Welcome to Anatomy of a Queer Intercourse Scene, a collection by Drew Burnett Gregory and Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya about queer intercourse scenes in movie. This week, Kayla is up speaking about 2017’s Battle of the Sexes, starring Emma Stone as tennis icon Billie Jean King.
After I say I want the film Battle of the Sexes have been, nicely, sexier, I’m speaking in regards to the tennis, not the intercourse.
And, okay, not sexier precisely. I perceive why co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris would keep away from over-sexualizing a movie in regards to the girls combating for his or her house in skilled tennis, girls who find yourself being sexualized, belittled, and dismissed by the lads round them. What I actually imply is I want there have been extra eroticism within the movie, particularly in terms of the tennis. The form of erotics Melissa Febos writes about in her essay on watching WNBA video games. The form of erotics current in the very best tennis movie ever made, Challengers.
Battle of the Sexes and Challengers are very totally different movies, however they share the essential idea of a tennis love triangle. In each, two characters are in love with the identical girl, and that girl loves tennis greater than she may ever love both of them. In Challengers, Tashi Duncan has all the facility. In Battle of the Sexes, real-life tennis legend Billie Jean King, performed by Emma Stone, does. Then there’s her husband, Larry, which the movie fortunately by no means positions as a foul man however somewhat one simply saddened when he realizes he can’t be what his spouse wants or desires. And there’s Marilyn, hairdresser-turned-lover, the primary particular person to ask Billie Jean into her personal queerness as the 2 start an affair whereas on the match highway.
Battle of the Sexes is kind of a conventional sports activities movie, so the truth that it’s centered on an overtly queer tennis participant and doesn’t gloss over or decrease that a part of her life is a welcome shock. Sports activities movies are sometimes heteronormative; sports activities are, too. Billie Jean King fought onerous for girls in sports activities, and the movie celebrates her feminism with out obscuring her queerness. That’s no small factor.
However whereas the movie is suffused with intimacy and alluring visuals all through, that goes away the second somebody picks up a tennis racquet. Tennis within the movie is lifeless, uninteresting, lacks any of the urgency and forcefulness of the scenes when Billie Jean is off the courtroom advocating for her proper to play. Stone is nice casting in these different scenes. On the courtroom, she’s much less convincing. There’s one thing lacking. Billie Jean was a power on the courtroom and off it, however Battle of the Sexes doesn’t fairly harness the previous even because it succeeds with the latter. It’s troublesome, after all to precisely seize sports activities in movie. Do the actors’ actions in Challengers all the time look precisely like actual gamers? No. However the place they lack in approach, they greater than make up for in vitality and spirit, the electrical energy and erotics of tennis leaping off the display screen. Battle of the Sexes falters within the sports activities a part of the sports activities film.
I’m alleged to be writing in regards to the intercourse scene although, not the tennis scenes. However as Tashi Duncan places it, tennis is a relationship. Challengers deftly reveals tennis is about a lot greater than the sport itself. Seeing it in IMAX, I may virtually really feel the gamers sweat on me in its ultimate minutes. That’s sizzling.
And sure, the true life “Battle of the Sexes” match between Riggs vs. King was steeped in pageantry and theatrics, and the movie does seize that. But it surely wasn’t just a few goofy spectacle. It was a actual tennis match. Billie Jean confirmed up and handled it as such, and he or she gained in straight units. Whether or not you understand the true story or not, you understand what’s going to occur within the match earlier than it begins, however that’s not what makes the movie’s ultimate act boring. It’s that lack of erotics, that lack of treating the sport itself as if it have been simply as compelling because the battle and context round it.
In an identical method, the intercourse scene in Battle of the Sexes doesn’t thrum with the identical electrical energy because the haircutting scenes. The movie is bookended by two cases of Marilyn reducing Billie Jean’s hair, first after they meet and the chemistry crackles immediately, and once more proper earlier than the large match. Right here, haircutting turns into not solely a type of intimacy between the ladies but in addition a metaphor for Billie Jean King coming into herself and taking extra management of her picture and profession whereas others try to remove her energy. Marilyn helps Billie Jean develop into her truest self. However Marilyn’s fingers in Billie Jean’s hair don’t simply signify closeness and intimacy; it’s sizzling. It’s erotic.
The intercourse scene itself is okay. The very fact it’s included in any respect in this type of movie does really feel like a feat in and of itself, so I don’t really feel compelled to complain. The digital camera stays near their faces, successfully speaking simply how transcendent that is for Billie Jean, whose pleasure is palpable. They’re interrupted earlier than a lot occurs.
However as a lot as I do get pleasure from {that a} sports activities film has a candy lesbian love story tucked inside it, I can also’t assist however consider the sugarcoating required of this telling of Billie Jean and Marilyn’s story, which in actuality was fairly fraught and tragic. Their actual life dynamics are maybe too complicated for this type of film to sort out with out making it a predominant focus, however there’s part of me who wonders if Battle of the Sexes may have gone from good film to nice by being a bit extra biting, a bit extra gritty in its portrayal of each this relationship but in addition the game of tennis itself.
The movie opens with Billie Jean taking part in tennis, shot in low body price in order that her actions are blurred and uneven. In some methods, it’s an attention-grabbing aesthetic selection. But it surely’s nearly like we’re not given a possibility to actually see her in motion, to let our eyes absolutely deal with her actions. It’s a softening of the game of tennis. Not each tennis film will be like Challengers, and tennis has modified loads because the 70s when Battle of the Sexes is ready. However I promise you tennis is loads hotter and tougher than it’s made to look in Battle of the Sexes, and the movie finds surprising locations to supercharge with erotics and chemistry, like in a hair salon, so it’s disgrace it doesn’t match that on the courtroom.
