Entertainment

Emma Stone Is The Feminist Hero We Need In First 'Battle Of The Sexes' Trailer

by Dylan Kickham
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Emma Stone could be nabbing her second Oscar just one year after getting her first.

The first trailer for the tennis biopic "Battle of the Sexes" is finally here, and we're getting our first look at Emma as Billie Jean King facing off against Steve Carell's proudly chauvinistic Bobby Riggs.

The movie will be about the events surrounding the infamous 1973 tennis match between King and Riggs, which was dubbed the Battle of the Sexes after Riggs publicly taunted female tennis players incessantly until King finally accepted his challenge to a match.

In the first trailer, we get our first glimpse at all the ridiculous showboating and derogatory comments of Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs, including a variation of that tired non-joke about women belonging in the kitchen. He really makes it easy to hate him in this thing.

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Thankfully, Emma Stone's Billie Jean King character provides the antidote to Bobby Riggs' unrepentant misogyny.

Equipped with a brunette bob and large glasses, Emma totally channels Billie Jean King as she goes toe-to-toe with Riggs, matching his inane chauvinism with unwavering determination. Check out the trailer below.

Okay, I'm definitely pumped for this movie! And it also got me curious about how the real Battle of the Sexes tennis match actually went down, so I did a little research.

Just like the trailer suggests, Bobby Riggs was making an ass out of himself to provoke Billie Jean King into a high-publicity tennis match with him, hoping to prove male superiority in the sport. King finally accepted, and the match went on to draw the largest audience of any tennis match in U.S. history.

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It started off with Riggs doing his normal joke-y showboating to try to throw King off, but she had crafted the perfect strategy to use Riggs' age against him (he was 26 years her senior). By playing a largely defensive game, King won in the first three sets, reportedly devastating Riggs.

"Battle of the Sexes" lands in theaters on September 22.