MovieChat Forums > The Queen's Gambit (2020) Discussion > Excellent Show - New era of post SJW fem...

Excellent Show - New era of post SJW feminist drama?


This is great thus far (currently about four episodes in).

There's something different about this show though. If you read a synopsis you might think - here we go again, yet another tale of a strong woman overcoming a male dominated world. But it really doesn't play out like that at all (so far anyway!).

There's even a great scene where her adoptive mother is reading out a very feminine perspective article which was written about her for a magazine and she's annoyed, saying something like - "What difference does it make whether I'm a girl, what does it matter? Why can't it just be about me being good at chess?"

It's quite refreshing. There isn't even any real - you're a girl, you can't play chess! - moments from her male opponents, which is almost shocking given how that would have been ham-fisted in by the majority of screenwriters these days.

This might be a dawning light for the path entertainment hopefully takes...

Plus - The chess itself is good! They make a proper stab at doing it right rather than just using it as the usual paper thin plot metaphor.

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That sounds promising, but I'd be careful. The creator's previous work was a feminist western series for Netflix with the usual "females are strong and independent badasses, white males are pathetic rapists!".

Since this kind of anti-white male propaganda is getting more and more backlash, companies are trying to cover it. A very common tactic is to start a series with barely any woke propaganda... and once you got the audience invested in the show, then you start to push woke propaganda down the throat during the second half of the first season or during the second season.

As I said, I'd be careful.

Best case scenario, if the first season is free from propaganda because they won't put it until the second season, at least you can enjoy that season and dismiss the rest.

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It's not free but it's done in a proper and non-annoying way.

The propaganda is limited to mostly presenting the actual fact that women were not well received in that environment in that era but the inertia was not that big. The males were mostly surprised to see a good female chess player than outright denying her to play. Plus: they accepted her as a peer quite easily once she proved her self.

And as she grew famous she was still a curiosity but not in a very bad way. There were still jabs at "a woman should rather stay home and know her place" but I would say normal for that era -the 60s.

But beside that an excellent show, whatever propaganda might be in it can be overlooked for the overall feeling. Plus: she is not the regular SJW Mary Sue and she is growing and learning through the show, in all aspects of life, plus she does a lot of "mistakes" and is far from perfect.

There will not be a second season, the story is done. And in a very satisfying way.

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Ok, good to hear that. I'm gonna watch it. I really miss shows that weren't filled with propaganda.

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Hey could you say “propaganda” again?

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If you look for propaganda everywhere, you will find it.
At least spare us from your tiresome bias.

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It's true that I use to be aware of propaganda. That's a consequence of living in a woke age.

That does not mean that I should find it everywhere. In modern Anime, for example, I find sometimes ideological propaganda in a few cases cases. But I can say that most modern Anime can be considered propaganda-free.

That's not the case in modern western media.

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Also, Walter Tevis, the author of the novel that is the source material for the show, died a long time ago. So, in order to create a second season, the writer and director would have to come up with something made out of whole cloth. Not saying it won't be done, given the show's popularity, but shows of that kind typically don't live up to the original.

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I'm sure there will be a sequel. It did too well not to.

In the sequel she wins the championship, then loses it and falls into despair and back on the pills, then has to train in the wilds of Russia (think Rocky IV) with the Russian kid prodigy to make a new run against the surprise American champion (pseudo Bobby Fisher recluse type).

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I'm not familiar with the work, but this sounds almost like parody. Without any context, I would think this is reductio ad absurdum or argumentum ad absurdum: "females are strong and independent badasses, white males are pathetic rapists!"

In other words, taking such an extreme position to prove the general idea of the position is stupid.

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Imagine thinking tv is out to get you. Could never be me.

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Seems as if you have already decided to dislike the series. There is no second season. It is based upon a novel and adheres very closely to it.

This is television, not a minefield. Your posturing is juvenile at best. Hahaha.

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Are you talking about Godless? I didn't think Godless was all that feminist, actually. I don't know how to put spoiler covers on text here so I won't say more, but I felt the feminism was just a patina over a much more interesting story underneath.

