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an amazing thing to discover, to understand that physical strength can equal strength out in the world, when trying to further equality. I know that may sound a little crazy, but I really did start to put those pieces together and it was super empowering and felt good.” Billie Jean King talked about the role her then husband, Larry King (no, not the talk show host) played in her willingness to take on changing the game of tennis. “Larry and I always talked about social changes from the ‘60s on. It was actually at Cal State Law Library where we first started talking about how we wanted to change tennis. He and I were very much in it together. There’s a scene when we’re forming the WTA and Larry has all these papers sitting on the desk. It was really important to me that was in there because those were the bylaws.” She went on to explain, “He was a lawyer and he was able to get the bylaws ready before we had that meeting so we could elect the officers and actually have an association. Larry did that all before we had that meeting and that made a huge difference.” The bigger picture regarding social change was always a part of King’s motivation, including the race disparity. “That’s one of the things we were trying to do as well. If you notice in the Battle of the Sexes, that’s how white everything really was. I think we had two people of color in the audience.” Stone added, “That is what they were fighting for, those moments for the next generation and onward. To have moments like that. I can only imagine what it feels like for Billie Jean to watch the young girl who just won the U.S. open get presented with 3.7 million dollars, it’s just got to be incredible.” “You never really know how you’re going to
touch another person’s life or how they will touch yours as you go through life. It’s important to pay attention to those moments,” said King. “You don’t want to disrupt anything if you can, you really just want to make things better for everyone whenever possible. You are always on a tight rope because you are trying to get everyone’s hearts and minds to match up. Once you alienate someone, they go away and that becomes a very, very difficult thing. Trust me, it’s just not fun, it’s really not fun at all. So, you always want to do everything you can behind the scenes first. Don’t go to the media unless it’s an absolute last resort. Just try to get everyone to do the right thing.” There’s a poignant scene in the film after the King vs. Riggs match is played and King wins, it is so
34 RAGE monthly | OCTOBER 2017
emma stone as billie jean king and steve carell as bobby riggs in battle of the sexes
emotionally powerful and Stone plays the pivotal moment beautifully. She talked of preparing for it, “I had been thinking about that particular moment throughout the entire film. It was all right there, just under the surface throughout the whole film, that sort of breaking point. You have to earn that mo- ment, finally seeing everything that was happening under the surface at that particular time. She was on four hours of sleep every night, all of the stuff was going on with Marilyn, with her husband, Larry, all of that, you just sit in the overwhelm of that. Then in that moment, just after winning, it all comes crashing in. It was a pivotal moment to me, certainly one for me as an actor, to know this is what we had been building to.” King added, “I thought that Emma portrayed the feeling of that moment one hundred percent accurately. I did not have the opportunity to do it exactly that way, but it is exactly how I felt. She captured it so beautifully, it was so touching when I saw it. The feeling was so authentic with what was in my heart at that moment in time.” Besides tennis, Billie Jean King
has made great strides on many fronts. In particular, she along with Martina Navratilova have been such incredible LGBT icons. There was disparity in how they were treated before being out was something you could do, it was a constant challenge. “I can tell
You never really
know how you’re going to touch another person’s
life or how they will touch yours as you go through life. It’s important to pay
attention to those moments.”
you just in general, when we were playing back then, the women were always asked about their sexuality, and the men never were. Right there it’s more secretive and you don’t have to keep facing the barrage of questions about it.” When asked why King thought it’s still so hard for men, particularly in sports to “Live their truths,” she offered this, “It’s the last bastion of machismo and it just scares the death out of the guys because of how they’re going to be treated by their fellow players. That is really important, through your profession, it’s like a family. I think being your authentic self, is really just difficult when it’s still so shame based. The LGBTQ community suffers a lot because of it. Even our trans, especially our young kids have 40 percent more suicides than any other group. That’s why it’s so important to embrace everyone. Their authentic self is so important, we want to encourage that as much as we can.”
See this film, learn something about how we got to where we are now. There is still work to be done, yes, but because of this moment and many others, we have come so very far.
Battle of the Sexesis in theaters now. Check your local listings for locations and times.
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