The Woman King and The Vandalisation of History

as you're no doubt aware there's quite a bit of controversy surrounding the film The Woman King because of its historical revisionism heck I go so far as calling it historical vandalism the filmmakers intentionally decided to alter very important historical facts regarding the story they were telling in order to produce a black female empowerment film because you know current year and all that now of course it's hardly the first time that Hollywood has taken artistic license when it comes to telling stories based on real events and that's really the key you know sometimes when a Hollywood film begins with those famous words based on a true story or inspired by real events it's so incredibly misleading because to the unassuming audience member they'd be led to believe that they were about to watch a fairly accurate account of real events when in fact there's nothing about the words based on a true story or inspired by real events that suggests that at all although most people might assume that what they're gonna watch isn't going to be totally accurate it's at least going to be an honest and best possible attempt at being as truthful as the filmmakers can be based on the highest quality historical evidence available right also wrong based on a true story or inspired by real events are more like disclaimers which basically say we have very Loosely based our film on a true story and embellished and dramatized aspects of it greatly in order to make it more entertaining the woman King is a lot like that except just replace the word entertaining with the word woke also I cringe at the title as the film says in the trailer based on powerful true events in other words they took serious liberties with the truth in order to produce a stunning and brave slay Queen story so the film is about this West African Kingdom of Dahomey which was the most powerful state in Africa during the 18th and 19th centuries and there was an all-female band of Warriors called the egoji now I'm not going to get into a big plot breakdown or character breakdown but suffice to say the Dahomey are depicted as being anti-slavery in the film The problem is that given the divisive nature of left-wing identity politics in America for the past few years where white people are constantly told to feel guilty for slavery and always reminded of it despite the fact that more white people fought to end slavery than were ever involved in it and of course slavery ended 150 years ago and so no one alive today took part in it or was a victim of it in my opinion films like this just served to stoke more racial tensions and the story concerns me because it's presented as black people fight against racist white slavers because white people and their slavery am I right but the reality is that a homie were involved in slavery themselves and they were far from the morally righteous Heroes presented in the film this article is from Hollywood vs history and it's well worth reading is the Regiment of female fighters in the movie based on an actual group of female to homie Warriors yes the woman King true story confirms that the all-female military regiment existed and was called the egoji or Mino our mothers they were referred to as the Dahomey Amazons by Western Europeans who wrote about them an obvious nod to the fierce female warriors in Greek mythology it's also believed that the egoji were the inspiration for the female warriors in the Black Panther films did the kingdom of the homie participate in slavery and slave trading in answering the question how accurate is the woman King we learned that in real life the Dahomey are much more the villains than the heroes the kingdom of the homie was a bloodthirsty Society based on Conquest the article goes on to describe some of the brutal and depraved violent acts of the Dahomey including decapitation and dismemberment they conquered neighboring African States and took their citizens as slaves selling many in the Atlantic slave trade in exchange for items like rifles tobacco and alcohol many of the slaves they sold ended up in America ironic considering this is an American Film they also kept some slaves for themselves to work on Royal plantations the business of slavery is what brought to homie most of its wealth for them it very much came down to either enslave others or become enslaved yourself wow that sure is a very different message than the one presented in the film isn't it the egoji women warriors fought in slave raids along with the male Fighters again there's more descriptions of disturbing violence during the raids they'd burn the villages to the ground those who they let live including the children were taken captive and sold as slaves the movie strategically downplays this part of the homies history so as to not complicate the story with the truth yeah the truth often gets in the way of a good narrative and agenda each year in Dahomey roughly 500 slaves and criminals were Mass executed in large-scale human sacrifices during the religious ceremonies of a festival known as the annual customs of the homie is John boyega's character King geso based on a real king of Dahomey yes geso was King of tahomey from 1818 to 1858 and was known for his military reform it's true that under his rule the ago to homie female warriors became a significant part of the dohomeian military expanding from roughly 600 women to as many as 6 000 while colonization of Europeans was indeed a concern it didn't escalate until after King ghazal's Reign the kingdom of Dahomey had attained most of its wealth through the slave trade and kingzo was a strong proponent of slavery in reality the main conflict with white Europeans during kingeso's Reign came through the efforts of the British to bring an end to the Atlantic slave trade in which the kingdom of Dahomey was a major player the British had to blockade the ports of the homie in order to put a stop to the Atlantic slave trade even after promising to end the slave trade in 1852 the year after the British imposed the blockade King Ghazal resumed trading slaves in 1857. to this end kingzo and the kingdom of the homie are the villains of the true story so that's the main areas of concern in this film it's another example of Hollywood playing fast loose with historical facts and in this case it's very Sinister they've taken the truly brutal to homie and made them out to be the good guys if people want to see African history depicted on Film It should at least be accurate a lot of the film's backlash has rightfully come from black people who are deeply troubled that the Dahomey are the ones who are being depicted as Heroes and Role Models I'm sure there's plenty of genuine heroes from African history that could have made excellent and inspiring stories so why do they choose the Dahomey of all people so let me know your thoughts in the comments below and if you're new to the Channel Please Subscribe for more thank you very much for watching and I'll see you next time bye foreign [Music]

Channel: The Dave Cullen Show

Views: 917,506

Keywords: Dave Cullen, the woman king

Id: zgONwlt8QVQ

Length: 7min 3sec (423 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 23 2022