Toward the end of King Richard, the camera follows Venus Williams as she walks down a hallway in the Oakland Coliseum Arena. The scene invites viewers to focus their full attention on Venus as she prepares to take part in her first professional tennis tournament at the age of fourteen. By placing her at the center of the frame, the attention is not only on her calm confidence, but her signature look: braided hair adorned with beads, a style rooted in Black girl aesthetics. Years later, at a 1999 match at the Australian Open, an umpire would call Venus Williams's beaded hair a “distraction”—a word Venus, her sister Serena, and father Richard Williams understood all too well as they navigated a predominately white tennis circuit. The film presents this image of Venus in Oakland, not as a distraction, but as someone, like her sister and father, who overcame insurmountable...
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Review Article|
April 01 2022
King Richard (2021)
King Richard
(2021). Dir. Reinaldo Marcus Green. Westbrook Studios and Warner Brothers
. 144 min.Journal of Sport History (2022) 49 (1): 57–58.
Citation
Samantha White; King Richard (2021). Journal of Sport History 1 April 2022; 49 (1): 57–58. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/21558450.49.1.05
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