One really good way to draw attention to your blog is to write about popular television shows or movies two years after they were released. So today, I’m writing about The Queen’s Gambit (2020).
And as usual, this entry is almost entirely made of spoilers.
The Queen’s Gambit was a runaway surprise success for Netflix in 2020. I have just learned from Wikipedia that it was the network’s most-watched miniseries and that it topped Nielson’s Streaming Ratings for three straight weeks. In it’s first four weeks, it was viewed in sixty-two million households.
The series is beautifully directed and acted, and the period clothing and sets are perfect.
The story, however, is odd. It follows the protagonist, Beth Harmon, on her journey to world chess domination. It opens with the death of Beth’s brilliant but unstable mother and her entrance into an orphanage. This is certainly an inauspicious beginning, and there are many subsequent points where her story could vere into tragedy. At every point where complications appear to threaten her ascent, however, they simply fail to materialize.
Beth learns chess when sneaking into the basement of the orphanage and seeing the janitor, Mr. Shaibel, studying a board. This raises, as the kids say, all sorts of red flags. However, Mr. Shaibel proves to be capable, if somewhat gruff, teacher and, after showing her what he knows, introduces her to Mr. Ganz, a high school teacher who runs a chess club. When she plays and easily beats, Mr. Ganz: one could imagine him flying into a rage about losing to a young girl and doing everything in his power to make sure that she never gets near his chess club (this is, after all, the misogynist 1950s). But, he too only wants to help her, and arranges a demonstration where she defeats all of the players in the club.
When Beth is finally adopted, she is initially unable to pursue her interest in chess, but these obstacles quickly vanish. She secretly enters and wins a chess tournament, and her new mother decides to manage her career, allowing her to skip school, taking her to tournaments and generally giving her absolute freedom to do whatever she wants. When her mother is no longer necessary, she simply dies. Her father, who abandoned the family earlier, allows Beth to keep the house (although she does have to buy it from him later), giving her absolute freedom.
During her rise, Beth defeats two prominent American players, Harry Beltik and Benny Watts, the Kentucky State champion and the United States national champion respectively. Rather than trying to raise their own games to compete with her, however, they are transformed into advisors and advocates, coaching her to achieve her full potential.
Many commentators have noticed the near-absence of sexism in the film, especially remarkable given its setting, as well as Beth’s strange good luck. In The New York Times Magazine, for example, Carina Chocano defines the film as a “fantasy”: a “story of affirmation: a world in which a girl can move freely, in control, and be respected for her strategy and skill; in which a female character succeeds in a man’s world without being harassed, assaulted, abused, ignored, dismissed, sidelined, robbed or forgotten.” Beth is “a rock star,” and “the rules are different for her.”
While I agree with this assessment, there’s still something off-putting about Beth’s narrative. She is, always, supremely lucky. What are the odds that a young girl with a preternatural talent for chess would end up at an orphanage with a janitor who is a serious amateur player? And then, what are the odds that the local high school would have such a robust chess club? When she is first living with her adoptive parents and has lost access to chess, what are the odds that her mother will decide to devote herself to Beth’s career once she recognizes her talent? For that matter, what are the odds the local magazine store near her house would happen to carry a chess magazine—a niche publication if there ever was one!—at the point where Beth needs to expand her horizons? And what are the odds that the first tournament she finds will be in easy commuting distance?
Of course, literature and film is under no obligation to be realistic, but this general luckiness seems to go beyond narrative convenience. At every point in her story, the right person materializes to help her reach the next plateau.
So, the question is, what kind of story are we watching?
A useful concept to introduce at this point might be “ambient TV”: this describes programs that are “designed to fill time and not much else — they bemuse your eye and your brain just enough to provide distraction.” Such narrative is akin to elevator music: beautiful images and a mildly distracting narrative that one can loosely follow while doing other things. The defining example of the concept is Emily in Paris.
Comparing these two series is, of course, unfair, but it is possible to argue that they exist on a spectrum. The volume on the drama in The Queen’s Gambit is definitely turned down. There is no antagonist: Beth is focused on defeating Vasily Borgov, the world champion, but he is himself a great chess player who respects her abilities. She is addicted to tranquilizers and drinks too much, and, as much as anything, her quest for sobriety could define the series. However, except for one crucial game, the drugs seem to actually help her play, and she manages to clean up fairly easily once she acknowledges her problem. Even the life lessons she needs to learn are muted: to appreciate the people who are helping her and to take time to play chess with the old Russian men who welcomed her so warmly. Rarely does the action distract from the décor.
I wonder if this softened quality is one of the reasons for its popularity—that the level of action fits the current zeitgeist. At this moment, it seems that the actual world is nothing but constant drama. Maybe quieter narratives that emphasize cooperation over conflict are what we want now.
But is there possibly more to it than this? The Queen’s Gambit is based on a novel (1983) by Walter Tevis. I have not read him, but learned that he also wrote The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963), which was famously made into a film (starring David Bowie!) by Nicolas Roeg in 1976. That film has been read as an allegory of the gnostic fall, in which the protagonist, a traveller from another world, is seduced by the pleasures and distractions of physical existence, losing his higher sense of self and becoming imprisoned in the realm of material reality. (There is way too much information to pick apart at the end of a blog post, but you can listen to a sustained explication of these ideas here).
Is something similar happening in The Queen’s Gambit, but only in reverse? Does Beth go through stages of initiation to achieve some kind of illumination?
This would be great to know.
Travel Only By Night 