“BATTLE OF THE SEXES” AND ATHLETES WHO TAKE A KNEE
The film takes us back to the 1970s, when King leaves the International Lawn Tennis Federation in protest of the gender wage gap that paid men more than women, citing the fact that both sexes generated equal ticket sales. The tennis star moves on to found the Women’s Tennis Association, but at a cost – she was ineligible to play in certain tournaments once she left the ILTF. Taking advantage of the media attention surrounding King, former men’s number 1 Bobby Riggs (played by Steve Carrell), a self-proclaimed chauvinist who claimed female tennis players were by definition inferior at the sport decided to challenge the 29-year-old women’s all-star Billie Jean King to the infamously dubbed the Battle of the Sexes match.
The nationally televised prime-time match was a spectacle. The stakes may have been monetary for Riggs, but King was playing for an entire gender. The most frustrating part about it is, 44 years later, the sentiment doesn’t feel antiquated.
I had the chance to sit down with the directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton and actress Andrea Riseborough, who plays King’s first girlfriend/lover/love interest Marilyn. As Faris points out:
In your own realm, in the realm that you work in, that’s where you can make a difference. You can’t back and let other people do the work for you. I think (King) is a great example of somebody who had cache in her profession and she used it to make change.
This article originally appeared on KFOG.com on September 25, 2017