Over the past few weeks, the film “Christy,” directed by David Michod, slipped under everybody’s radar, failing to generate interest with an astonishingly low $1.3 million domestic box office weekend. This placed it as one of the worst flops in cinema history, given its estimated $15 million budget.
This unfortunate flop of one of the most prolific queer stories within sports raises a question that must be asked: Why did this movie do so poorly at the box office with what could be considered a fairly good cast – not including who I believe to be a MAGA fascist sympathiser, Sydney Sweeney.
The true story of Christy Salters follows her being an outcast and talk of the town because she is “different.” Her hobbies and talent were all criticized over the fact that boxing was a man’s sport at the time – gendered and sexist but not a surprising opinion for someone living in the south during the ‘70s. Even when meeting her trainer and future husband, Jim Martin, for the first time, Salters was shunned and treated less than others because of her sexuality and gender.
Although this hazing ended when Salters proved herself and became a household name, the truly heartbreaking and compelling part of this biopic is how her mother never truly believed her. From the second Salters started boxing to her ending up in the hospital with a bullet in her chest at the hands of her husband, all her mother held was contempt and anger for Salters, for both her queerness and for her believing Martin’s manipulation tactics.
The film has a standout performance by Ben Foster, who plays Martin. We see him morph into a monster who’s full of rage and manipulation towards his wife, which inevitably leads to domestic abuse and sexual violence.
However, the main draw point for many audiences was that Euphoria’s star, Sweeney, was taking on the project as Christy Salters, one of the toughest fighters in the women’s boxing community, as well as the star who gave the sport a voice. With many not knowing the story of Christy Salters, this was the only way to draw people into seats, an unfortunate measure that I believe led to the movie’s terrible run at the box office.
The film was released following Sweeney’s recent controversy for her American Eagle ad where she comments on having “good jeans.” The ad set crowds off for its blatant display of dog whistling. In my opinion, claiming that a white blonde-haired blue-eyed woman has superior genes is clear hate speech.
After a recent interview with GQ, Sweeney was asked about how she felt watching the controversy unfold and replied, “I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.”
This unfortunate casting, to me, feels like a bastardization of Salters’s story, even if Salters herself came out defending Sweeney. I find it troubling that such a compelling, untold story of a queer woman living in fear, even from her own parents, was portrayed by someone I believe to be a white bigot and a racist.
The unfortunate reality of Salters’s story is what drives it home for me. The depiction of what not only a woman, but a queer person has to do just to be seen in equal light is heartbreaking. The portrayal of this being done by someone like Sweeney, who I believe is not only an outright conservative, but also openly anti-queer, is why this movie cannot become a queer classic film.
Salters’s survivor story could have been one to be remembered by the queer youth of today that face the same persecution under the Trump administration. However, due to poor casting, all it will be known as is another flop from Sweeney, meaning the story of Christy Salters will sadly fade into obscurity.
