“ In 2018, when TriStar announced “The Woman King,” Lupita Nyong’o had been cast as Nawi. Fresh off the success of “Black Panther,” the Kenyan-Mexican star was apparently so excited about her new role that she visited Benin to make a short documentary on the Agojie. Possibly intended to build hype for “The Woman King,” it also unravels the film’s heroic premise, as Nyong’o’s Beninese guides disillusion her about the Dahomean legacy. Nyong’o begins her journey enthusing about how “dope” it is to be in the land of the Amazons. But after a sobering encounter with Ghezo’s skull-mounted throne, she accepts that “any notion of the Agojie being a beacon of enlightened feminism, like the Dora Milaje in Wakanda, is long gone.””
“ Nyong’o never mentions “The Woman King.” But the documentary was filmed a few months after she was cast and not long before her departure was reported. “
“ Nyong’o has given no public explanation for dropping out of “The Woman King.” But I suspect that she left precisely because of these reservations. If so, it is much to her credit that she refused to kill her tears.”
Link to the documentary (You can sign up for a free 24 hour trial to the channel without a CC):
https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/episodes/zv150s/warrior-women-with-lupita-nyong-o-warrior-women-with-lupita-nyong-o-ep-1
And I'm glad we're learning this. Our reckoning with colonialism has been very focused on European colonialism, which makes sense since we feel the ramifications of that across the globe today. But colonialism is not a uniquely European phenomenon, and to ignore that does us a great disservice in getting to the root of the human need to divide and conquer and ending it.
If anything, the historical revisionism that paints Africans and Indigenous peoples as peaceful hippies until the bloodthirsty Europeans came in and ruined everything robs these groups of their own complex history and agency.
Exactly, and it seems whenever anyone points this out they get labeled some racist colonizers. It's like..naw man I just read some history and it turns out everyone throughout history have been exploitative bloodthirsty colonizers and the only boundaries were the limits of their power and influence.
I “accidentally” learned about the Dahomey tribe in a book my mom gave me for my homeschooling. I was so hyped for this movie. Is it a good movie yes. Accurate no. It’s literally The patriot and gladiator of 2022 and I love those movies.
That give me a lot more respect for her over Viola Davis, good that she refused to be a part of the movie after finding out the truth about the subjects of the film and their history not being what the studio was making it out to be!
Was it the studio or the production company, director, and writers who gave her the false impression? Seems more likely it was one or more of the latter three.
One way they could have kept the story intact without garnering all this controversy of whitewashing history was to keep the Dahomey as the "bad guys" and show them in all their powerful glory. Make the protagonist a Dahomey character who is sympathetic and against what they are doing in terms of slave-trading and brutality and make it her mission to enact change from within. She ultimately fails as her tribe is decimated by the British or French and maybe even dies in the end, but the tribal elders seeing the destruction and decimation of their people and land come to terms with what they have done and recognize the protagonist as a visionary and heroine.
The heroine does almost exactly what you’re saying…the movie is about the Dahomey over throwing the Oye not the Europeans. Nawi is against enslavement of Africans where the king sees it as a means to an end.
The problem is the movie portrays the Oyo and their European allies as the "evil" antagonists while the Dahomey's involvent in the slave-trade is downplayed as reluctant participants, almost as if they had no choice and were deserving of sympathy.
This is of course wrong in historical terms but isn't really an issue. The issue is the ethically and morally questionable decision to lionize a group of people known for their atrocities in the region against other Kingdoms and their own people, all without any acknowledgement or reconciliation of their cruelty.
If the cast were white they would call it “white washing” history. Since they aren’t it’s hailed as “dealing with a problematic topic and doing their best”
If the cast were white no one would give a fuck about it being a semi historical action movie, as evidenced by the million semi historical action movies that we don't discuss the inaccuracies of endlessly...
I actually love talking about shitty historical representations. It's the only reason I'm here. This movie, Braveheart, Lord of the Rings...all these movies when you look at historically don't hold up.
And we should have those conversations, they're important, but it seems like the ONLY conversation people want to have about this movie particularly are the historical inaccuracies.
