Bobby Riggs had no business being on the court that day. It was condescending for Billie Jean King to be saddled with a degrading Battle of the Sexes to “prove” the worth of female athletes. I’ll stop there; I don’t think any follow up thought helps a dialogue or an understanding. Suffice to say that in 1973, Billie Jean King was so by far the superior tennis player that she should not have needed to prove it.
It is difficult to say whether Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) missed the modern age or invented it; were she in her youth today, there’s little doubt she’d inspire headlines, tabloids, and memes galore. She was world class athlete, feminism pioneer, and left her husband for a woman. Beat that. No, I suppose she never posed naked on a wrecking ball while singing, but who’s to say what she would have gotten up to as the rival of Serena Williams instead of Margaret Court (Jessica McNamee)? Stone played Billie Jean as vulnerable and unsure. That isn’t the Billie Jean King I remember, but then I only saw her on television winning match after match after match. That Billie Jean didn’t doubt herself.
After his heyday, Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) turned from court magician to circus clown. The fact that Steve Carell resembles Bobby Riggs – and he really does—should be a lesson to each and every one of us on how not to age gracefully. Riggs went from tennis world champion in the 40s to carny by the 60s, constantly hustling for a buck. There was never a bet he wouldn’t make or challenge too degrading. Early in the film, he gets in hot water with the missus (Elisabeth Shue) by hustling his father-in-law out of a Rolls Royce. The bet? A game of tennis while handicapped by walking two dogs and avoiding chairs on his side of the court. Perhaps he missed the modern age, too. Or didn’t; the internet is already replete with scam artists and folks willing to degrade themselves for a buck or less.
Battle of the Sexes accepts Riggs as con artist and showman; the film argues that his desire to humiliate women on the tennis court had little to do with chauvinism and everything to do with a man desperate for the spotlight. The truth is probably somewhere in between. As far as I can tell, Carell absolutely nailed Bobby Riggs … or at least the Riggs I knew from “The Odd Couple” and talk show circuits.
I supposed I haven’t described the plot here, as if you didn’t know – tired of unbalanced purses to the winners of men’s and women’s tennis matches, Billie Jean King, her agent, and her running entourage of semis and quarters victims led a revolt, abandoning the International Lawn Tennis Federation and creating the Women’s Tennis Association. Most of the men in this film are complete pigs, behaving towards the WTA the way Donald Trump does when NFL players kneel for the anthem. As this war reached its illogical conclusion, 55-year-old Bobby Riggs insisted he could beat any woman in the world. Meanwhile, 29-year-old champion and until-Act-II heterosexual Billie Jean King was newly discovering that she didn’t see a need to beat every woman in the world. Suffice to say, her following birthday would bring new meaning to the term “thirty-love.”
As inane as this upcoming climax between the King and the Joker, the importance of Billie Jean cannot be understated: her
heroic actions not only struck a blow for feminism worldwide, they stimulated a new avenue of hideous fashion and inspired an entire generation of white women to wear tennis dresses in supermarkets.
Relevance is a question in every movie. Movies are art; art reflects society. Why make a film that isn’t pertinent? There could not be a more relevant film in 2017 than Battle of the Sexes. Last fall, American voters had the choice of electing a competent female or a male buffoon. We chose the buffoon. We chose Bobby Riggs. Oh, we made up all sorts of lame and increasingly poor excuses. E-mails? Benghazi? Have you seen what Cap’n Orange has done to undermine national security? Don’t embarrass yourself; there’s no comparison: the Hillary haters had imaginary and half-improprieties on their side and that’s it; since the election, however, the United States has witnessed President Trump actively destroying our democracy. In the end, the reasons we elected Trump were as stupid as this tennis match. And as relevant as this film is, as a feminist, I find it a tad offensive. It is absurd what women must do to prove themselves; this is Exhibit A.
♪She was more like a beauty queen than a tennis King
I said don’t mind but what do you mean, “three sets to none?”
Who would prance, on the tour, robin round?
She said, “you will be stunned, when I prance, on the tour, robin round”
I knew that her name was Billie Jean, and she ruled as queen
But every head turned when I claimed women were dumb
And should just stay at home kitchen bound
People always told me, “Bobby, you’re just a fool.
Don’t go around hustlin’ dice and cards.”
And manager he told me, “don’t screw round at forty-love
And be careful about her youth, her footwork is the truth.”
Billie Jean is not my equal
She just a girl who claims that she’s #1
But you gals are just for fun
She claims she’ll make me run, but she’ll lose cuz she’s no son♫
Rated PG-13, 121 Minutes
Director: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
Writer: Simon Beaufoy
Genre: Our dumb history
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Feminists
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “Hillary for jail!”
♪ Parody Inspired by “Billie Jean”
