When the musical film Black is King was released in 2020, African audiences and some critics said that it maligned and distorted the continent’s culture and history.
They described their Afrocentric portrayal of Africa as “Wakanda-esque”, a reference to the fictional East African country made popular by Black Panther, the seminal 2018 black superhero film.
Directed and written by American singer Beyoncé, who was also its executive producer, Black is King is described by Disney, on whose platform it can be streamed, as a project intended to highlight “the beauty of Black tradition and excellence” and honor the “travels of black families, through time”.
However, like Black Panther, it is laden with mythical depictions that create the implausible and unnecessary impression that in pre-colonial Africa, a supposedly wealthy and elegant black utopia, African men and women were simply regal kings and queens. Of course, despite the lavish efforts at artificial blackness, many loved Beyoncé’s 85-minute film, with some critics labeling it a “breath of fresh air” that “celebrates the places, the styles and the African music”.
Fast forward to September 2022: Africa and the African Diaspora have an equally fascinating and controversial filmmaking to marvel at in The Woman King.
Produced by Academy Award winner Viola Davis and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, it is about Agodjie, an all-female military regiment that protected the kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin) in the 19th century.
The 6,000-strong regiment reportedly began as a palace guard in about 1700, with its fighters formally married to the king as wives of the third rank, wives with whom he had no sexual relations. At that time, the Agodjie were the only female soldiers in the world fighting in wars.
But here’s the thing: they often participated in slave raids as well.
Dahomey was wealthy and prospered by selling slaves to European traders. King Gezo, who ruled the kingdom from 1818 to 1858, explicitly said that the slave trade was “the source and glory” of his people’s wealth.
However, to the detriment of African history, The Woman King conceals Dahomey’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade between 1715 and 1850.
It suggests that Dahomey was, in fact, an anti-slavery kingdom, when it certainly was not. The film also portrays the Agodjie as freedom fighters, while they were just ordinary soldiers who captured and sold slaves.
It is, essentially, a deeply sanitized take on the grim truth about slavery and 19th-century Africa, replete with sweet, melodramatic nostalgia for Afrocentric fantasy.
Julius Tennon, Davis’s husband and co-producer of The Woman King, has defended the film’s substantial flaws, stating, “It’s history, but we have to take license. We have to entertain people.”
Throughout the history of the industry, as seen in The Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind, Hollywood directors and producers have largely refused to make movies that accurately depict slavery.
Django Unchained, the 2012 revisionist western written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, lacks nuance in its portrayal of slavery. Lincoln, also published that year, suggests that blacks did not fight to end slavery, but whites. Meanwhile, 12 Years a Slave, which won an Oscar in 2013, has faced criticism for not “representing black resistance to slavery.”
When Hollywood producers like Davis decide that the facts about slavery are expendable, they risk losing their credibility.
His work is a far cry from the dark and challenging times when the truth about slavery was important to African-American storytellers. From the 1830s to the 1890s, former slaves used their experiences to shed light on the horrifying reality of slavery and to humanize it, building support for abolition.
Think of Frederick Douglass’s 1845 book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. Or from Harriet Jacobs’s 1861 classic, Incidents in the Life of a Slave. These accounts gave stark, unimpeachable expression to the brutal realities of slavery.
According to the National Center for the Humanities at the University of North Carolina, “Fugitive, freed, or ‘ex’ slave narrators were expected to give accurate details of their experiences in slavery, emphasizing their sufferings under cruel masters and the force of their will. to break free. ”
The narrators, essentially, had to be honest. Brutally honest.
Today, the spirit of the Black Lives Matter movement demands that Hollywood writers, producers and executives, whether black, brown or white, pay attention to detail and avoid creating revisionist narratives that seek to temper crimes committed by both Europeans and Africans. during the transatlantic slave trade.
Africans sold other Africans into slavery. That tremendously significant detail cannot be doubled or avoided. Of course, it should also not be used as a weapon to minimize or dismiss the culpability of European slave traders.
Try as he might, Davis can’t offer redemption to the Africans who captured and sold people by erasing Dahomey’s slave trade credentials in pursuit of a false but likable narrative that could appeal to a “universal” audience, including whites. .
Sure, Dahomey’s story, and Agodjie’s especially, is exceptionally and undeniably fascinating, but as Black people, that shouldn’t diminish our shared commitment to spreading the truth in our stories.
Let’s not forget that many pre-colonial African states opposed the slave trade. Nzinga Mbemba (1446-1543), who ruled the kingdom of Kongo, for example, wrote to the King of Portugal, João III, in 1526, to demand an end to the illegal depopulation of his kingdom. His successor, García II, did the same, but without much success. Other states that resisted the slave trade include Futa Toro and Futa Jallon in West Africa.
The artistic convergence of African history and capitalism could serve as an ideal platform for setting up informative, action-packed and thought-provoking films and conversations about the continent, blackness and slavery.
However, The Woman King amounts to a wasted opportunity to creatively explore a critical moment in African history. Davis’ penchant for giving in to wild romanticism (rather than fundamental facts) does incredible damage to African societies decimated by slavery and the memory of 12 million souls shipped abroad.
Black is King, Black Panther and The Woman King demonstrate a relentless, obsessive determination to avoid reality and reinvent Africa’s past. It is time to respect the fact that Africa has a rich, vibrant and imperfect history.
In 2020, Davis wryly asked, “With any movie, are people ready for the truth?”
Blacks are. Filmmakers who claim to speak for Africa should be too.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