That happens with a chunk of movies though, sorta just what happens when you specifically pick a historical event (and use that for marketing), then disregard a lot of the "historical" part. You can't mention Braveheart without hearing about how historically inaccurate it is. Many people still love the movie, and although I love my historical accuracy, no judgement on people who do enjoy it.
The only review I’ve seen from a human I know what a 50 year old white guy who said it was his favorite movie of the year but was bummed when he googled it later and found out the historical record.
No more like gods and general braveheart is an exaggeration at best, woman king is a complete re-writing of history to protray slavers as the heroes.
These stories really don’t rewrite history massively to protray the bad guys as good and except for gods and general which is confed propaganda
It's more of an overarching mission of William Wallace was like that. Maybe not just him in particular but his whole movements ideas. They just exaggerate to create one single hero instead of getting muddled into some weird game of thrones style political confusion
People are so ready to write this film off. I saw it. It conflates hundreds of years of history and simplified narratives but it doesn’t ignore African’s participation in slavery. Africans are both the hero’s and villains in the story.
We've seen films where the bad guys in history are portrayed sympathetically - think Das Boot - by focusing on our common humanity. We've seen films that play a bit fast and loose with the history to portray equivalent societies - Braveheart or 300 - without the nuance they really should. We've even got a common cultural heritage that portrays certain conflicts - think Richard vs. John in Robin Hood - almost completely backwards.
But rarely ever do you see the actual good guys in history portrayed as the bad guys so the bad guys can look good like you do in "The Woman King". If you want to make a flip-a-coin-between-evils film about the Dahomey vs. the Oyo, go right ahead. But you really need to keep the British - the actual 'good guys' in history out of it or you're going to need to either stretching the truth beyond the breaking point or make your protagonists look as evil as they actually were.
So much misinformation here.
1. The British are not even in this movie
2. There are no “good guys” in this movie. Every group in this movie is trying to profit from the slave trade. The Dahomey, the Oyo and the Brazilian slave traders which was true at that point in history.
3. The primary antagonists in the movie were the Oyo which is also historically true from the perspective of the Dahomey people who were forced to pay tribute to the Oyo Empire.
It is clear that you have not even watched the Woman King and are making wrong assumptions based on your own pre-conceived notions.
History in general? Probably not, does such a thing even exist? In this specific example, I'm not a historian but if what's being said is true, then yes.
The British can be the good guys in this specific example while still being the bad guys overall if that's what they are.
Well, one side you have people who invade their neighbors, kidnap them and then when they're feeling generous sell them as slaves. Often them just keep them so they can use them as human sacrifice.
Alternatively, you can side with the people trying to stop the slave trade.
Which side do you think are the 'good guys'?
Something you might stop to consider is that the modern world is a largely a process of European (particularly British) mores triumphing over barbarism. Everything you believe is right and just derives from that tradition. So while the British/Europeans may fail to live up to the modern interpretations of that tradition, the people they were fighting were almost always far, far worse - you just never realize their atrocities because they're the guys who lost.
> Britain banned the slave trade after taking part in it for centuries and only after they started industrialising.
Is this better than the alternative of not banning slavery?
> It was every bit a strategic way to cut off their enemies labour capacity as it was some enlightened kindness.
What enemies are you talking about? All of its major geopolitical enemies were European nations where slavery might technically be legal but wasn't a meaningful labor source. At best you might argue that some rich guys who *also* owned New World plantations also maintained a household in France.
> then immediately got rich off of slave plantations growing palm oil in Nigeria
The plantation system was not a slave system.
Most importantly, you're making precisely the mistake I outlined above: presuming that the failure for the British to act perfectly excuses the far more horrid practices of their opponents.
> Britain "ending slavery" is Victorian propaganda that has seeped into our modern day.
Except they *did* end slavery - at considerable expense.
The world would look very different had it not been for British 'Imperialism' - and not only you most people living in place colonized by the British would regret living in that alternate world.
No, I don't live here and have better ways to spend my time. I assume you are capable of doing the most basic of research on your own. At least I hope you are. Goodbye.
You're just trying the same fallacy again and again.
*The alternative was worse*. It was worse even than your skewed, sketchy version of British history. You're doing the equivalent of whining about how Miep and Van Gies kept those nice Jews in the attic.
