Former Soviet chess master sues Netflix over ‘sexist’ line in ‘Queen’s Gambit’

A former Soviet chess grasp is suing Netflix over a line in last year’s popular series “The Queen’s Gambit,” throughout which fictional characters claimed that this real-life female chess grasp “in no way confronted males.”

The $5 million defamation lawsuit was filed throughout the Central District of California on Thursday by Nona Gaprindashvili, chess grasp from Georgia who grew to develop into a champion beneath the earlier Soviet Union.

Gaprindashvili, 80, alleges that the precept character in “Queen’s Gambit” — Elizabeth Harmon, played by Anya Taylor-Joy — is a troublesome approximation of her, and that the street referring to Gaprindashvili’s real-life success is “manifestly false, along with being grossly sexist and belittling.”

The street in question comes throughout the sequence finale, when one character contemplates how Harmon has merely defeated a male chess grasp in Moscow:

“Elizabeth Harmon’s by no means an important participant by their necessities. The one unusual issue about her, really, is her intercourse. And even that’s not distinctive in Russia. There’s Nona Gaprindashvili, nonetheless she’s the female world champion and has in no way confronted males. My guess is Laev was anticipating a easy win, and by no means the 27-move thrashing Beth Harmon merely gave him.”

Gaprindashvili’s lawsuit says the fictional line about an exact specific particular person is demonstrably false.

“By 1968, the yr throughout which this episode is prepared, [Gaprindashvili] had competed in opposition to a minimal of 59 male chess avid gamers (28 of them concurrently in a single sport), along with a minimal of ten Grandmasters of that time,” the lawsuit states.

“The Queen’s Gambit” — launched in 2020 and based mostly totally on a 1983 novel of the equivalent establish, about an American woman who overcomes the probabilities to show right into a champion throughout the male-dominated chess world of the ’50s and ’60s — garnered 18 Emmy nominations for Netflix, along with outstanding limited series and best lead actress for star Taylor-Joy.

Gaprindashvili is taken under consideration a chess pioneer, turning into the first woman to be awarded the title of Grandmaster by the Worldwide Chess Federation in 1978, in line with the World Chess Hall of Fame. Amongst her many accolades, she has gained the Women’s World Championship 5 situations and Women’s Soviet Chess Championship 5 situations.

In an announcement to NBC Data on Thursday, a spokesperson for the streaming massive acknowledged, “Netflix has solely the utmost respect for Ms. Gaprindashvili and her illustrious career, nonetheless we think about this declare has no profit and may vigorously defend the case.”