Battle Of The Sexes (Movie, 2017)
By Shannon Deegan
Summary
The film focuses on the public and personal events leading up to the symbolic and groundbreaking real-life 1973 Battle Of The Sexes tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
Review (With Spoilers)
Battle of the Sexes is a blend of sports movie, love story, and female empowerment all wrapped in a historical package. The movie is a concise telling of perfectly paced events; it is a great watch.
Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) wins the US Open in the first scene of the film, but the celebration is cut short. She learns that the winnings for women in an upcoming tournament have been slashed to a fraction of the men’s. She wastes no time in making her voice heard.
Throughout the film, Billie Jean wages an actual battle of the sexes with tennis promoter Jack Kramer. When comparing the match against Bobby Riggs to dealing with Jack Kramer, she says that with Jack it’s “real.” With the powerful position Jack is in and his outdated views, he can do lasting damage to women in the sport and the women’s movement. He ejects Billie Jean and her cohorts from the US Lawn Tennis Association after Billie Jean forms the Women’s Tennis Association in protest of women’s earnings.
We see Billie Jean as a powerhouse for change making waves in the sports world. She talks to the media about equal pay every chance she gets and challenges men on their sexism. When given the choice to play a women’s game (3 sets) or a men’s game (5 sets) with Bobby Riggs, she chooses five.
The female players sign contracts with tennis organizer Gladys Heldman, who goes on to manage the women’s tour. The formation and early days of the WTA are a large part of the movie. The story covers the WTA’s humble start, the players’ involvement in promoting and setting up for matches (they sell their own tickets and roll out the courts), and the sisterhood they form while together on the road.
Famed tennis player Margaret Court appears for the tour and is liked by no one. Her portrayal is not flattering. She’s shown as scheming and homophobic, and she refers to the women’s tour as a place for “sin.” As she recently campaigned against marriage equality in Australia, her depiction in the movie is deserved.
While preparing for a WTA press event, the players visit a salon where Marilyn Barnett is a stylist. Billie Jean is mesmerized by her, bashful and tripping over words. The movie’s pace slows as Marilyn cuts Billie Jean’s hair. It doesn’t seem like a haircut should work to build chemistry, but it does.
When Marilyn shows up at a match and later takes Billie Jean dancing, you can almost see the hearts in Billie Jean’s eyes. After a night out, it’s too late for Marilyn to take a bus, Billie Jean says. There’s plenty of space in her room.
It’s obvious that Marilyn won’t be sleeping in a separate bed. She says they can take it slow, but Billie Jean is like a coiled spring. The love scene is enough to make it unflinchingly queer while remaining respectful. But respectful doesn’t mean the scene won’t quicken your pulse. A call from Bobby Riggs (Steve Carrell) interrupts them. He pitches his idea for a tennis match against Billie Jean only to be turned down.
Billie Jean’s husband, Larry, doesn’t go on tour with her, but he eventually drops in on her at a hotel. Billie Jean, having been tipped off by the gay outfit designer for the women’s tour (who also functions like her emotional anchor as her life grows more complex), rushes around the room to hide all signs of Marilyn. Larry is the perfect husband, even after he learns of Billie Jean’s affair. She loves tennis more than anything and he won’t disrupt that even if it means he is pushed further aside.
Like Billie Jean, Bobby Riggs also experiences relationship upheaval leading up to the match. He lies to his wife about his compulsive gambling, and he will not stop even though it means losing her. Steve Carrell channels Bobby Riggs in an effortless performance. The Battle of the Sexes tennis match does not take up much space in a movie named for it, but instead focuses on the inner worlds of both players leading up to the match. They are in fragile places personally when they meet on the court.
The match with Bobby begins as a circus (and though Emma Stone does a phenomenal job, her embodiment of Billie Jean is most impressive from this scene on). Bobby has encouraged the atmosphere with outrageous photo shoots and assertions that he is a “chauvinist pig” there to put women in their place. Once the playing starts, all jokes stop. Billie Jean is playing for all women and Bobby is playing to stay relevant. It’s not a spoiler when I say that she crushes him.
The film ends with Billie Jean on top of the world. The later turmoil in her life is omitted. We are spared Marilyn’s public outing of Billie Jean as well as the massive fallout. I welcome this abbreviation of queer pain. Just like I don’t want to see every woman on film treated poorly, I don’t want every film with queer women to feature suffering. The movie is better for excluding tragedy and extended scandal. The film’s creators give us a break.
With how infrequently true stories about queer women make it onto film, it is nice to see one that doesn’t end like Freeheld or Monster. Scarcity should not be the measure of quality, but it is certainly a factor. And in a field of tragic biopics, Battle of the Sexes is a welcome change of pace.