Agree with what you say though about many shows saving the propaganda until the audience is invested. It gets a bit old and blah.

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Ok, I've now finished the series and think it would be fair to slightly retract the OP.

Everything still stands with the exception of the first 10/15 mins of the final episode. Still, a very small percentage of the show overall, and can be swallowed / ignored but nonetheless a shame they felt obliged to include it...

Great show though with a really beautiful finish.

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i'm a bit befuddled by your original comment that you didn't want some women are badass bullshit, when in fact that is precisely how it ends...She beats the dominate white male grand champion... which of course was total bullshit as no woman has ever won the world championship in chess, so this was yet again another women can do anything movie which ignored the reality of chess, which is pretty much stratified into a womens and mens breakdown just like golf or tennis where the reality is women just don't ever seem to be as good as the best men. Though I guess most people unfamiliar with chess would realize that chess is really another sport where gender seems to pop up and show a difference exist between the sexes.

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Allow me to help you with your state of befuddlement.

The first thing you appear to have missed was title which mentioned post SJW feminism. So while there was no claim it didn't have any feminist angle (if having a female protagonist in itself is enough for that), I was just shocked at the lack of ham-fistedness about it.

Your chess comments also shouldn't be causing you too much concern. She beat the male champion yes but this wasn't the world championships itself (although it was obviously dramatised as a passing of the torch). A massive unreality though?

I'm not so sure. Judit Polgar was a top ten ranked player in her day and capable of beating any male player which she did, Kasparov included. So, although it may have been a push to consider this happening when the book itself was written, to discount this as a possibility now seems slightly disingenuous.

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Polgar wasn't even born until the mid 70's, in the times of the movie women were not as strong in chess as the movie made her out to be.

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Yes, that's why I said "may have been a push to consider this happening when the book itself was written".

When Polgar was born is irrelevant. Point is, that as an outlier, her career proves that the premise of this fictional piece is not unrealistic.

Actually the case of the Polgar sisters could be viewed as providing some weight to the nature vs nurture debate in terms of females in chess.

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The date is relevant because chess, just like every other sports where women start taking part in it takes time for them to get up to where they will naturally be. The movie was more feminist bullshit because you have the young girl beating the big powerful men. Of course the humor of it all is that when you look at how she won the last game it wasn't by herself it was with the help of numerous men behind the scenes coaching her on how to play the final game... I'm guessing the woke warrior making the series didn't understand the importance of the coaching and failed to realize it took away from her achievement.

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LOL. Come on - You aren't seriously suggesting that there needed to be some kind of groundswell of female players before one of them "gets up to where they will naturally be"? 😂

Harmon in the story was taught by the janitor, Polgar in real life by her father, both using the established body of chess theory. There isn't a separate set for female players!

And there's no humour in her having seconds. That's pretty much established procedure for all chess champions and has been for a long, long time. Notwithstanding, Borgov went off line anyway so their efforts didn't actually help her...

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The Polgar sisters were heavily trained by his fathers since they were kids to be chess masters.

Nowadays the father would be arrested for children abuse and the Judit Polgar wouldn't have been a chess master.

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Their father hired tutors - he was a mediocre player himself.



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Not that this has to anything to do with anything, btw. The commenter above is claiming women can't possibly be as good in chess, when in fact there is nothing precluding that in reality.

For anyone to compete at that level the training would be grueling.


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Must be some parallels with the Williams sisters.

As I was saying above, it's interesting in terms of looking at nature vs nurture. I think three of the Polgar sisters where either at Grandmaster or International master level and then two of the Williams sisters become top tennis players.

Natural talent or training?

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Training. All the high-achieving people we see - Olympic athletes, musical instrument virtuosos - they've all been at it for several hours a day since age 5.

There is no amount of talent that would negate the necessity for hard work, even if they are child prodigies.

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The movie was more feminist bullshit because you have the young girl beating the big powerful men.

That was precisely what Polgar did.


