(Los Angeles) A Los Angeles judge has ruled admissible the lawsuit filed against Netflix by Georgian Nona Gaprindashvili, legend of Soviet chess who accuses the platform of having sexistly denigrated her in her hit series The Queen’s Gambit (The lady’s game).
Posted at 1:53 p.m.
The Georgian champion is claiming $5 million from Netflix in damages.
In the series, a character claims that the Georgian champion “has never faced men” in competition, unlike the fictional heroine of The Queen’s Gambitthe American Beth Harmon played by Anya Taylor-Joy.
This allegation against M.me Gaprindashvili “is manifestly false, as well as grossly sexist and denigrating”, specifies the complaint filed last September by the champion, now 80 years old.
The complaint recalls that Mr.me Gaprindashvili, who in 1978 became the first female chess grandmaster in history, had already faced dozens of leading male players in 1968, when The Queen’s Gambit is supposed to take place.
Netflix had denied having wanted to offend the champion and assured in a press release that it had “the greatest respect for Mme Gaprindashvili and his illustrious career”.
The platform, however, at the time deemed this complaint to be without “any basis”, arguing that it is a work of fiction protected by the American Constitution and its first amendment which guarantees freedom of expression.
In a decision handed down Thursday, California Judge Virginia Phillips ruled that a work of fiction was not immune from lawsuits for defamation if it harmed real people.
Born in 1941 in Zugdidi, western Georgia, Nona Gaprindashvili has been playing chess since the age of 13.
She won the Women’s World Championship aged 20 and successfully defended her title four times, before losing her crown in 1978 to another 17-year-old Georgian, Maia Tchibourdanidze.
During its broadcast, The Queen’s Gambit had broken records with 62 million views worldwide in the space of four weeks and won eleven Emmy Awards.