Battle of the Sexes – Airplane Viewing

Battle of the SexesYesterday I watched Battle of the Sexes while on a flight from Newark down to West Palm . It’s a frequent route for me as I try to see my parents at least once a month. Normally, it’s been a pretty uneventful but winter travel comes with a set of issues, this flight no exception. You see, when I left the house at 6am, snow fell from the sky. It didn’t affect us getting to the airport but it did affect the crew I guess. For the first time in my experience, a member of the flight crew, a flight attendant, arrived late for the flight. And according to United, you can’t board the plane without it’s crew. So when she ran to the gate, the customers applauded.

That led us to boarding late. Which of course, kicked off us pulling away from the gate late. And now though, that the snow had stopped, and the sun poked through, we now needed to be deiced. So we taxied over to the deicing area to wait in line for deicing. Once done with that, we taxied to the runway, to wait in another line to take off. Almost 90 minutes late, we finally departed.

Lucky for us though, they turned the WiFi and personal device entertainment on before we pushed from the gate.  So by the time we actually took off, I was almost done watching Battle of the Sexes on my iPad.

Battle of the Sexes – the Movie

Battle of the Sexes tells the story of Bobby Riggs match against Billy Jean King back in 1973. I have vague memories of the match as it happened. As a matter of fact, it was probably my first introduction to the concept of the Women’s Liberation Movement and why there was a need for such a thing. Of course, by then I felt the need keenly on a personal level when my brother got to do cool things such as pinewood derby at boy scouts and play baseball and football, while I had to take ballet and due stupid crafts at Brownies.

Battle of the Sexes – My Thoughts

Through the beginning of the movie I grew angry. Not at the movie but because it’s 45 years later and women are still dealing with some of the same eff-ing issues! Okay, maybe it’s not as bad as it was in the 1970s but women still don’t earn as much as male counterparts and one only has to look at the 2016 presidential election to see how the scales are still tilted to the fragile male ego.


Then the movie bored me a bit. It seemed to lose focus, becoming almost more about Billy Jean’s discovery of her sexuality than the story of the tennis match. It dragged here into a story that really could have been it’s own movie, outside of the Bobby Riggs match. I felt the movie finally picked up steam when the character of Marilyn departed (by the way, I wonder if that was real or a movie embellishment ah with a bit of research I found it to be true and ultimately sad).  I almost wish this had been two movies. One dealing with Billy Jean’s life and her sexuality and the other focusing on the the women’s advocacy and Bobby Riggs.

The other part of the story that surprised me was Bobby Riggs. Again, not sure if this was the movie portrayal or actuality, but I remember him being a bit more of a prick. According to the movie though, he seems more like a showman, creating the persona of a chauvinist as a publicity stunt than an actual belief. I found him to be somewhat sympathetic.

Overall, I’d give this movie a 3-star rating on my scale where:

  • 1 star is don’t bother
  • 2 star is okay
  • 3 star is I like it
  • 4 star is I really liked it
  • 5 star is I loved it

Basically, the same scale as I use for my books.