Nona Gaprindashvili Sues Netflix over "Queen's Gambit" Slight
Remember the movie "Amadeus"? In it, Antonio Salieri, a contemporary composer of Mozart's era, is presented as an absolute villian, consumed by jealousy of Mozart's gifts (combined with his crude and eccentric behavior) and bitter resentment towards God that his piety was rewarded by musical mediocrity while the shameless Mozart produced such heavenly works. It made for a gripping film, which won eight Academy Awards, but it was an utterly slanderous work with regard to the historical Salieri.
This is of course standard operating procedure in Hollywood, which uses the magic weasel words "based on a true story" to exempt itself from defamation lawsuits, or in other cases offers up the boilerplate statement beginning "any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" - even when the parallels are obvious to even the most innocent and simple-minded viewer aware of the real-life counterpart.
I don't think these disclaimers are a bad thing per se. The world of dramatic fiction is much richer for not having to confine itself to documentary evidence or stories with no real-world counterparts. But the disclaimers can be abused, and they shouldn't be - and aren't - a license for an "anything goes" approach to filmmaking.
One would have expected a major lawsuit to have been filed based on some work based, however loosely, on the life of Bobby Fischer, but none has occurred, as far as I know. But there is now an interesting case before the courts, and the plaintiff is Nona Gaprindashvili, the women's world chess champion from 1962-1978 and first woman to achieve the "full" grandmaster title (1978). Her complaint is against Netflix, the producers of the hit miniseries "The Queen's Gambit" (TQG). In it, a fictional chess commentator says of Gaprindashvili that she never faced men in her chess career--a claim that is patently false, and would take a competent chess consultant no time at all to refute. (I could have told them that instantly, and someone who wasn't aware of Gaprindashvili during her career would only need a few seconds browsing a database to discover the error.)
A second, even more foolish though less disparaging error is that she is referred to as a "Russian", when she is and always has been Georgian. (Maybe this was a wink at Fischer's old claim that all the Soviet players of his era were Russians, when they frequently were not. If so, it would have been better to keep both eyes open and look for another allusion.)
I can understand Gaprindashvili's annoyance, and I think that she has been given unduly short shrift even within the chess community. But is her annoyance, and the erroneous statements offered in TQG, something that merits a five million dollar judgment from the courts? That's to be determined, but I'd be interested to know what any of you think, especially if you are attorneys. It wouldn't break my heart if Netflix has to pay something--not because I have any animus against the company or TQG. Rather, I think there should be a presumption of honesty and accuracy when dealing with the facts about real people (with a tendency to err in their favor rather than against it), to be overcome only when necessary for the demands of the story (and with a disclaimer to this effect somewhere).
Various links: The New York Times (I was not able to access this, unfortunately), the Washington Post, USA Today, and Chess.com.
Reader Comments (5)
It's unnecessary to make a blatantly false claim (by name) about a living person to enhance the drama of the show.
(Being dead, Bobby Fischer cannot be legally defamed.)
Nona Gaprindashvili initially asked Netflix for only an apology and a factual correction. Netflix flatly refused.
To this day, Netflix insists that it has done nothing wrong. Netflix disingenuously claims that it has the
utmost respect for Nona Gaprindashvili when it obviously has treated her with persistent disdain.
In civil litigation, it's common practice to ask to be awarded more damages than one expects to receive.
Chess has many interesting stories about strong women who are NOT named 'Beth Harmon' or 'Polgar'.
It's a pity that mainstream Western media lacks interest in any of these real stories.
Billy Sing was (arguably) the greatest sniper in Australia's military history.
A biographical miniseries was produced about him. In real life, Billy Sing was the son of a Chinese father and a white English mother.
A white friend described him as a 'small dark' man. The drama portrayed both Billy Sing and his father as only white.
Some people criticized this whitewashing for removing any issue of racism from Billy Sing's life.
The producer argued that its change was justified artistic license and necessary to improve the drama for its intended audience.
As far as I know, this miniseries never has been shown in public.
How would Americans respond if a biographical miniseries were to portray Tiger Woods as only white?
[DM: Badly, of course, especially since neither of his parents were white. But I don't see the parallel to the Gaprindashvili/TQG situation. If I understand you correctly, the miniseries on Billy Sing ignores an issue. That's a problem with a work that purports to give an account of his life while ignoring a major component of it, but it's not an explicit falsehood. Netflix is making misstatements about Gaprindashvili. The parallel would be the miniseries stating that Sing faced no racial prejudice, or none to speak of.]
"It made for a gripping film"
I disagree. And you give the reason yourself:
"standard operating procedure in Hollywood, which uses the magic weasel words"
Those magic words are almost always a fig leaf for cheap sensationalism. If the makers really cared they simply would have changed the name of Salieri/Gaprindashvili. In literature it works exactly the opposite way: "any resemblance ..... it complete coincidence" or something like that means many characters represent real people in an unfavourable way, despite having different names.
I also like what Antoine Fuqua did with the movie King Arthur:
"Historians agree that in the classical 15th century tale of King Arthur and his Knight rose from a real hero who lived a thousand years earlier in a period called the Dark Ages.
Recently discovered archeological evidence sheds light on his true identity."
Of course some people got Poed, even if it only requires basic knowledge to recognize that this is bogus.
So my sympathy is with GM Gaprindashvili. But despite my kowledge and understanding of legal matters being small I expect her to lose the law suit.
But we chassplayers can compensate her in another way: making a top five (or ten or whatever) of her wins against male opponents. I nominate her win over Romanishin in Göteborg 1971 (WCh Spassky, who won the tournament, drew) because of 36...g5!
An Australian biographical miniseries portrayed both Billy Sing and his Chinese father as only white.
You wrote that there's no 'explicit falsehood'.
[DM: Sorry - I didn't mean to associate that part of the story with the "no explicit falsehood" dictum. I was applying that to their ignoring issues of racism in his life story, as I understood your account. I believe this clarification should address the remaining points in this comment.]
Billy Sing was half-white. Barack Obama is half-white.
Should it be acceptable for a biopic of Barack Obama to portray him as only white?
Billy Sing's father had no white ancestry. Tiger Woods's father had some white ancestry.
Should it be acceptable for a biopic of Tiger Woods to portray his father as only white?
'Glory to the Queen' is a 2020 documentary about four top Georgian women players:
Nona Gaprindashvili, Maia Chiburdanidze, Nana Alexandria, Nana Ioseliani.
In 1978, Chiburdanidze became women's world champion by winning a match with Gaprindashvili.
In 1981, Alexandria drew a match with Chiburdanidze, who retained her world championship title.
In 1988, Ioseliani lost a close match with Chiburdanidze.