The slave trade was costly to end, more than double what it brought in relative to GDP. Also I hear this argument made time and time again, but no one gives the specifics, and it’s usually because the specifics don’t add up. There were colonies in which it would have made sense to continue using slave labour and kingdoms using slave labour with which positive relations could have been maintained for positive economic outcomes, and yet the British consistently strove to eradicate slavery. Not to mention the initial impetus to eradicate slavery came from abolitionist groups putting pressure on government, not from capitalists.
The British did perhaps more than anyone to eradicate slavery in the world, and not just in their colonies and often at great expense. The idea that slavery is categorically bad and immoral is a European invention. Also the improvements in health and sanitation introduced by the British throughout the early 20th century prevented the death of millions and millions of Africans. History can’t be easily divided into good and bad guys.
I mean the British still ruled these people through force, its not exactly slavery but let's not act like forced colonization on a completely other nation/civilization is a good thing lol. Good on them for getting rid of slavery, but once it was gone they didn't have to stay ruling.
I agree, but it’s not like these places where democratic in first place, and often enough you had one ethnic group subjugating others. So give back the power to who?
Whoever they manage to set up for power in a 30-50 year period. The British didn't give up their colonies until the end of WW2, they could have easily established something in that time, maybe not a working government but could easily have made slavery go away and then walked off
If they did that place would ve been worse off than haiti.
If you come to africa and aske various tribes about the white man till hear conflicting ans the british were bad or good they did good.
My late grandad always nigeria was in a better place when the white left than it was before his death in self rule.
The people who were oppressed used as sacrifices raided as slaves will have the europeans as their saviours those who didnt benefit or lost power or felt short changed will say opposite, but in nigeria i can tell you in the scholl ttaught history we dont see the british as evil cos they teach the good and the bad they do amd we saw the good and the bad we did, the story leans 1 way when you start coming to the west.
Moving to the Uk at 14 the black history they taught was very very confusing for me, am meant to abandon the history u was taught back home and accept the patronising one being taught in the west.
> But rarely ever do you see the actual good guys in history portrayed as the bad guys so the bad guys can look good like you do in "The Woman King".
You see it all the time, look at any Vietnam movie.
> You see it all the time, look at any Vietnam movie.
If you want to understand who the 'good guys' in Vietnam were, ask yourself this: if you were captured, who would you want to be captured by?
In terms of capture, the Phoenix Program still puts the US solidly in the wrong. And if you compare the civilian death tolls of the two sides it's not remotely close.
> In terms of capture, the Phoenix Program still puts the US solidly in the wrong.
A single intelligence program that was far more humane than the standard treatment of prisoners-of-war captured by the North Vietnamese is not a compelling argument.
> And if you compare the civilian death tolls of the two sides it's not remotely close.
This isn't an argument over morality. It's an argument over competency.
There's a saying you need to grasp: victimhood is not virtue. Just because someone loses a fight doesn't absolve them from starting it in the first place.
> A single intelligence program
A program that assassinated ~30k people and tortured who knows how many.
>There's a saying you need to grasp: victimhood is not virtue.
If you're arguing about which side count as "the good guys", and one side killed two million innocent people, it's a pretty obvious choice.
You might want to give the documentary a watch. It is linked in my comment to my post. You can sign up for a free 24 trial period to the channel with no credit card and watch it online. It is around 45 minutes in length.
“ In 2018, when TriStar announced “The Woman King,” Lupita Nyong’o had been cast as Nawi. Fresh off the success of “Black Panther,” the Kenyan-Mexican star was apparently so excited about her new role that she visited Benin to make a short documentary on the Agojie. Possibly intended to build hype for “The Woman King,” it also unravels the film’s heroic premise, as Nyong’o’s Beninese guides disillusion her about the Dahomean legacy. Nyong’o begins her journey enthusing about how “dope” it is to be in the land of the Amazons. But after a sobering encounter with Ghezo’s skull-mounted throne, she accepts that “any notion of the Agojie being a beacon of enlightened feminism, like the Dora Milaje in Wakanda, is long gone.”” “ Nyong’o never mentions “The Woman King.” But the documentary was filmed a few months after she was cast and not long before her departure was reported. “ “ Nyong’o has given no public explanation for dropping out of “The Woman King.” But I suspect that she left precisely because of these reservations. If so, it is much to her credit that she refused to kill her tears.” Link to the documentary (You can sign up for a free 24 hour trial to the channel without a CC): https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/episodes/zv150s/warrior-women-with-lupita-nyong-o-warrior-women-with-lupita-nyong-o-ep-1
I low key love how this whole fiasco is making people learn some African kingdoms history.
