A Georgian former chess world champion's $5-million lawsuit against Netflix will go ahead after she claimed she was defamed in an episode of "The Queen's Gambit," a Los Angeles judge has ruled.
Chess grandmaster Nona Gaprindashvili, 80, filed a suit in
September claiming that a line in the series in which a character claims she
had "never faced men" in her career was "grossly sexist and
belittling."
Gaprindashvili had faced dozens of male competitors by 1968,
the year in which the wildly popular limited series "The Queen's
Gambit" is mainly set.
Lawyers for Netflix tried to have the suit dismissed on the
ground that the series is a work of fiction and therefore covered by the First
Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects free speech.
But federal judge Virginia Phillips on Thursday denied their
motion, noting that "the fact that the series was a fictional work does
not insulate Netflix from liability for defamation if all the elements of defamation
are otherwise present."
"The Queen's Gambit," starring Anya Taylor-Joy, is
based on a 1983 novel by Walter Tevis and tells the story of a young orphan who
becomes the world's greatest chess player.
While central character Beth Harmon is fictional, the series
features several real-life chess characters including Gaprindashvili.
Gaprindashvili was the first woman to be awarded the
International Chess Federation title of Grandmaster, in 1978.