The Woman King (2022)

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Robtard
A historical epic inspired by the true events that happened in The Kingdom of Dahomey, one of the most powerful states of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Starring: Viola Davis, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega, Jordan Bolger, Sheila Atim

3RDaPV_rJ1Y
Link




I'm looking forward to this smile

Old Man Whirly!
Originally posted by Robtard
A historical epic inspired by the true events that happened in The Kingdom of Dahomey, one of the most powerful states of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Starring: Viola Davis, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega, Jordan Bolger, Sheila Atim

3RDaPV_rJ1Y
Link




I'm looking forward to this smile I know the story, should be good!

Kazenji
No doubt its ignore what the tribe actually got up to in typical Hollywood fashion.

BruceSkywalker
is this where stan lee got the idea of the dora malije from?

Tzeentch
Really cool aesthetic and a very cool little slice of history to talk about, but I wonder how accurate the movie will be in its portrayal of what happened.

The trailer seems to indicate that this is a story about indigenous peoples defending their homeland against dirty imperialist Europeans, but in reality the Dahomey were Imperialists themselves (and slavers) and were the aggressors in both wars. In fact the first and second French-Dahomey wars were basically started because the Dahomey just couldn't stop trying to conquer one of their smaller, weaker neighbors, which pissed off the French because the smaller nation was under French protection.

So we'll see. It's kind of funny how in the trailer the girl's like "somethings are worth fighting for!" and I'm like "like slavery?"

riv6672

Robtard
Originally posted by Tzeentch
Really cool aesthetic and a very cool little slice of history to talk about, but I wonder how accurate the movie will be in its portrayal of what happened.

The trailer seems to indicate that this is a story about indigenous peoples defending their homeland against dirty imperialist Europeans, but in reality the Dahomey were Imperialists themselves (and slavers) and were the aggressors in both wars. In fact the first and second French-Dahomey wars were basically started because the Dahomey just couldn't stop trying to conquer one of their smaller, weaker neighbors, which pissed off the French because the smaller nation was under French protection.

So we'll see. It's kind of funny how in the trailer the girl's like "somethings are worth fighting for!" and I'm like "like slavery?"

It's going to be about as accurate as Gladiator and Braveheart were, and I don't really care.

Tzeentch
Probably even less so, as Gladiator and Braveheart at the least weren't lazy pandering to modern politics. I fully expect one of the evil Frenchmen to make a Trump quote right before he gets gutted.

But hopefully I'm wrong.

jaden_2.0
This looks like soiled anuses.

I do enjoy actors with American accents putting on stereotypical almost comedic generic African accents though. It was cringey in Black Panther and it's even more so in this. Why didn't they have them learn Fon or whatever language they spoke?

Robtard
Originally posted by Tzeentch
Probably even less so, as Gladiator and Braveheart at the least weren't lazy pandering to modern politics. I fully expect one of the evil Frenchmen to make a Trump quote right before he gets gutted.

But hopefully I'm wrong. The director of the National Museum of Scotland said Braveheart is at least 95% fiction, that aside from people's names, dates and names of location, it was all made up.

Gladiator is pretty much all fiction, aside from Rome existing and some names being correct, yet I don't care, it's still one of my favorite films that I watch over and over.

But going from the trailer, this is going to be largely fiction, still looks fun though. Would be a welcome surprise if they hit on the Black on Black slavery aspect and Dahomey being a highly violent/aggressive and militaristic kingdom.

Robtard
Originally posted by jaden_2.0
This looks like soiled anuses.

I do enjoy actors with American accents putting on stereotypical almost comedic generic African accents though. It was cringey in Black Panther and it's even more so in this. Why didn't they have them learn Fon or whatever language they spoke?

