I’ve teared up a bit every time I’ve watched it so far, even though and probably especially because I already know the outcome. Thousands of women and girls saw a woman prove that she could beat a man. I could make the argument that it was even more important that thousands of men saw her do it too. We know that we’re capable of amazing things, the issue is that too many men are loathe to admit it. King herself said years later, “Maybe they’re still upset a girl beat a guy, I don’t know.” Oh yes you do know, Billie. So do we.
Case in point: A quick Google search about the Battle of the Sexes reveals that there are several conspiracy theories (which are what King’s quote was referencing) that Bobby Riggs bet against himself and threw the match on purpose in order to settle some gambling debts. Because of course that would be more plausible than a young woman at the top of her game beating a man in his mid-50s. I knew about this particular match but am very unfamiliar with tennis in general, so I asked our resident expert Amy (who wrote about the sport earlier this very morning) for some details, and she gave me the rundown: Billie Jean King knew how important this match was for women’s tennis, so she prepared hard and used an effective strategy to beat her opponent. Bobby Riggs thought he had the thing in the bag and got caught off guard.
This isn’t a biopic per-se, but movies about real people are always big during awards season, which is why Battle of the Sexes is being released in the fall. Emma Stone and Steve Carell both look like they do a damn good job, and both could end up with various nominations. Movies don’t exist in a vacuum, and a story like this is going to play very, very well in our current climate. Don’t we all need a movie right now where a talented woman goes up against a “male chauvinist pig” and kicks his ass? Embarrasses him in front of the world and shows him where he can shove it? We absolutely do. Generally speaking of course. We’ll have to see how he’s portrayed in the film, but evidence suggests that Bobby Riggs might not have actually been all that bad of a guy. He was well known to be a showboater and very likely could have been purposefully laying it on a bit thick, but when he lost the match he went over to Billie Jean and whispered to her, “I underestimated you.” I have a hard time believing that a man who was truly humiliated and enraged that he lost to a girl doing that. The two actually became good friends, so much so that when Riggs was dying of cancer in 1995, King called him on what ended up being the last night of his life to tell him that she loved him. Still, it’s not hard to deduce who we’ll all be rooting for when we watch the movie.
I’ve been excited for this since I read that it was being made, and it’s easily one of my most anticipated fall films. Billie Jean King is an icon who did monumental things for women in sports. It was only a few weeks ago that far too many stories speculated about Serena Williams’ athletic future because oh my god she’s pregnant now you guys, so stories that show female athletes’ unquestionable badassery are (depressingly) just as necessary now as they were in 1973.
Battle of the Sexes comes out September 22nd
(Big thanks to Amy for her help with this post. She sent me article links and gave me a lot of background information. Figure skating is my jam, but I know almost nothing about tennis.)
