Nona Gaprindashvili sues Netflix over sexism at the Queen’s Gambit
It’s been almost a year since the release of “The Queen’s Gambit”, and the drama around it hasn’t calmed down.
In the Queen’s Gambit Series finale, one of the characters says: “Elizabeth Harmon’s not at all an important player by their standards. 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.”
This phrase made the female chess legend sue Netflix for $5m calling the assertion “grossly sexist and belittling”.
Gaprindashvili is currently 80 years old, living in Tbilisi, Georgia, and she in fact faced dozens of men during her career. According to the lawsuit, she had faced 59 men, including 28 in one simultaneous match, as well as 10 grandmasters by the time the television series was set in 1968.
The suit is clear about the damages that the film caused as it’s “devastating falsehood, undermining and degrading her accomplishments before an audience of many millions”. Also, Gaprindashvili didn’t leave unnoticed the fact that the directors portrayed her as Russian, while she is Georgian.
To the public eye, it seems very odd that these mistakes took place as Netflix had hired Russian former World Champion Garry Kasparov and American National Master Bruce Pandolfini as their consultants.