William Wallace (1995) vs Nanisca fight incoming!

jaden_2.0
William Wallace killed fifty men. Fifty, if it was one.
A hundred men.
With his own sword
Cut through them like...
Moses through the red sea

Fights done.

ares834
Originally posted by Robtard
The director of the National Museum of Scotland said Braveheart is at least 95% fiction, that aside from people's names, dates and names of location, it was all made up.

Gladiator is pretty much all fiction, aside from Rome existing and some names being correct, yet I don't care, it's still one of my favorite films that I watch over and over.

But going from the trailer, this is going to be largely fiction, still looks fun though. Would be a welcome surprise if they hit on the Black on Black slavery aspect and Dahomey being a highly violent/aggressive and militaristic kingdom.

This goes beyond merely historical inaccuracy though. It's analogous to a modern movie portraying the Confederacy as the "good guys" fighting for their independence.

jaden_2.0
Originally posted by ares834
This goes beyond merely historical inaccuracy though. It's analogous to a modern movie portraying the Confederacy as the "good guys" fighting for their independence.

https://i.giphy.com/media/eppZg5SmXd5Na5QXZu/giphy.webp

Robtard
Originally posted by ares834
This goes beyond merely historical inaccuracy though. It's analogous to a modern movie portraying the Confederacy as the "good guys" fighting for their independence. Eh, it's not like the White colonists in the film are the good guys being portrayed as shit, they're historically shit.

But let's just all calm down and see how they handle the Black on Black slave trade aspect.

ares834
Well I did say "modern" for a reason. stick out tongue

Thankfully, the country has mostly shifted on its views of the Confederacy in the past few decades. And modern Hollywood would certainly not portray them as the heroes of the conflict.

Originally posted by Robtard
Eh, it's not like the White colonists in the film are the good guys being portrayed as shit, they're historically shit.

But let's just all calm down and see how they handle the Black on Black slave trade aspect.

While it is possible, if it does portray Dahomey is a negative light I would be shocked. Nothing they've shown suggest that at all. Quite the opposite. All the trailers they've released makes this seem to be a black empowerment film, something like Black Panther. But we will see.

Robtard
Originally posted by jaden_2.0
William Wallace killed fifty men. Fifty, if it was one.
A hundred men.
With his own sword
Cut through them like...
Moses through the red sea

Fights done.

How's that compare to this woman carrying the whole of Africa on her back! That's a way higher level of freedom fighting, at least by a factor of two if not three.

jaden_2.0
They were fighting the French, for Christ's sake.

THE FRENCH!

Robtard
Originally posted by jaden_2.0
They were fighting the French, for Christ's sake.

THE FRENCH!

The French beat the British Empire to win America's freedom or something.

Robtard
Originally posted by ares834

While it is possible, if it does portray Dahomey is a negative light I would be shocked. Nothing they've shown suggest that at all. Quite the opposite. All the trailers they've released makes this seem to be a black empowerment film, something like Black Panther. But we will see.

I fully expect this to be a Black empowerment film and I'm fine with that, just curious how they'll handle the slave trade aspect, sugarcoat, completely ignore, or be blunt.

Though slavery in Africa was different many a time, more like an indentured servant, who could work off the slavery debt and be freed. The Dahomey did have an annual festival where they sacrificed slaves though, doubt they'll touch on that at all.

Tzeentch
I know that Braveheart and Gladiator are not historically accurate. The distinction that I'm pointing out is that there is a difference between historical inaccuracy for the sake of entertainment/narrative, and white-washing. In Gladiator and Braveheart the historical inaccuracies are things like "those uniforms didn't exist during that time period", "this character never existed", "actually this king was killed by this guy and not that guy" etc. Arguably the greatest inaccuracy about Wallace is that in the film he's portrayed as le humble farmer man whereas in reality he was a nobleman.

