A Chess Champion Is Suing Netflix Over “The Queens Gambit”

A major chess champion has a bone to pick with the popular Netflix drama, The Queens Gambit. 

Georgian chess master Nona Gaprindashvili, 80, filed a $US5 million lawsuit against the streaming giant over a single line of dialogue in the finale which downplays her accomplishments says Deadline. 

The moment depicts an onscreen commentator who says of fictional character Beth Harmon, “The only unusual thing about her, really, is her sex, and even that’s not so unique in Russia.”

“There’s Nona Gaprindashvili, but she’s the female world champion and has never faced men.”

Gaprindashvili has taken offence to the claim, as she had faced many men by 1968, the year in which the episode is set. 

“The allegation that Gaprindashvili ‘has never faced men’ is manifestly false, as well as being grossly sexist and belittling. By 1968, the year in which this episode is set, she had competed against at least 59 male chess players (28 of them simultaneously in one game) including at least 10 Grandmasters of that time. 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. Thus, 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 trail blazer who had actually faced and defeated men on the world stage in the same era,” reads a statement from the lawsuit.

Gaprindashvili was awarded Grandmaster by the World Chess Federation in 1978 and held the title of the women’s world chess champion from 1962 to 1978.

A Netflix spokesperson in the US told Deadline, “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 Queens Gambit is based on a novel by Walter Tevis, centring around the life of fictional character Beth Harmon, who goes from orphaned prodigy to triumphant chess champion, overcoming her hard childhood as well as drug and alcohol addiction, in the process. 

The show was a hit for the streaming service, with a reported 62 million households watching the show in its first weeks of release. It’s up for numerous awards in the Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday. 

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