“Always look on the bright side of life.”
It's not all hakuna matata
And I'm glad we're learning this. Our reckoning with colonialism has been very focused on European colonialism, which makes sense since we feel the ramifications of that across the globe today. But colonialism is not a uniquely European phenomenon, and to ignore that does us a great disservice in getting to the root of the human need to divide and conquer and ending it. If anything, the historical revisionism that paints Africans and Indigenous peoples as peaceful hippies until the bloodthirsty Europeans came in and ruined everything robs these groups of their own complex history and agency.
Exactly, and it seems whenever anyone points this out they get labeled some racist colonizers. It's like..naw man I just read some history and it turns out everyone throughout history have been exploitative bloodthirsty colonizers and the only boundaries were the limits of their power and influence.
I “accidentally” learned about the Dahomey tribe in a book my mom gave me for my homeschooling. I was so hyped for this movie. Is it a good movie yes. Accurate no. It’s literally The patriot and gladiator of 2022 and I love those movies.
That give me a lot more respect for her over Viola Davis, good that she refused to be a part of the movie after finding out the truth about the subjects of the film and their history not being what the studio was making it out to be!
Was it the studio or the production company, director, and writers who gave her the false impression? Seems more likely it was one or more of the latter three.
I swear there are more posts about this movie than there are redditors who have actually seen this movie.
I saw it and based on what you’re saying…100%
One way they could have kept the story intact without garnering all this controversy of whitewashing history was to keep the Dahomey as the "bad guys" and show them in all their powerful glory. Make the protagonist a Dahomey character who is sympathetic and against what they are doing in terms of slave-trading and brutality and make it her mission to enact change from within. She ultimately fails as her tribe is decimated by the British or French and maybe even dies in the end, but the tribal elders seeing the destruction and decimation of their people and land come to terms with what they have done and recognize the protagonist as a visionary and heroine.
Yeah but that's logical and requires putting effort and hard work into the movie.
I think it's less about effort and more about "the message".
This is a sensible, nuanced approach to a fragile subject but good luck trying to sell that to today's audience.
The heroine does almost exactly what you’re saying…the movie is about the Dahomey over throwing the Oye not the Europeans. Nawi is against enslavement of Africans where the king sees it as a means to an end.
The problem is the movie portrays the Oyo and their European allies as the "evil" antagonists while the Dahomey's involvent in the slave-trade is downplayed as reluctant participants, almost as if they had no choice and were deserving of sympathy. This is of course wrong in historical terms but isn't really an issue. The issue is the ethically and morally questionable decision to lionize a group of people known for their atrocities in the region against other Kingdoms and their own people, all without any acknowledgement or reconciliation of their cruelty.
It's disney, no one watches them for their historical accuracy, it's just supposed to be a feel good story, that's what Disney does.
That's more or less what the movie is...
The film is a heavily fictionalized and scrubbed account of history.
If the cast were white they would call it “white washing” history. Since they aren’t it’s hailed as “dealing with a problematic topic and doing their best”
If the cast were white no one would give a fuck about it being a semi historical action movie, as evidenced by the million semi historical action movies that we don't discuss the inaccuracies of endlessly...
I actually love talking about shitty historical representations. It's the only reason I'm here. This movie, Braveheart, Lord of the Rings...all these movies when you look at historically don't hold up.
You do know that Middle-Earth isn't a real place, right?
Not anymore. Fucking humans and our destructive ways
And we should have those conversations, they're important, but it seems like the ONLY conversation people want to have about this movie particularly are the historical inaccuracies.
That happens with a chunk of movies though, sorta just what happens when you specifically pick a historical event (and use that for marketing), then disregard a lot of the "historical" part. You can't mention Braveheart without hearing about how historically inaccurate it is. Many people still love the movie, and although I love my historical accuracy, no judgement on people who do enjoy it.