That's a far cry from sweeping the principle reasons for the conflict under the rug for the sake of a good vs evil narrative. The Dahomey were a facist empire whose ENTIRE economy was built upon invading their neighbors so that they could sell them into slavery. The King's Wives regiment that the movie is focused on only existed because the Dahomey had sustained so many losses from invading their neighbors that they were desperate for manpower, and one of their chief duties was to break slave-revolts and capture more people to enslave. The wise and troubled king that we see in the trailers for the movie personally decapitated hundreds of enslaved children per year, every year, as part of a Voodoo ritual that had been a core part of their society for over a century.

Say what you want about Gladiator but Roman society was portrayed in the movie as a bloodthirsty people who enslaved others and forced them to fight to the death for entertainment. The Roman nobility were depicted as conniving backstabbers. Yes we don't know what this film will portray, or not portray, but that doesn't change the fact that the story of the Dahomey-French war is a tale about one of the greatest evils the World has ever known getting their just-deserts. Would you really just shrug and say "well you know no movie is historically accurate" if Hollywood put out a movie today about Nazi soldiers heroically slaughtering hundreds of Russian troops as a desperate last stand in the Battle of Berlin? "Christian Bale stars as Adolf Hitler and Chris Pine as Lieutenant Fritz in this epic tale of the brave German peoples' defiant resistance against barbaric Communist aggression... coming soon to a theater near you".

And yes I'm aware that this entire conversation is just speculation since we don't know anything about the movie yet. But these are my initial thoughts upon seeing the trailer, and I would be very surprised if the heroes are portrayed as the cartoonishly evil individuals that they were in real life. It's crazy that this movie could even be considered black empowerment when this Empire was one of the greatest contributors to the Atlantic Slave Trade. One of the kings of these dudes literally helped the Portugese assassinate his Dad (or maybe brother) so that he could take power and become King, because he and the Portugese were worried that the old King was going to outlaw slavery.

riv6672

Robtard
Originally posted by Tzeentch
I know that Braveheart and Gladiator are not historically accurate. The distinction that I'm pointing out is that there is a difference between historical inaccuracy for the sake of entertainment/narrative, and white-washing. In Gladiator and Braveheart the historical inaccuracies are things like "those uniforms didn't exist during that time period", "this character never existed", "actually this king was killed by this guy and not that guy" etc. Arguably the greatest inaccuracy about Wallace is that in the film he's portrayed as le humble farmer man whereas in reality he was a nobleman.

That's a far cry from sweeping the principle reasons for the conflict under the rug for the sake of a good vs evil narrative. The Dahomey were a facist empire whose ENTIRE economy was built upon invading their neighbors so that they could sell them into slavery. The King's Wives regiment that the movie is focused on only existed because the Dahomey had sustained so many losses from invading their neighbors that they were desperate for manpower, and one of their chief duties was to break slave-revolts and capture more people to enslave. The wise and troubled king that we see in the trailers for the movie personally decapitated hundreds of enslaved children per year, every year, as part of a Voodoo ritual that had been a core part of their society for over a century.

Say what you want about Gladiator but Roman society was portrayed in the movie as a bloodthirsty people who enslaved others and forced them to fight to the death for entertainment. The Roman nobility were depicted as conniving backstabbers. Yes we don't know what this film will portray, or not portray, but that doesn't change the fact that the story of the Dahomey-French war is a tale about one of the greatest evils the World has ever known getting their just-deserts. Would you really just shrug and say "well you know no movie is historically accurate" if Hollywood put out a movie today about Nazi soldiers heroically slaughtering hundreds of Russian troops as a desperate last stand in the Battle of Berlin? "Christian Bale stars as Adolf Hitler and Chris Pine as Lieutenant Fritz in this epic tale of the brave German peoples' defiant resistance against barbaric Communist aggression... coming soon to a theater near you".

And yes I'm aware that this entire conversation is just speculation since we don't know anything about the movie yet. But these are my initial thoughts upon seeing the trailer, and I would be very surprised if the heroes are portrayed as the cartoonishly evil individuals that they were in real life. It's crazy that this movie could even be considered black empowerment when this Empire was one of the greatest contributors to the Atlantic Slave Trade. One of the kings of these dudes literally helped the Portugese assassinate his Dad (or maybe brother) so that he could take power and become King, because he and the Portugese were worried that the old King was going to outlaw slavery.

