Battle of the Sexes (2017) Review: Not Even a Hint of Blood

The library went down to the theater and saw the Battle of the Sexes. This was not the movie we expected. Not one person lost their life. Not even so much as a drop of blood.

    Battle of the Sexes, despite the name, is about a 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King (Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Carell). At no time do King and Riggs do battle in any type of arena attempting to kill or maim each other. Mostly, they hit small green fuzzy balls at each other.

    That's not to say the movie is worthless. The acting is amazing as everyone involved steps up to deliver tour de force performances and… You know what? I'm still bummed about the violence thing.

    Sure, there's sex, but it's the "oh I'm finding my true self and making important social change" type of sex. King's fight for equality is well represented on screen as she excelled at tennis with her fellow women tennis players despite overwhelming odds. She also finds love outside of the devotion she had in her first marriage. Good for her.

    But when I watch a movie with the word "battle" in the title, I wanna see some guts. Blood and shit and people screaming each other's names in ecstasy because tomorrow they might just die violent and horrific deaths. And I didn't get that. I just got a well acted, well written, socially minded film filled to the brim with talent and hope.

    Fucking hope.

     Gross.

Nursing in Study Room B

Study Room B holds many secrets. People say that if walls could talk, they would tell all our stories. The walls of Study Room B would scream.

I've been the librarian here for six years, since the building came to be and that goddamn study room is evil. Damn evil.

But I can only tell you what I've seen. The blood leaking from small bodies. Intestines spooling out and roping on the coarse carpet. Pizza stains from a delivery gone wrong.

We have to keep the room open. When we close it, a parent or a student complains. This time we got it closed down for an entire week before Nancy Travis complained.

A nursing student, Nancy complained to her father who then complained to a member of the board that there was a study room nobody ever used. The mean librarian, that's me, had told Nancy she could not be in there alone. The last time someone was alone in there the screams interupted story time downstairs.

Nancy smiled a little smile of as I unlocked the door and let her in. Red hair done up tight in a braid that fell to her shoulder.

Please, I said to her again. I can let you use the quiet study area.

I need to be on the phone, she said and closed the door. We looked at one another through the window. I had an idea of reaching out, touching the glass, but she would think it was a joke.

I was helping Mrs. Kemper find a newspaper article when the glass broke. A hard shattering of a chair and the breaking of wood. Screaming. Nancy screaming.

She made it halfway through the window. They found her braid nailed to the ceiling. Her nursing books torn apart. The pages spread all over, falling like snow.

I called the proper people. Authorities. Not very authoritative. The cop threw up and the ambulance driver kept wondering where the thing went to. The thing that got poor Nancy Travis.

When the reporter came around asking, I said there were no witnesses. I didn't tell him about the other times. He wouldn't write about them. He never did.

The Bleeding Tools of Carl and Loser Carl By ST Harker

Two men walked into the library carrying iron pipes and crowbars. Lots of them. Big guys with armloads of iron. And blood.

They dropped the materials on the library carpet. A scream came from way back in the library. I startled one of the men, who farted.

"Can we help you?" asked the circulation librarian.

"Our tools are bleeding," the first man said.

"All the blood," the other man said.

The circulation library picked up the phone. She said, "We need a tool anatomy book at the circ desk."

Her voice came over the P.A. system. Upstairs, feet began to shuffle. In a moment the reference librarian appeared out of breath.

The reference librarian said, "I have McCaffs Grey's Small Engine holy shit that's lots of blood coming out of those crowbars."

The first guy, his name was Carl because he mother wanted it that way, he said, "Iron pipes, too. I'm Carl. Help us out."

The second guy, also named Carl but people called him Loser Carl, he said, "Yeah, man, it's super gross."

The reference librarian flipped through the books, saying, "Man, there's a lot about batteries but nothing about blood. Say… Are you guys into Satan?"

"We don't go to church," Carl said. Loser Carl agreed.

"Damn. Nobody wants to go with me," the reference librarian said.

Carl put an arm around her shoulder and said, "Hey, cheer up. And, you know, this really isn't about you and your religious angst right now. Get your shit together, you Satanist librarian."

The reference librarian agreed and, angered, took out her phone and started googling. Turns out, the bleeding tools were possessed by the spirit of ancient blood demons. One incantation later and the tools were fine.

Except one crowbar. The reference librarian used that one to break Loser Carl's kneecap, saying to Carl, "Next time you think of putting hands on a librarian, you look at your friend's inability to skip to my lou."

The end