The power of historical fiction in popular media

The Sunday Sermon

Nobody asked me, but...

Yesterday, I attended “The Woman King,” my first movie since February of 2020—right before the Covid pandemic commenced…

*I have always felt that "movies based on true stories" are powerful means to tell facts in way that can educate the masses without making those observing feel as if they have read a long think piece that has a pop quiz to follow.

Whether it was "Glory," starring Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and Matthew Broderick, which gave a fictional account of the real life fighting men of the Black 54th Massachussetts regiment during the Civil War; "Saving Private Ryan," starring Tom Hanks, which gave a fictional account of the real life D-Day landing and subsequent fighting during World War II, or "Schindler's List," starring Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Kingsley, which gave a fictional account of conditions at Nazi concentration camps during World War II, those movies certainly did their parts in sharing information about those moments in history.

*Growing up in the 1970's and 80's, I distinctly remember how social studies and history textbooks tended to sanitize the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade which found millions of chained Africans dragged in the bellies of ships from their homes to begin several centuries of misery as enslaved humans throughout the Americas, Caribbean, and Atlantic Isles. While most books (and teachers) did note the role that Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, France, and Belgium played in both colonizing the African continent and exploiting its mineral wealth and human wealth via the slave trade, as to the latter, most books that I read (and teachers that I had) tended to push quickly past the fact that many African Kings and chiefs gained considerable wealth from selling off their own racial kinsmen to European enslavers. Which is why when Chuck-D of Public Enemy rapped, "...King and Chief must have had a big beef, because of that now I grit my teeth..." in his classic song "Can't Truss It," I could only nod my head in sad agreement back in '92 when the music video depicting aspects of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade first aired.

“The Woman King” stars Viola Davis and John Boyega as leaders of the African kingdom of Dahomey…

*As to the last point, it is difficult for many descendants of the enslaved to reconcile the misery that our ancestors endured based upon the wicked greed of European colonizers and enslavers, with knowledge that a small cadre of our African ancestors derived wealth, guns, and liquor in exchange for human flesh. It is a painful fact that surely does not mitigate or exonerate what those evil Europeans did and how whole nations to this very day, like Great Britain and the United States, became economic giants in the Industrial Age primarily due to enslaved African labor. But it does leave us in the modern era left to wonder how world events may have transpired had African leaders resisted European incursions onto their lands from the very first?

We will never know...

*While I promise to provide no spoilers, the best aspect of "The Woman King" is that Director Gina Prince-Bythewood created a brilliant fictional account of events in the Kingdom of Dahomey in the early 19th Century. While the King Gheza, played by John Boyega, was a real monarch, the film's protagonist or "Woman King," Nanisca, played by Viola Davis, was not real. Still, the warriors that Davis's Nanisca led, the Agojie, were very much real and depicted in several pictures below.

What is also real is that Dahomey, dating back to the early 1700's, had become a powerful African kingdom primarily because it traded African men, women, and children to Portugal and Great Britain in exchange for money, guns, and liquor. As a result, for over a century, Dahomey's army was a dominant force on what is regrettably called the "slave coast" because many of their neighboring kingdoms could not match their firepower or manpower.

Still, over a century of war thinned Dahomey's manpower, which is why the Agojie—originally a group of women who hunted elephants—slowly grew into an elite fighting force of women who fought alongside the men in combat.

One of the major complaints that I have read so far on social media is pushback from some who suggest that "The Woman King" is merely another attempt by Hollywood to emasculate Black men in favor of glorifying Black women. The history of that kingdom simply does not support that claim, as the Agojie not only were an elite fighting force, but they served as "third wives" to the male king (Gheza and his heirs), and served at their king's behest during warfare that remained a constant until the late 1890's, when war with colonial power France ended with that European nation gaining chief colonizing control over what had been an independent state.

Viola Davis, the film's biggest star, opined that some of the angst that the team experienced in bringing this film to fruition was because, "The part of the movie that we love is also the part of the movie that is terrifying to Hollywood, which is, it’s different, it’s new...We don’t always want different or new, unless you have a big star attached, a big male star. [Hollywood studios] like it when women are pretty and blond or close to pretty and blond. All of these women are dark. And they’re beating men. So there you go.”

I concur with Davis's assessment, and I add that the reason that some among us are criticizing a film that they have not seen is because they, too, don't like to see empowered Black women kicking ass and taking heads—literally—despite the historical accuracy.

Viola Davis leading the Agojie warriors of Dahomey in “The Woman King”

*If you enjoyed "Black Panther" and thought that the fictional Dora Milaje warriors of Wakanda were fierce, the "Woman King" gives a glimpse into the real warriors that they were based upon and the rigorous, if not spartan, training regimen that they endured to become a feared fighting force. Indeed, there are real historical accounts that Europeans feared these "African Amazon" warriors, as some called them, and frowned upon their roles based upon their European culture where women generally were deemed subservient and unsuited to serve in armed forces—not fighting and leading armies!

“Black Panther's” Dora Milaje fighting force was based upon the Agojie warrior queens of Dahomey

Last, what I truly appreciated about this movie is that it presented a painful subject matter in a way that honors the resistance spirit of many of our Black ancestors—while not shying away from the greedy, quisling nature of other Black ancestors who were just as deplorable as the Europeans that they bartered with over hundreds of years.

I also appreciated that this difficult subject matter was told without becoming a trauma fest, meaning, it shuns the recent Hollywood penchant to be overly kitschy with Black beatings, rapings, and killings at the hand of white colonizers and slavers—while still providing enough context and dramatic flare that it takes the viewer on a emotional journey that compels appreciation for the resistance of those Africans who fought back— while paying homage to those millions of Africans who perished on the high seas (or made it alive to their horrific fates as enslaved workers in the Western Hemisphere).

As such, Hobbs the Historian recommends that those who enjoy historical dramas go and see this film as soon as possible!