As I told Ares in following msgs, I suspect this will be complete fiction and they'll sugarcoat all the bad or outright ignore it to build a heroic story, still curious to see how they do it.

I'd watch that fantasy movie just for Christian Bale :P

I suspect that the producers expect the average movie viewer to not know about the Kingdom of Dahomey at all. US Black history is barely taught here, African Black history, I don't think at all.

Will be interesting if this film inspires people to read up on the Kingdom of Dahomey after being thrilled on screen. I read up on the real Zulu nation after watching 'Shaka Zulu' as a kid in the 80s, which lead me onto the histories of other African kingdoms.

jaden_2.0
Well as historically inaccurate as this will be, it will likely never be as inaccurate as pretty much everything that ever existed about vikings.

Robtard
And people love stuff about vikings, me included.

Speaking of, they need to do another film about vikings coming to the Americas first and doing stuff with the Natives. Only two films like this come to mind and one of them had this:

https://i0.wp.com/www.tor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/image-4.jpeg

Patient_Leech
This is probably going to BLOW UP the box office.

Kazenji
Originally posted by jaden_2.0
Well as historically inaccurate as this will be, it will likely never be as inaccurate as pretty much everything that ever existed about vikings.

The nearest thing to Viking related stuff is the tv show, But i suppose even that has some historically inaccurate stuff too.

cdtm
Originally posted by jaden_2.0
Well as historically inaccurate as this will be, it will likely never be as inaccurate as pretty much everything that ever existed about vikings.

The difference being, there is no political agenda against vikings. Except Thor'


And before I get called on that for an -emacy, what I mean is I bet they left out the culpability of other groups, like how Muslims bought them from Natives and sold to Europeans.

Saying this is not to wash the hands of European culpability.

Estacado
Looks like absoulute garbage...

LordofBrooklyn
19 million dollar box office for this ABOMINATION!

I can't WAIT to see the DROP and how they justify not making a profit on a film with a $50 million dollar budget.

jaden_2.0
Originally posted by cdtm
The difference being, there is no political agenda against vikings. Except Thor'


And before I get called on that for an -emacy, what I mean is I bet they left out the culpability of other groups, like how Muslims bought them from Natives and sold to Europeans.

Saying this is not to wash the hands of European culpability.

Remember when nobody cried about the political agenda of Zulu or Zulu Dawn or Amistad or The Last King of Scotland or Blood Diamond or Tarzan or Shooting Dogs or Hotel Rwanda or Sometime in April or Black Hawk Down or........................

Estacado

riv6672

jaden_2.0
Viola Davis ignoring the achievements of Precious, Jackie Brown, Hidden Figures, Monster's Ball, What's Love Got to do With It, Gothika, Sister Act etc etc etceteraaaaaa

Kazenji
I like how she's also ignoring what the tribe actually got up to.

Robtard
I hope this does very well at the box office, not because I care about the movie, but if the sensitives are angry that it's doing poorly opening week, imagine the tears if it does well smile


Still want to see it, but I might just wait for the free download. There's a few other movies I want to see in the theater over this and have limited time to go.

cdtm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZyERhrneL0&list=WL&index=35&t=683s

Old Man Whirly!

cdtm
Originally posted by Old Man Whirly!
Yeah, because your old fashioned politics portraying all black people as "the Maid"in Tom and Jerry and segregating buses is so much better?

When was this, because all I remember is comedy relief wiseasses ala Chris Rock. Even Event Horizon, a flipping Horror Movie had the jive talking black man. 😏

riv6672

riv6672
Never really noticed but, the top of his head looks like a Snork.

https://i.ibb.co/rFzC4F3/A70-D1495-6693-45-A4-AF95-63971068569-E.jpg

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