I saw Battle of the Sexes this weekend. Damn good movie. About half of it was a lesbian love story. But there were no boobs so I can't give it 3 thumbs up. Emma Stone was good but Steve carell was spot on as Bobby Riggs and he stole the movie. Yeah I'm just old enough to remember Riggs. Interestingly they used the real Howard Cosell. I mean Carell and Stone did admiralble jobs of portraying their characters, but nobody could ever pull off Cosell except Cosell. So good choice. I have a thing for Sarah Silverman so I was happy to see her in the movie. Surprisingly she played a self professed Jew pretty well.
Overall the movie did a great job of telling the story from that time period and making it resonate with today's issue of equal pay for female athletes. Think US women's soccer, or just recently when Martina Navratilova found out she was making less than John McEnroe for.commentating.
The only flaw other than no nudity was actually pretty glaring and it went the heart of the mythic quality of the event. The problem with myths is of course the truth, the humdrum reality. I've often said there will never be a new religion now that we have cell phones. Just imagine a myth maker saying that Mohammed had ascended into the sky on his horse, only to have some smartass say, "No he didnt; he had a heart attack and fell off. I've already snap chatted it. " Here's the reality of that match: Riggs threw it. He had to pay off Santo Traffiante and Carlos Marcello, two of the biggest names in mafia history. ESPN had reported this in 2013. And the movie portrayed Riggs as an out of control gambler and hustler who was willing to bet on anything. So why did the makers of this movie gloss over this? The answer is obvious. They didn't want the truth. They wanted myth. Oh and the myth of that lesbian love storry soundracked to "Crimson and Clover"? It ended in real life as do most relationships: in litigation.
The reality was that the match was a 1970s circus, like Evel Knievel, addressing important social in cartoon fashion with Howard Cosell as the carnival Barker. It was a show. Billie Jean King became a heroine. But Bobby took the money ran. The movie was good myth, though.