Stop and Think Next Time, Netflix
Queen’s Gambit Review
Watching and enjoying television shows and movies has made life in quarantine, for me, worth living. Here are some of the things I have seen, would recommend, and love to talk about. My first choice is the Queen’s Gambit, a rollercoaster of emotions, challenges and wardrobe. After a quick google search and to my disappointment but not surprise, I discovered it was written and directed by white men, and suddenly my mind wandered to the missing pieces, the polished edges that I yearned so much for. The show, although fantastic as evidenced by my recommendation, fell short.
The relationship between Beth and Jolene was my favorite part of the story, but it was an interesting lesson that she becomes a radical and then shortafter intends on marrying a rich white man saying “fuck them if they can’t take a joke.” Jolene seemed to be our historical marker, in the beginning she experienced racism, but at the end she is above that and even now being catered to by a white guy. It creates a sort of strange full-circle of surface level acknowledgement of “history” while saying nothing about what was really going on. There is an understanding of discrimination and oppression brought up in the first episode and not referenced until the last. Beth had her own white-feminist issues to worry about, but that also, by the finale seemed to become all-but irrelevant.
The nerdy men doubted her but there was nothing they could do to stop her as long as she had money to enter tournaments. The oppression faced by Beth and Jolene is profoundly different. Beth is welcomed into the chess world while Jolene is objectified in her Law office. I suppose what I am most upset by is one of the final scenes with Beth and Jolene in Jolene’s gorgeous new car (given by the white Lawyer courting her). Jolene goes on about how she wants to change the world and she can’t do that as a paralegal. Beth sits quietly with a knowing smile on her face with no intention of helping. She will continue to be a Chess champion and that is fine because she is a white woman and feels no responsibility toward the movement.
I’m starting to feel neo-liberal ranting now and I want to make clear that the show was amazing, I just think they should have left the issue out, or fully integrated it so it did not feel so out of place to suddenly acknowledge the Civil Rights Movement. I hate the feeling that Netflix executives and producers are watching the news and public opinion polls and following closely along to decide what to include or exclude. Rich people insulated from the real events of the world just using our struggle for attention and acclaim. I want art that is Organic and True, not with pandering scenes to cover the ass of White Male Production.