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Of course the humor of it all is that when you look at how she won the last game it wasn't by herself it was with the help of numerous men behind the scenes coaching her on how to play the final game...

Seems to me you missed the whole part how Borgov did NOT do what the numerous men predicted he would do, and she handled him on her own.

Honestly, you just come off as sexist and insecure, like telling yourself that women can't do this somehow makes you feel better about yourself.


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A chess player can beat someone rated 200 points higher now and then. That's why a proper championship is a series of one-on-one games. And there would be a lot of draws at that level, but there were very few in the show.

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I tried watching it.

I turned it off when the two little girls were in the bathroom and one of them asked, "what's a cocksucker"?

Who forces children to say things like that? lol

It was a typical Netflix show, dark and all that stuff. Their all the same.

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I thought that was a very real and meaningful moment. And it was the third and final time that word came up in the series. Pity you were to squeamish to continue. And no, they’re not all the same.

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They are all the same. lol. That deep dark male voice...always protruding voice.

Really?

It's a theme...

These executives gets charts and graphs via test audiences and that's what you see on your screen.

Garbage @ "What's a cocksucker?"

lol...

Those are children there...yeah, real meaningful.

...What's a cocksucker from one child to another?

Whatever floats your boat. Enjoy the Gambit.

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And that was the point - that's very life like. You never heard older children using words that you had no idea what they mean when you were a kid???

I was surprise there weren't even darker moments, that orphanage was quite idyllic in my opinion.

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Yes! That jumped out at me, too. The girls were not abused in any way, and in fact ALL the figures in Beth's life were benevolent.


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yup, that too. she was way too lucky.

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What a ridiculous complaint...


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You threw a tantrum on social media over Cuties, didn't you?

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that one deserves the hate, my friend.

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In the last couple of episodes the "Netflix factor" started to become more obvious.

Strong girl succeeding in the men's world, having a black girl and a gay guy as best friends.

It had a stronger first half of series than the last half.

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I agree, although I made an additional post a bit further up saying I really thought it was only really bad at the beginning of the final episode.

Namely, the exposition of her friend's post orphanage life was eye raisingly bad. That's the problem with blatant SJW writing right there - it takes you completely out of the story by taking the agenda pushing too far. I haven't read the book but I'd happily bet that entire part was a special inclusion for the show - Why couldn't she just have had a black friend who was there for her?

They then also shoe-horned in that flashback with her mother giving her a special anti-male speech.

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You long for the days when everyone on the screen were white and straight, don't you?

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No, I'm ok with whomever is on screen. I don't even have an issue with what I mentioned. It's just a staple of Netflix shows, they always make a question of having "diversity" even when it's not very realistic.

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They assumed she couldn't play at first, but that was more about her being unrated. It's very rare for a woman to be a serious contender, but once she had beaten a few top male players, they knew she was legit. At that point the chess players would be analyzing her game for weaknesses, not remarking on what she wears. But for the media, yeah, a woman challenging the best chess players would be a huge story. Another chess prodigy showing up and making a run at it has a much smaller news impact.

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It was fine. Little more.

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Of course not, this is Netflix, they are the embodiment of SJW/feminist/woke.

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""What difference does it make whether I'm a girl, what does it matter? Why can't it just be about me being good at chess?""

FYI that's pretty much the core message of old-school feminism - remember the slogan "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people"?

Well, most people here are too young to remember it, but that was a feminist slogan, and it very much meant "why can't I just be about me going good at [whatever]".

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And?.. What's wrong with that, exactly?


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Well, the OP seems to object to feminism in general, but really liked a line that encapsulates a ton of feminist philosophy.

Which does rather imply that he knows diddly about feminism.

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Please point out the precise quote where I "object to feminism in general" in the OP.

Thanks.

Really quite a hilarious claim given that you yourself 😂 described what I called a great scene "old-school feminism"! Plus the ENTIRE point of the OP was to champion the arrival of what might be post SJW feminism (erm, the clue being the title itself)...

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I guess sometime is hard to read :D

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