On September 20, 1973, the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match occurred between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. The next day’s headlines summarized what an estimated 90 million people had watched first-hand on television. “Mrs. King Defeats Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 Amid a Circus Atmosphere,” wrote The New York Times. “Ms. King Puts Mr. Riggs in his Place,” said The Washington Post. “Libber Billie Bombs Lobber Bobby,” chided the Springfield Union.
But amidst this chorus, one familiar voice had a very different perspective on the match. “Tennis? That’s not even a man’s sport,” gripes Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor) on the All in the Family episode “Archie is Cursed.” It’s a version of a familiar rant from everyone’s favorite sitcom bigot. In this case, Archie’s point is that “women are not important in sports” and they certainly should “not be messing around with men’s sports because a man can beat a woman any old time.” Quizzed about the women who won gold medals at the Olympics, Archie rejoins, “I see those dames on TV. They look like a bunch of lumpy men.”
In response to this blather, Archie’s liberal next-door neighbor Irene (Betty Garrett) confronts him, asking what sports he plays. When Archie mentions pool, Irene jumps at the opening:
Irene: “Do you think you could beat a woman?”
Archie: “With one eye closed, one hand tied behind my back, and a bad case of the flu.”
Irene: “OK, I challenge you.”
Archie: “You’re crazy, Irene. A gentlemen don’t play pool with no woman.”
Irene: “I got $10 that says I can beat you.”
Archie: “You’re on!”
Archie’s confidence (“I got a pigeon I’m going to pluck for 10 bucks”), however, is quickly shaken as he learns Irene has played a lot of pool, and won her own “carrying case with a private pool cue” from the Hudson Billiard Academy. Confronted with the likely humiliation of losing to Irene, Archie feigns a bad back and blames Irene’s husband for cursing him with it. But, his ruse falls apart when his neighbor threatens to broadcast that Archie is a coward who is “afraid to play a woman” in pool.
In the only billiards actually shown in the episode, Archie attempts to brush up his game, but is humorously unable to make the most basic strokes. In the end, after Irene’s husband tricks Archie into revealing his back is fine, Archie plays Irene in pool (though the game is not shown) and of course loses. As added insult, Archie’s dingbat wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) tries to cheer him up, saying she’s glad his back is better, as she heard Irene “straightened him out.”
Comedy aside, “Archie is Cursed” is powerful television watching in the way it tackles women’s liberation and female athletics, topics that were controversial when the episode aired in December 1973, just three months after the “Battle of the Sexes” and only 18 months after the passage of Title IX, which outlawed discrimination in sports based on gender. Interestingly, it would take another eight years before the Billiards Congress of America elected its first woman, Dorothy Wise, into its Hall of Fame.
The complete “Archie is Cursed” episode of All in the Family is available to watch on YouTube below.
https://youtu.be/TLOAyRzfxQ8
