Challengers 2024 Phi Magazine Review
When Challengers came out, I was completely uninterested in seeing it. I don’t know much about tennis, I don’t like Zendaya, and I don’t find either Josh O’Connor or Mike Faist particularly attractive. At least not enough to go watch a movie just for that. After all, it really seemed that there would be nothing more to it. And yet it surprised me, mostly because I really did think that I would absolutely hate it (that is, once, against my initial reluctance, I decided to see it). I think I am still deeply uncertain about what to make out of it. I unexpectedly liked it in some ways. But one thing, to my bewilderment, I thoroughly appreciated — the way this film engages with the male gaze trope.
On the face of it, the story itself is rather objectifying towards women. The main premise of Challengers is that two best friends, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), fall for the same girl — a rising tennis superstar Tashi Duncan (Zendaya). She says that they should play tennis for her heart and whoever wins gets to date her, which ensues a beginning of a very bizarre love triangle. The way Tashi is portrayed is two-fold. On the one hand, she is a passive object of masculine desire — quite literally a trophy to be won in a tournament. This is where the sports metaphor for sex works particularly well. On the other hand, she is a toxic, strong female character who cares about nothing else than her career and plays with the poor boys’ hearts. However different, both of those tropes fall within deeply patriarchal structures of how, unfortunately, women are often portrayed. If they are hot, they are simply passive objects of desire. If they are strong, they are devoid of any other emotions than the pursuit of success. Now, I see all the feminist criticisms of this film; I see you and I raise you a provocative male gaze.
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The way we see Tashi is through the eyes of Art and Patrick. Unattainable, powerful, and self-obsessed — she becomes the object of their sexual yearning. When they meet Tashi they lustfully oggle over her and, ever since, ceaselessly begin to compete to earn her approval. Throughout the years, they play tennis to impress an idealised version of a girl they both desire. Art, even when married to Tashi, treats her like a reward and a symbol of his success. However, because he ‘won’ Tashi, he is constantly insecure that he can ‘lose’ her. Obviously, in doing so, he denies that Tashi can have her own ideas about what she wants. While the Tashi that Art loves is an unreachable feminine ideal, Patrick seems to see in her characteristics usually attributed to male characters. Patrick’s Tashi is power-hungry, success-driven and ruthless. But he, too, only projects his desires onto her with little concern about what she actually wants. He seems to be sure that because she is just like him, she will take him back if he proves himself as a good enough tennis player. Again, rejecting the idea that she might have emotions more complicated than her love for tennis. The two, rather stereotypical, sides of Tashi correspond to the ways, in which the male protagonists see her.
But where is Tashi herself in all of this? This is where I think this film does something, at the very least, interesting. Zendaya — and here, reluctantly, I nod to her acting performance — constantly pushes back against those male-driven narratives. I have understood her character to actively refuse to be put into the frames through which Art and Patrick perceive her. This is most visible in the notable scene when Art, the day before the culmination tournament against Patrick, asks Tashi to tell him that it doesn’t matter whether he wins or loses tomorrow. She says ‘No,’ and then adds ‘You tell me if it matters.’ While it is easy to see this as a confirmation of her heartlessness, to me, this represented an act of defiance against being treated like a trophy in a tennis game. After all, Tashi may love tennis more than anything, but this does not mean that she would be willing to throw away a life she built with her family over a single match. The fact that Art suggests that, ultimately says more about him than her. The most striking fact is that Tashi is not unattainable or ruthless. She is perceived as such by the other characters only because they treat her as a one-dimensional character, who likes tennis and cares about nothing else. Thus when she refuses to engage in this, they treat it as a personal rejection.
Challengers plays with many different tropes and conventions. Perhaps, at times, too many. Or perhaps, just the right amount to make it the post-ironic and post-modern summer-romance-sports-movie. But the most unique characteristic is its commentary on the male gaze, which is, both blatantly obvious and yet self-criticising. If the new Luca Guadagnino film is nothing else but an exercise in style, I think it gives its viewers much to think about when it comes to the ways women are narrated in such stories.
