Power and control in women's boxing

Content warning: spoilers, domestic violence, sexual abuse

Sports biopics and boxing movies have long been a staple of Hollywood. First act: rise to success against the odds (probably depicted in a montage at some point), followed by a second act: struggles with demons, conflict and setbacks; before a triumphant return in the third act.

Christy, starring Sydney Sweeney, does not avoid all such tropes but, at least for this viewer, Christy Salters’s story was compelling and harrowing in a way I wasn’t expecting. It also tells the story of the evolution of women’s boxing which in itself is interesting.

Salters came from a conservative working-class coal mining family in West Virginia. Already a sportswoman playing basketball at a state level, she was in a relationship with a teammate of which her family did not approve. She started boxing casually on the low rent ‘toughwomen’ contests for a little extra money. Eventually she came to the attention of professional promoters and trainers. Her trainer Jim Martin, 25 years older than Christy, became her husband, her svengali and her abuser. Martin as played by Ben Foster is one of the most convincingly loathsome and sleazy figures I have seen depicted on a movie screen for some time. The film uses the different physicalities well, with a paunchy Foster looming over the young and diminutive Sweeney.

Martin, with the approval of her parents, erased all signs of her sexuality. He shaped Christy’s image and persona to present her as a feminine housewife who happens to also fight, and in contrast to many of her less feminine-presenting and sometimes openly lesbian opponents. Christy would trash talk these other women in deeply homophobic and misogynistic ways, playing up to a reactionary boxing audience. She would reject any hint of broader advocacy for women’s sport or feminism. It worked — Christy became the first female boxer to be famous. Her big break was being promoted by Don King on the undercard of famous Mike Tyson fights. Her personality, brutal punching and enthusiastic celebrations won over fans.

The film portrays well the point where the culture of women’s boxing decisively moves on from the ‘Christy Martin’ era, leaving her behind. For all her talent and prowess she still had the whiff of the side show attraction about her as women’s boxing increasingly became a professionalised mainstream sport in which the kind of tactics used by Christy to get noticed became less necessary.

Jim Martin was abusive, controlling and violent throughout their marriage and the film shows this in harrowing detail. It got worse as her career started to falter and his control was challenged. Thankfully, Salters somehow managed to survive and now is an advocate for victims of domestic violence and is able to be open about her sexuality.

The film is not above criticism. Although it portrays Christy’s relationships with other women, it felt to me to be pulling its punches and overly chaste, as though trying not to alienate a section of its audience. It criminally underuses Katy O’Brian. Still, this definitely felt like a story worth telling. The film does so effectively, and Sydney Sweeney and Ben Foster are excellent throughout.