*This article contains spoilers for The Queen’s Gambit.

A TV miniseries has sent sales of chess sets and books about the game soaring and driven flocks of new users to online chess sites. The show is The Queen’s Gambit, a Netflix drama that garnered viewers from 62 million households worldwide just one month after airing. Set in the 1950s and ’60s, The Queen’s Gambit chronicles the life of the gifted Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) on her journey to become the world’s top chess player. For Beth, who is saddled with nightmarish memories of a tragic accident, chess provides a world where she can traverse the 64 squares however she sees fit, unlike the stark reality of her world where she is forced to face one adversity after another. With her natural talent and determination, Beth goes on to become famous by winning a series of competitions, but must struggle with her inner darkness to move forward.

The Queen’s Gambit has sparked feverish interest in chess, which had already been on the rise since the onset of the pandemic. By the end of October, when the series debuted, toy company Goliath Games saw their sales, which had increased 178% earlier that month, jump up 1,048%, and Chess.com, where users can play matches online, added more than 2.35 million new players. Above all, the biggest change shaped by The Queen’s Gambit has been shattering the perception that men have a monopoly on the game, thanks to the show’s exceptional female chess player, a character type which has never before been seen in film or television. Since the show was released, the number of women attending chess classes both online and in-person has increased, and more teenage girls are entering the game driven by The Queen’s Gambit. CNN reported on this phenomenon, noting that “the show’s portrayal of a young woman triumphing in a historically male field has also resonated.” International Master and chess charity administrator Malcolm Pein told The Guardian, “The greatest takeaway from this is young girls taking an interest.” He emphasized, “I hope it makes parents realize chess is a hobby for their daughters, not just their sons.” Even if the story of Beth’s success that we witness is fictional, it demonstrates what is possible when someone decides, “I can do this.”

That fantasy is potentially dangerous, however, in that it could misidentify social issues related to contemporary ideologies as merely a problem of someone just not trying hard enough. For example, Beth names world champion Vasily Borgov (Marcin Dorociński) as the “one player that scares” her, yet her opponent’s ability is not the reason for her loss. Rather, closed off emotionally and unable to step out from the shadow left by her mother Alice Harmon (Chloe Pirrie) who turned her back to the world, it is Beth’s own decision to rely on drugs and alcohol that keeps her from victory. In Beth’s life, women’s real experiences—sexism present not only in the chess world but all throughout society, the discomfort of menstruation, fear of unwanted pregnancy, etc.—are downplayed or eliminated. While on the one hand lauding the refusal to use harmful sexism as a spectacle, The Washington Post criticized both the original novel and the Netflix series for having a male-centric view that fails to grasp the sexism that “would be integral to her daily life.” Grandmaster Judit Polgár, the first woman to ever be ranked in the top ten in the world chess rankings, also noted how the show does not portray the “real” chess “environment” in which “it is more difficult for ladies to excel,” given that all the male characters quietly admit their defeats and respect Beth’s abilities.

However, The Queen’s Gambit is not without merit merely because it avoids inconvenient truths. Reflecting on the gap between the fictional world of the show and the real world can act as an impetus to solve still-lingering problems and set up a new board. In the words of The New York Times, “Whether what happens to Beth is typical or not, the popularity of The Queen’s Gambit has inspired anew a debate about inequality and sexism in chess and what, if anything, can be done about them.” Borgov’s words to Beth may be words of encouragement from The Queen’s Gambit to all the queens of the world—a pledge previous generations will try to fulfill for the next: “It’s your game. Take it.”

TRIVIA

Judit Polgár
Hungarian chess player who, in 1991, became the then-youngest grandmaster at age 15. In 2002, she defeated world champion Garry Kasparov to earn the title Grandmaster, defying conventional perception that a woman could never beat a male champion. She ranked eighth in 2005 after maintaining number one in the women’s world rankings for 25 years starting in 1989. Kasparov, who worked as a chess advisor on The Queen’s Gambit, once disparagingly called the game “a big fight” that “is not for women,” although he later admitted he had been wrong and praised Polgár for her skill.