First Female Chess Grandmaster Sues Netflix for ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Insult | Hacker News Reader

First Female Chess Grandmaster Sues Netflix for ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Insult

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40 pointstomohawk28 comments

I feel the NYT article on this [1] has more info on the subject; it also includes the following:

> The lawsuit notes that the line in the series saying that Ms. Gaprindashvili had never faced men had been changed from the book it was based on, and quotes this passage from the original novel: “There was Nona Gaprindashvili, not up to the level of this tournament, but a player who had met all these Russian Grandmasters many times before.”

This makes me think that the omission on Netflix's part was very much intentional. I guess they thought nobody would bat an eye? It's not like this is secret info either, you can readily find her matches against men on chessgames.com...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/16/arts/television/queens-ga...

> In response, Netflix released a statement which read, “Netflix has only the utmost respect for Ms. Gaprindashvili and her illustrious career, but we believe this claim has no merit and will vigorously defend the case.”

Netflix could have done better with this one. Instead of “vigorously defend the case” they should have settled and publicly apologized to Ms. Gaprindashvili for this insult.

Let the courts find out who's right in this case.

Why? Why can’t big companies just apologize and try to make things right? Why do they always need to gaslight and deny and drag it out? Why does this need to be a whole big thing involving the court system and years and years of effort and thousands and thousands of dollars?

The show fucked up. Maybe legally, maybe not. But there’s no denying the show could have just as easily left the entire line out or used a fake name. And I think any reasonable person can understand how Gaprindashvili must feel having had one of her greatest accomplishments erased on the world stage.

So why can’t anyone at Netflix understand?

Netflix messed up. Make it right and move on. Fighting this in court is stupid and it’s a terrible look for Netflix.

Perhaps because they don't want to encourage everyone who thinks they were misrepresented in drama or documentary to try their luck. I mean, imagine what would happen if the British Royal Family decided to kick up a stink about misrepresentations in The Crown, of which there are very many.

Better yet, they could make a series about civil rights, star a fictional character and then talk about how MLK and Rosa parks never got arrested for dramatic effect.

Why on earth would an artist apologize for insulting someone in a work of fiction, even if that fictional work was inspired by real events? Imagine all the apologies that would be required if every historical portrayal needed to apologize for not being accurate to the underlying events in some aspects? It would be the end of historical fiction, particularly in our current era of tender feelings. Netflix does not owe anyone an apology here.

So why do we have libel laws?

The show features a fictional character named Beth Harmon, so I'm not really sure libel law would apply here.

Because in the fictional show, they lied about a real (non-fictional) person.

Is a fictional lie really a lie? After all, it’s not intended to be taken as true in the first place.

We certainly do not have libel laws to prevent people from being offended by art.

So you think we should have libel laws but "Art" should be exempt?

Yes, all fiction should be exempt and public figures should be almost entirely exempt -- Wait! that's the law right now. Please don't invent your own fantasy version of libel law. Well, you can, of course, but don't expect success in the courts.

If that were true then the suit will be dismissed in court. But from literally the first google search of 'is fiction exempt from libel'.

> Even if the work contains a disclaimer stating that it’s fictional, a libel claim can still arise. However, plaintiffs must clear certain hurdles. In order to state an actionable claim for defamation, a plaintiff must show: publication, defamatory meaning, false statement, identification and damages. In libel suits arising out of fiction, arguably the toughest hurdle for plaintiffs to clear is the identification, or “it’s me” requirement.

https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center....

Do you think Netflix is going to claim they were referring to a different female chess world champion with the same name?

I am glad that you finally understand -- or at least its beginning to dawn on you -- that this is a transparent attempt at a shakedown with no legal merit.

Netflix will not lose this case. But the purpose of the case is to threaten Netflix with bad publicity not with legal damages -- after all a woman was offended! She was exploited by Big Bad Netflix!

And already there are lots of people cheering her on as some kind of victim and all that's happened so far was that the paperwork for the suit has been filed and of course an immediate press release was sent out and ant-netflix reporters were recruited to begin writing hitpieces on Netflix.

The case may well be dismissed, and if it's not dismissed, it has virtually no chance of succeeding. But that may be a while from now, and in the meantime Netflix is suffering bad PR. I'm sure it can all go away for the right payment, though.

> I am glad that you finally understand -- or at least its beginning to dawn on you -- that this is a transparent attempt at a shakedown with no legal merit.

She & her legacy as the first female grandmaster were defamed to hundreds of millions of people for a throw-away line. That is real damages. The studio should have known better when they made that change to the script and they should have settled before it went to the media. I'm surprised they didn't given Reed's politics.

Maybe because the artist felt like the statement the artist was making was less important than being shown to be a dick?

If the artist feels that the statement is more important, by all means they refuse.

How do you know what's right and what's wrong? Educate us, the ignorant, how to see the truth without messing with courts, discovery and evidence.

Edit: there's a legend that long time ago everyone had an eye of wisdom, called enochion, that allowed to see reality as it is; but that was in the pre-flood era and today we only see deceptive mirages and shadows.

It's a work of historical fiction that fictionalized history in order to tell a fictional story about a fictional character. Not a documentary. Like Netflix says, the case has no merit. they're not saying her feelings have no merit or that they didn't say what they said, just that the lawsuit has no merit and they have a legal right to say what they said.

It's an extremely dangerous precedent to set that anyone offended by fiction can sue the artist and win. that precedent would also have the inverse effect that an independent author could write a piece of fiction where Netflix lost to Blockbuster and went bankrupt then Netflix sues that author for offending and misrepresenting the company's history.

Sure, and then thousands of people pop up who's life story mysteriously matches the plot of some Netflix original. Hey, you settled with the chess grandmaster, why not me who's life exactly matches a character in some other show?

Let's not forget that movie companies are inundated with these frivolous cases, often people who suffer from mental health disorders. Infamously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Noid

They used her name explicitly, and claimed something that was not true. This isn't "my life exactly matches this character, except for the name, and a bunch of other details". This is a direct reference, by name, to a chess champion, that misrepresents her accomplishments.

Nobody would have said anything if, within the fictional universe, they didn't use the name of an existing champion.

  “She was not an important player by their standards; the only unusual thing about her was her sex, and even that wasn’t unique in Russia. There was Nona Gaprindashvili, not up to the level of this tournament, but a player who had met all these Russian grandmasters many times before. ”
  
  Excerpt From
  The Queen's Gambit
  Walter Tevis
  This material may be protected by copyright.

Looks like Netflix changed the description of Nona from how she was depicted in the book.

Nona Gaprindashvili was the women's world champion for 16 years (!), and is a legend in the chess world.

Her best tournament results seem to be equal 1st at Lone Pine 1977[0], and equal 2nd at Sandomierz 1976[1] and Dortmund 1978[2].

[0] https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=80958

[1] https://www.365chess.com/tournaments/Vitrobud_op_1976/24138

[2] https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=49490

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nona_Gaprindashvili

Maybe link to some other site? Just got blasted in the face with a giant chunk of anti-vax propaganda from that.

At least she wasn't insulted using her own tax dollars! [0]

[0] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/cbc-apologizes...

Good on her.

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