Queen's Gambit on Netflix2
Nov. 23rd, 2020 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydy"Queen's Gambit" is a 7 part series on Netflix about Beth Harmon, who is a hot mess but really really good at chess. It is set in the mid-Sixties, and most chess people seem to think that the chess is pretty good. I have declared bankruptcy when it comes to chess. I might remember which pieces move how, but I can't even remember how to castle. So, yeah, I cannot critique the chess. The actress who plays Beth is really, really good, and that is probably the biggest strength of the show. One of the things I actually liked a lot is that Beth's emotional landscape is sufficiently alien that it seems incomprehensible, to me. It is consistent and coherent, but not emotionally accessible. And I really liked that. I'm pretty neurotypical, and most non-neurotypical representation spends a lot of time trying to explain and explicate. Beth just Is who she is. There is a ton of stuff to like in this show, and I liked it quite a bit. In the end, though, I have some very serious problems with it. In my opinion, it had some extremely important failures.
I want to start with Jolene. I really liked Jolene when she was first introduced. Sassy, angry, not interested in accepting the power structure she was living in. I mean, yes, please. Also, a black girl, good, thank you, not an all white cast. Except. Jolene is the only person of color in the entire show. And Jolene ends up being a stereotypical sassy black girl and magical negro.
Jolen has been living at Methuen House for some significant period of time when Beth gets there. Jolene looks to be a bit older, but since Beth is adopted at the age of 15, and Jolene has not yet aged out of the orphanage, she cannot be more than 3 years older than Beth. Which puts her upper age at the time that Beth meets her at 12. So how is it that Jolene is so street savvy? Where does she get her information about drugs and sex? I can only conclude that of course Jolene knows these things because she is black. Which, honestly, is very very gross. Jolene exists in the narrative entirely to support Beth's arc. She vanishes from the story when Beth is adopted, and then reappears to dig Beth out of her hole of drugs and drink. In the mean time, she's acquired a wonderfull 'fro (always loved that hair style), an education, a car, and a white boyfriend. How any of this happened is a mystery. Indeed, Jolene remains a a tool of the narrative, and not a person. And this was, honestly, not necessary. I get that time is precious in drama, and that this is Beth's story, but if they had cut any 5 minutes of Beth's drug use, and done quick shots of Jolene doing things, or maybe established a correspondence between Beth and Jolene (where Beth was forever not answering Jolene's letters, probably) they could totally have gotten away from this stupid magical negro trope. It was lazy, and weakened the story. There was so little sense of family between Beth and Jolene, that Jolene coming back and loaning Beth a huge amount of money never felt authentic, just kind of syrupy heartwarming, like a cheesy Hallmark card.
I have mixed feelings about the lack of gendered bullying at the chess tournaments. This is set very solidly in a time and place, and that time and place was spectacularly sexist. It seems literally impossible that Beth was not treated to various insults, and we see none of it. In a way, I'm kind of grateful not to have to deal with it. But at the same time, it's absence seems counterfactual at very best. I can absolutely see that Beth might be the sort of person who simply failed to register much less engage with various chess experts insisting that the female brain cannot manage chess, failing to register gendered insults. Thing is, that kind of obliviousness comes at a cost. And we don't see that, either. There is one mention of how she's irritated that the Life magazine article was more interested in her gender than her chess, but that's pretty much it.
This plays into my larger problem with the way they fail to engage with the theme of the damage sexism does. We see the trappings of it. It's clear that Alma (her adopted mother) has suffered from it. But that theme is not developed, and we get at least as much about Alma's stage-fright as a reason why she was trapped as we do about the huge sexism that she would have been subjected to. One can guess that her birth-mother, Alice, was also oppressed and damaged by trying to do serious math while girl, but that is never explicated. Beth, herself, experiences almost no impediments based on her gender. They passed up, for instance, a golden opportunity when she bought the house. In 1971, my ex-husband's mother was UNABLE TO BUY A CAR because neither her father nor her husband (who was committed for paranoid schizophrenia) could co-sign it. Getting the house in Beth's name was probably not just a doddle. What they have is the set-dressing of sexism, but they never do anything with it, and it is frustrating. The themes are alluded to, but they are not explored. They end up being set-dressing, and not part of the engine of the plot. They are extraneous, in a way that they could not be for any woman doing what Beth was doing at that time.
