gaprindashvili’s achievements for the cheap and cynical purpose of “heightening the drama”’. Netflix said it believes her claim is without ‘merit’.
A statement read: ‘Netflix has only the utmost respect for Miss Gaprindashvili and her illustrious career, but we believe this claim has no merit and will vigorously defend the case.’
Miss Gaprindashvili, from Georgia, became the first woman to receive the international grandmaster title from the International Chess Federation in 1978.
In 1995, she became the only female world chess champion to obtain the world senior title, for older players.
The Queen’s Gambit was based on a 1983 novel by Walter Tevis, whose protagonist was believed to be inspired by Diana lanni, the ‘it girl’ of uS chess in the 1980s.
Miss lanni struggled with depression and drink and drugs like Harmon, and both had short red hair.