Nona Gaprindashvili, pioneer and historical chess champion, has sued Netflix after observing that in a passage from ‘Lady’s Gambit’, Emmy-winning miniseries, is mentioned by name and it is stated that she had never faced men, when she had often done so.
Gambit and lawsuit
In the final episode of ‘Lady’s Gambit’, the prestigious Netflix miniseries, an announcer comments on a tournament in Moscow and states that the chess player had never faced men. The series is fiction, but there is a true chess champion named Nona Gaprindashvili, the first woman to be named a grandmaster.
Now 80 years old and living in Tbilisi, Georgia, he has been upset to find that the tv series had erased his hits against male opponents. A 1968 headline in The New York Times, for example, read: “Chess: Miss Gaprindashvili Beats 7 Men in Prestigious Tournament.”
Last week, Gaprindashvili filed a lawsuit against Netflix in Federal District Court in Los Angeles, seeking $ 5 million in damages for what the lawsuit claims is a “devastating falsehood, which undermines and degrades his accomplishments before an audience of millions of viewers” and asking for the line above her to be removed in which they assure that they did not compete against men.
As the 25-page complaint details, Nona Gaprindashvili played against many highly rated male champions throughout her career. The lawsuit claims that the line that she “had never faced men” caused professional harm to Ms. Gaprindashvili, who continue to compete in high-level chess tournaments, and notes that ‘Lady’s Gambit’ was seen in more than 62 million homes in the first month of broadcast.
The lawsuit alleges that Netflix blatantly and deliberately lied about Gaprindashvili’s accomplishments with the cynical purpose of enhancing the drama by making it appear that her fictional character had managed to do what no other woman, including Gaprindashvili, had done before. Based on the 1983 novel by Walter Tevis, the series won two Golden Globes earlier this year and has garnered 11 Emmy Awards. In addition there are plans to adapt it into a musical and just as Ms. Gaprindashvili has been doing for years through her play and example, the series has inspired more women to start playing chess, while at the same time renewing concerns about sexism in the game.