I have absolutely no problems with Beth's various ill-advised sexual exploits. I mean, seriously, let us all look away from my 20s, ok? I made a worse mess than Beth does. But she never really seems to engage with her choices, or doubt them. This is the fucking Sixties, man, and I am not talking about the free-love piece of it. I am talking about the suburban, repressed, up-tight piece of it which is where Beth lives. She was raised, for fuck's sake, in a Christian orphanage, and it seems impossible that this didn't give her at least someself-loathing and negative attitudes toward sex. And yet, we see nothing, there. No doubt, no curiosity, no worry. There is one mention of pregnancy, by Alma, and Beth refuses to engage on the topic. I gotta tell you, even with easy access to birth control (and Beth most assuredly did not have such access) pregnancy is a pretty constant worry for a sexually active woman. And, again, it is certainly possible to play it so that Beth just...doesn't engage with that shit. But there should still have been reaction shots, people who did have a problem with Beth's sexuality. The fact that the incredibly great denouement has Harry and Benny, both of who and fucked her and been fucked over by her, interacting with each other with absolutely no friction or tension between them....yeah. I do not believe that. And, again, it would have taken a 10 second scene between the two of them where they look at each other, bristle, and then decide the chess is more important. And it would have been nice to see Beth at least do a double-take when she wakes up with Chloe in her bed. Look, I am telling you, homosexuality was fucking invisible to people like Beth in that era.
In the end, although I really enjoyed it, it felt like a huge set of missed opportunities, and more like cotton candy than a substantive piece -- except for the chess which was evidently quite substantive. Unfortunately I don't know enough chess to appreciate that bit.
I have no problems with spoilers in the comments. This post should serve as a cut-tag for spoilers.
I want to start with Jolene. I really liked Jolene when she was first introduced. Sassy, angry, not interested in accepting the power structure she was living in. I mean, yes, please. Also, a black girl, good, thank you, not an all white cast. Except. Jolene is the only person of color in the entire show. And Jolene ends up being a stereotypical sassy black girl and magical negro.
Jolen has been living at Methuen House for some significant period of time when Beth gets there. Jolene looks to be a bit older, but since Beth is adopted at the age of 15, and Jolene has not yet aged out of the orphanage, she cannot be more than 3 years older than Beth. Which puts her upper age at the time that Beth meets her at 12. So how is it that Jolene is so street savvy? Where does she get her information about drugs and sex? I can only conclude that of course Jolene knows these things because she is black. Which, honestly, is very very gross. Jolene exists in the narrative entirely to support Beth's arc. She vanishes from the story when Beth is adopted, and then reappears to dig Beth out of her hole of drugs and drink. In the mean time, she's acquired a wonderfull 'fro (always loved that hair style), an education, a car, and a white boyfriend. How any of this happened is a mystery. Indeed, Jolene remains a a tool of the narrative, and not a person. And this was, honestly, not necessary. I get that time is precious in drama, and that this is Beth's story, but if they had cut any 5 minutes of Beth's drug use, and done quick shots of Jolene doing things, or maybe established a correspondence between Beth and Jolene (where Beth was forever not answering Jolene's letters, probably) they could totally have gotten away from this stupid magical negro trope. It was lazy, and weakened the story. There was so little sense of family between Beth and Jolene, that Jolene coming back and loaning Beth a huge amount of money never felt authentic, just kind of syrupy heartwarming, like a cheesy Hallmark card.
