First female chess grandmaster sues Netflix over ‘sexist’ claim in The Queen’s Gambit
The world’s first female chess grandmaster is suing the makers of hit Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit for $5 million (£3.6 million) over a claim she never faced male opponents.
Soviet chess icon Nona Gaprindashvili filed a defamation lawsuit in Los Angeles this week against the streaming platform over a line in the series which her lawyers say is false and sexist.
The 80-year-old, a hero in her native South Caucasus Republic of Georgia, was described in the show’s last episode as a female champion who had "never faced men”.
“The only unusual thing about her, really, is her sex, and even that’s not unique in Russia,” the announcer in the show intones. “There’s Nona Gaprindashvili, but she’s the female world champion and has never faced men.”
The suit filed on Ms Gaprindashvili’s behalf in federal court said the reference to her was “degrading her accomplishments before an audience of many millions”.
The legal papers said the five-times world champion was “the first woman in history to achieve the status of international chess grandmaster among men”.
Ms Gaprindashvili, who began playing professionally at 13, had competed against at least 59 male chess players by 1968, the year in which the episode was set, according to the legal papers.
Disproving The Queen’s Gambit’s point, a headline in The New York Times from April that same year reads: “Chess: Miss Gaprindashvili Beats 7 Men in a Strong Tourney.”
Ms Gaprindashvili later became a female world champion and the first woman in history” to be awarded the rank of grandmaster after a tournament in Lone Pine, California, in 1977.
The lawsuit alleges that Netflix “brazenly and deliberately lied about Gaprindashvili’s achievements for the cheap and cynical purpose of ‘heightening the drama’ by making it appear that its fictional hero had managed to do what no other woman, including Gaprindashvili, had done”.
Ms Gaprindashvili, speaking in a recent interview, said: “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. That’s the irony.”
Netflix said that it greatly respected Ms Gaprindashvili but that it believed her claim was without merit. “Netflix has only the utmost respect for Ms Gaprindashvili and her illustrious career, but we believe this claim has no merit and will vigorously defend the case,” the company said in a statement.
The Queen's Gambit, based on a 1983 novel by Walter Tevis, tells the story of young orphan Beth Harmon who becomes the world's best chess player in the Cold War era.
Harmon, who is played by Argentine-British actress Anya Taylor-Joy, is described by Netflix as someone “determined to conquer the traditional boundaries established in the male-dominated world of competitive chess”.
The series won two Golden Globes this year and received 18 nominations at this weekend's 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards. It is said to have inspired women around the world to take up chess.
Ms Gaprindashvili’s lawyers say the series, released in October 2020, caused her professional harm and want the line about her never facing men removed, calling it “grossly sexist and belittling”.
The point out that the hit show was viewed in more than 62 million households in the first month after its release.
“This was an insulting experience,” Ms Gaprindashvili said during the hour-long interview. “This is my entire life that has been crossed out, as though it is not important.”
Netflix, headquartered in California, hired Russian former world champion Garry Kasparov and American national master Bruce Pandolfini as their consultants.