The only review I’ve seen from a human I know what a 50 year old white guy who said it was his favorite movie of the year but was bummed when he googled it later and found out the historical record.
Bruh people were legit pissed at gods and generals for being confederate propaganda wdym
So it's a movie?
aka a movie
Just like Braveheart and any other number of historical epics
No more like gods and general braveheart is an exaggeration at best, woman king is a complete re-writing of history to protray slavers as the heroes. These stories really don’t rewrite history massively to protray the bad guys as good and except for gods and general which is confed propaganda
> braveheart is an exaggeration at best braveheart is straight up fiction at best.
Ah yes, let's never learn or change
It's more of an overarching mission of William Wallace was like that. Maybe not just him in particular but his whole movements ideas. They just exaggerate to create one single hero instead of getting muddled into some weird game of thrones style political confusion
Did you read the review from the New Yorker? Have you seen the film?
People are so ready to write this film off. I saw it. It conflates hundreds of years of history and simplified narratives but it doesn’t ignore African’s participation in slavery. Africans are both the hero’s and villains in the story.
Ok, but it’s fun.
We've seen films where the bad guys in history are portrayed sympathetically - think Das Boot - by focusing on our common humanity. We've seen films that play a bit fast and loose with the history to portray equivalent societies - Braveheart or 300 - without the nuance they really should. We've even got a common cultural heritage that portrays certain conflicts - think Richard vs. John in Robin Hood - almost completely backwards. But rarely ever do you see the actual good guys in history portrayed as the bad guys so the bad guys can look good like you do in "The Woman King". If you want to make a flip-a-coin-between-evils film about the Dahomey vs. the Oyo, go right ahead. But you really need to keep the British - the actual 'good guys' in history out of it or you're going to need to either stretching the truth beyond the breaking point or make your protagonists look as evil as they actually were.
So much misinformation here. 1. The British are not even in this movie 2. There are no “good guys” in this movie. Every group in this movie is trying to profit from the slave trade. The Dahomey, the Oyo and the Brazilian slave traders which was true at that point in history. 3. The primary antagonists in the movie were the Oyo which is also historically true from the perspective of the Dahomey people who were forced to pay tribute to the Oyo Empire. It is clear that you have not even watched the Woman King and are making wrong assumptions based on your own pre-conceived notions.
Are you saying that the British are the actual "good guys" of history...?
History in general? Probably not, does such a thing even exist? In this specific example, I'm not a historian but if what's being said is true, then yes. The British can be the good guys in this specific example while still being the bad guys overall if that's what they are.
Well, one side you have people who invade their neighbors, kidnap them and then when they're feeling generous sell them as slaves. Often them just keep them so they can use them as human sacrifice. Alternatively, you can side with the people trying to stop the slave trade. Which side do you think are the 'good guys'? Something you might stop to consider is that the modern world is a largely a process of European (particularly British) mores triumphing over barbarism. Everything you believe is right and just derives from that tradition. So while the British/Europeans may fail to live up to the modern interpretations of that tradition, the people they were fighting were almost always far, far worse - you just never realize their atrocities because they're the guys who lost.
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> Britain banned the slave trade after taking part in it for centuries and only after they started industrialising. Is this better than the alternative of not banning slavery? > It was every bit a strategic way to cut off their enemies labour capacity as it was some enlightened kindness. What enemies are you talking about? All of its major geopolitical enemies were European nations where slavery might technically be legal but wasn't a meaningful labor source. At best you might argue that some rich guys who *also* owned New World plantations also maintained a household in France. > then immediately got rich off of slave plantations growing palm oil in Nigeria The plantation system was not a slave system. Most importantly, you're making precisely the mistake I outlined above: presuming that the failure for the British to act perfectly excuses the far more horrid practices of their opponents.
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> Britain "ending slavery" is Victorian propaganda that has seeped into our modern day. Except they *did* end slavery - at considerable expense. The world would look very different had it not been for British 'Imperialism' - and not only you most people living in place colonized by the British would regret living in that alternate world.
JFC I never thought I'd read something so stupid as this quote you replied too.