I have mixed feelings about the lack of gendered bullying at the chess tournaments. This is set very solidly in a time and place, and that time and place was spectacularly sexist. It seems literally impossible that Beth was not treated to various insults, and we see none of it. In a way, I'm kind of grateful not to have to deal with it. But at the same time, it's absence seems counterfactual at very best. I can absolutely see that Beth might be the sort of person who simply failed to register much less engage with various chess experts insisting that the female brain cannot manage chess, failing to register gendered insults. Thing is, that kind of obliviousness comes at a cost. And we don't see that, either. There is one mention of how she's irritated that the Life magazine article was more interested in her gender than her chess, but that's pretty much it.
This plays into my larger problem with the way they fail to engage with the theme of the damage sexism does. We see the trappings of it. It's clear that Alma (her adopted mother) has suffered from it. But that theme is not developed, and we get at least as much about Alma's stage-fright as a reason why she was trapped as we do about the huge sexism that she would have been subjected to. One can guess that her birth-mother, Alice, was also oppressed and damaged by trying to do serious math while girl, but that is never explicated. Beth, herself, experiences almost no impediments based on her gender. They passed up, for instance, a golden opportunity when she bought the house. In 1971, my ex-husband's mother was UNABLE TO BUY A CAR because neither her father nor her husband (who was committed for paranoid schizophrenia) could co-sign it. Getting the house in Beth's name was probably not just a doddle. What they have is the set-dressing of sexism, but they never do anything with it, and it is frustrating. The themes are alluded to, but they are not explored. They end up being set-dressing, and not part of the engine of the plot. They are extraneous, in a way that they could not be for any woman doing what Beth was doing at that time.
I have absolutely no problems with Beth's various ill-advised sexual exploits. I mean, seriously, let us all look away from my 20s, ok? I made a worse mess than Beth does. But she never really seems to engage with her choices, or doubt them. This is the fucking Sixties, man, and I am not talking about the free-love piece of it. I am talking about the suburban, repressed, up-tight piece of it which is where Beth lives. She was raised, for fuck's sake, in a Christian orphanage, and it seems impossible that this didn't give her at least someself-loathing and negative attitudes toward sex. And yet, we see nothing, there. No doubt, no curiosity, no worry. There is one mention of pregnancy, by Alma, and Beth refuses to engage on the topic. I gotta tell you, even with easy access to birth control (and Beth most assuredly did not have such access) pregnancy is a pretty constant worry for a sexually active woman. And, again, it is certainly possible to play it so that Beth just...doesn't engage with that shit. But there should still have been reaction shots, people who did have a problem with Beth's sexuality. The fact that the incredibly great denouement has Harry and Benny, both of who and fucked her and been fucked over by her, interacting with each other with absolutely no friction or tension between them....yeah. I do not believe that. And, again, it would have taken a 10 second scene between the two of them where they look at each other, bristle, and then decide the chess is more important. And it would have been nice to see Beth at least do a double-take when she wakes up with Chloe in her bed. Look, I am telling you, homosexuality was fucking invisible to people like Beth in that era.
In the end, although I really enjoyed it, it felt like a huge set of missed opportunities, and more like cotton candy than a substantive piece -- except for the chess which was evidently quite substantive. Unfortunately I don't know enough chess to appreciate that bit.
I have no problems with spoilers in the comments. This post should serve as a cut-tag for spoilers.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 07:51 pm (UTC)https://slate.com/culture/2020/11/queens-gambit-garry-kasparov-interview-netflix-chess-adviser.html
I haven't seen it yet, but my wife is interested so that moves it up a couple of ranks.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 09:25 pm (UTC)I used to direct scholastic tournaments and work at national level tournaments. I've met Kasparov, Karpov, and a lot of other big names. Karpov was much nicer than Kasparov, it was possible he was preoccupied or otherwise not having a good day, but he was rather a jerk that day.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-25 09:02 pm (UTC)I assume you know this, but just in case: Walter Tevis, who wrote The Queen's Gambit, also wrote The Man Who Fell to Earth. If I were inclined to generalize from two examples, drugs would definitely be part of that generalization.