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Netflix The Woman King

King of GA said:
Totally agree.

That isn't what I meant by "more personal," however. What I meant was that the problem many black people have with this particular "re-writing," if you will, is that it involves their actual bloodlines and is a reason that many of us don't have a place in Africa that we can say for sure is our ancestral home.

I think I'm going to go watch it today.

Personally, I'm no fan of Dahomey, but I do think the story needs to be told, and I do think those warriors, while not necessarily heroic, should be recognized for being the formidable group of warriors that they were.

I can also appreciate the need to see black woman as heroes. Thing is, there are plenty of African queens and women warriors who are worthy of having their stories told and being celebrated.

  • Queen Nzinga
  • Amina (there is a pretty good Nollywood movie about her on Netflix now)
  • Amanirenas from Kush, arguably the greatest of all of them. Read about her dealings with Rome during perhaps its apex as an empire. Augustus didn't want no parts of her.
  • Ashanti's Yaa Asantewaa is worthy too
  • Ndaté Yalla Mbodj
And so many others who are truly heroes who protected their people and stood valiantly against foreign invaders.
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Queen Amina definitely dealt in slave trading though.
 
Inori said:
Nobody said anything about John Boyega playing America vet Brian Brown-Easley in Breaking
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I've never seen Boyega in anything but those trash Star Wars movies. Didn't know he was British until last week watching his Breakfast Club interview.
 
:hahaha:

Lol @ attack the block being your first recommendation to prove he’s not a trash actor. Decent movie tho.
 
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The movie picks a small part out of their whole dahome history. They decided to tell the story of when the king was younger and just took the throne. Pretty much the characters are fictional except the king. The movie is really not about the whole history. They talk about how they should move away from slave trading with palm oil. They stop there. They dont go further to where the dahome continue the slave trade because the palm oil was far less lucrative


People with an issue of the movie should at least Watch a bootleg stream if you dont want to support. So you can see if your concerns are right or was just fueled by people on social media who havent seen it either.
 
As Gina Prince-Bythewood’s historical epic “The Woman King” was hitting theaters on Friday after a successful premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last week and a solid Thursday night opening of nearly $2 million in early showings, on Twitter, a different narrative was unfolding.

As the hashtag #BoycottWomanKing trended on the social media platform, a number of users professed their disinterest in seeing a film that they believed obscured the history of the Kingdom of Dahomey, in which the Viola Davis-starring film is set. At issue: that the film, set in 1823, does not accurately portray the relationshp between the West African country and the slave trade.

The fervor over the film’s perceived inaccuracies appeared to be stoked by the film’s marketing, which center it as predominantly focusing on the all-female warrior army the Agojie, plus recent articles that purport to share the “real history” of the kingdom (including this National Review piece, which dives into the history of how some African nations, including Dahomey, were guilty of participating in the slave trade with European invaders, offering up their own countrymen in exchange for material goods).



Related


But while those historical notations are true, they also don’t reflect the content of Prince-Bythewood’s film itself, which does not shy away from the link between the Kingdom of Dahomey and the repugnant slave trade.


www.indiewire.com

‘Woman King’ Director Gina Prince-Bythewood on Backlash: ‘You Cannot Win an Argument on Twitter’

The Viola Davis-starring historical epic has been plagued by negative social media chatter.
www.indiewire.com www.indiewire.com










 
the-matrix-possession.gif
 
Ok I saw at least 30 minutes on a camsite the acting was good and since there's no such thing as 100 % historical accuracy Il in Hollywood 'm over it. I'm aiming my fake outrage at a more worthy cause.......




#BOYCOTT SAL'S!

giphy (7).gif
 
So, from a purely entertaining and empowering perspective, this movie hits. If you are aware of and can get past the truly ugly part of the story, which isn't really explored other than to make the warriors seem heroic, then WOW! What an experience!!

However, I personnally think that is where the problem lies. It is far too easy for so many of us to be entertained at the sake and disregard of truth, and even worse, the rewriting of it for that purpose, especially when there are so many tales that can be told that would accomplish the same thing without changing the narrative. The truth is, African kingdoms have a very and uniquely rich history of women warriors. If the goal is to find a hero that black women and girls can look up to for their strength and heroism, why not explore those stories? Why the need to soften the well deserved image of this group?

This movie does not really approach the savagery of the Dahomey warriors. They were not sparing women as the movie suggests. They were ransacking villages completely unprovoked and burning them to the ground, taking nearly everyone hostage. This wasn't "we had a conflict and they lost, so you all can take them." This was "we went over there and took them by force. How much will you give us for them?" What may be even worse is that the persons that they captured but couldn't trade, either because there was no ship coming or some other reason, they didn't release them, didn't make them servants, none of that. They killed them. This for no reason than they weren't as strong as Dahomey.

Then they kept it up underground until well after the slave trade "ended."

Were other African kingdoms involved as well? For sure. However, very few of them were as prolific as Dahomey was. I would guess that all of us is in the diaspora have some blood in our veins from someone who was minding their own business and the Dahomey decided to take their village.

All of that said, Dahomey was ruthless for good reason. They were under the thumb of the Oyo Empire for a long time. They had to build up their strength and tenacity to overthrow them. They became ruthless because of that and maintained that because they did not want to be back under anyone's control. They wanted to be the ones feared, rather than the ones in fear.

Mission accomplished.

But yeah, this is a very entertaining film and one that would generate a lot of excitement and empowerment, even if the premise lacks truth.
 
King of GA said:
So, from a purely entertaining and empowering perspective, this movie hits. If you are aware of and can get past the truly ugly part of the story, which isn't really explored other than to make the warriors seem heroic, then WOW! What an experience!!

However, I personnally think that is where the problem lies. It is far too easy for so many of us to be entertained at the sake and disregard of truth, and even worse, the rewriting of it for that purpose, especially when there are so many tales that can be told that would accomplish the same thing without changing the narrative. The truth is, African kingdoms have a very and uniquely rich history of women warriors. If the goal is to find a hero that black women and girls can look up to for their strength and heroism, why not explore those stories? Why the need to soften the well deserved image of this group?

This movie does not really approach the savagery of the Dahomey warriors. They were not sparing women as the movie suggests. They were ransacking villages completely unprovoked and burning them to the ground, taking nearly everyone hostage. This wasn't "we had a conflict and they lost, so you all can take them." This was "we went over there and took them by force. How much will you give us for them?" What may be even worse is that the persons that they captured but couldn't trade, either because there was no ship coming or some other reason, they didn't release them, didn't make them servants, none of that. They killed them. This for no reason than they weren't as strong as Dahomey.

Then they kept it up underground until well after the slave trade "ended."

Were other African kingdoms involved as well? For sure. However, very few of them were as prolific as Dahomey was. I would guess that all of us is in the diaspora have some blood in our veins from someone who was minding their own business and the Dahomey decided to take their village.

All of that said, Dahomey was ruthless for good reason. They were under the thumb of the Oyo Empire for a long time. They had to build up their strength and tenacity to overthrow them. They became ruthless because of that and maintained that because they did not want to be back under anyone's control. They wanted to be the ones feared, rather than the ones in fear.

Mission accomplished.

But yeah, this is a very entertaining film and one that would generate a lot of excitement and empowerment, even if the premise lacks truth.
Click to expand...

Well what do you know...an actual commentary about the film with nuance. This does make me think though...just how much responsibility should be placed on things that are supposed to be entertaining to also be educational? Because there's a shit ton of historically inaccurate pieces of art that people love that don't and never will get this level of scrutiny.
 
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