Battle of the Sexes

Thanks to Stonewall we will be giving away rainbow laces after the event. Be out and proud in sport! 

A documentary about the historic 1973 court face-off between Billie Jean King, the No.1 female tennis player of her day, and Bobby Riggs, a one-time Grand Slam champion, now an opportunistic has-been and self-promoting male chauvinist.

A  first class production that weaves together social and sports history with psychological drama in an entertaining package that has a lot of fun with cheesy images of the 1960s ad-man’s idea of female fulfillment before the bra-burning feminist movement changed all that.

The film's focus is the iconic match between King and Riggs, a confrontation that in the heady 70s was a symbolic deal-maker, not just for women’s tennis but for women in general. In those days of radical social confrontation, Riggs’s canny stunt was to throw down the challenge that he, an over-the-hill 55 year old could beat the best that the current female tennis playing sorority could throw at him. Underpinning this was the more generalized implication that when it came to the crunch, any man was stronger/tougher/better that any woman.