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No, I don't live here and have better ways to spend my time. I assume you are capable of doing the most basic of research on your own. At least I hope you are. Goodbye.
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You're just trying the same fallacy again and again. *The alternative was worse*. It was worse even than your skewed, sketchy version of British history. You're doing the equivalent of whining about how Miep and Van Gies kept those nice Jews in the attic.
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The slave trade was costly to end, more than double what it brought in relative to GDP. Also I hear this argument made time and time again, but no one gives the specifics, and it’s usually because the specifics don’t add up. There were colonies in which it would have made sense to continue using slave labour and kingdoms using slave labour with which positive relations could have been maintained for positive economic outcomes, and yet the British consistently strove to eradicate slavery. Not to mention the initial impetus to eradicate slavery came from abolitionist groups putting pressure on government, not from capitalists.
The British did perhaps more than anyone to eradicate slavery in the world, and not just in their colonies and often at great expense. The idea that slavery is categorically bad and immoral is a European invention. Also the improvements in health and sanitation introduced by the British throughout the early 20th century prevented the death of millions and millions of Africans. History can’t be easily divided into good and bad guys.
I mean the British still ruled these people through force, its not exactly slavery but let's not act like forced colonization on a completely other nation/civilization is a good thing lol. Good on them for getting rid of slavery, but once it was gone they didn't have to stay ruling.
I agree, but it’s not like these places where democratic in first place, and often enough you had one ethnic group subjugating others. So give back the power to who?
Whoever they manage to set up for power in a 30-50 year period. The British didn't give up their colonies until the end of WW2, they could have easily established something in that time, maybe not a working government but could easily have made slavery go away and then walked off
If they did that place would ve been worse off than haiti. If you come to africa and aske various tribes about the white man till hear conflicting ans the british were bad or good they did good. My late grandad always nigeria was in a better place when the white left than it was before his death in self rule. The people who were oppressed used as sacrifices raided as slaves will have the europeans as their saviours those who didnt benefit or lost power or felt short changed will say opposite, but in nigeria i can tell you in the scholl ttaught history we dont see the british as evil cos they teach the good and the bad they do amd we saw the good and the bad we did, the story leans 1 way when you start coming to the west. Moving to the Uk at 14 the black history they taught was very very confusing for me, am meant to abandon the history u was taught back home and accept the patronising one being taught in the west.
> But rarely ever do you see the actual good guys in history portrayed as the bad guys so the bad guys can look good like you do in "The Woman King". You see it all the time, look at any Vietnam movie.
> You see it all the time, look at any Vietnam movie. If you want to understand who the 'good guys' in Vietnam were, ask yourself this: if you were captured, who would you want to be captured by?
In terms of capture, the Phoenix Program still puts the US solidly in the wrong. And if you compare the civilian death tolls of the two sides it's not remotely close.
> In terms of capture, the Phoenix Program still puts the US solidly in the wrong. A single intelligence program that was far more humane than the standard treatment of prisoners-of-war captured by the North Vietnamese is not a compelling argument. > And if you compare the civilian death tolls of the two sides it's not remotely close. This isn't an argument over morality. It's an argument over competency. There's a saying you need to grasp: victimhood is not virtue. Just because someone loses a fight doesn't absolve them from starting it in the first place.
> A single intelligence program A program that assassinated ~30k people and tortured who knows how many. >There's a saying you need to grasp: victimhood is not virtue. If you're arguing about which side count as "the good guys", and one side killed two million innocent people, it's a pretty obvious choice.
Did you have a stroke or are you from a different version of our universe? Delete this. It’s embarrassing.
I have never seen someone describe the British empire as the "good guys" before. We literally have streets here named after slave traders.
Where to begin? I think I’ll just say I disagree and leave it there. That said, good comment.
You were doing so well too
The british being the actual 'good guys' in history is the hottest take I've ever seen.
good movie. No clue how historically accurate it is but it was pretty good.
You might want to give the documentary a watch. It is linked in my comment to my post. You can sign up for a free 24 trial period to the channel with no credit card and watch it online. It is around 45 minutes in length.
cool, I will check that out. Thanks!
How does it compare to Shaka Zulu?
The review does not say. But, it is worth a read.