3/18/2023 0 Comments Battle group pictures![]() ![]() Prince-Bythewood and Davis joined the team soon after. Recognizing the subject’s cinematic appeal, she persuaded producer Cathy Schulman to find a studio willing to finance the project. Maria Bello, an actress and producer who co-wrote the story The Woman King’s script is based on, first learned about the Agojie during a 2015 trip to Benin. They are still under the patriarchy of the king, and they are still players in the slave trade.” But … they’re complicit in a problematic system. “Do I think it’s historically accurate? I’m skeptical.” She adds, “These women are symbols of strength and of power. Portraying the Agojie, through Nanisca’s actions, as critics of the slave trade makes for a “nice story,” says Larsen in an interview. But also we’re telling a part of the story which is about overcoming and fighting for what’s right.” ![]() We’re not going to shy away from anything. In response to concerns about how her movie will depict Dahomey’s engagement with European slave traders, Prince-Bythewood told the Hollywood Reporter, “We’re going to tell the truth. Though Ghezo did at one point explore palm oil production as an alternative source of revenue, it proved far less lucrative, and the king soon resumed Dahomey’s participation in the slave trade.Īll of the Agojie were considered ahosi, or wives of the king. In truth, Ghezo only agreed to end Dahomey’s participation in the slave trade in 1852, after years of pressure by the British government, which had abolished slavery (for not wholly altruistic reasons) in its own colonies in 1833. Though the majority of individuals taken prisoner by Dahomey were enslaved abroad, a not-insignificant number remained in the kingdom, where they served on royal farms, in the army or at the palace. As historian Robin Law notes, Dahomey emerged as a key player in the trafficking of West Africans between the 1680s and early 1700s, selling its captives to European traders whose presence and demand fueled the industry-and, in turn, the monumental scale of Dahomey’s warfare. But the kingdom’s involvement in the slave trade doesn’t align as neatly with the historical record. The real Ghezo did, in fact, successfully free Dahomey from its tributary status in 1823. A parallel plotline finds Nanisca, who disapproves of the slave trade after experiencing its horrors personally, urging Ghezo to end Dahomey’s close relationship with Portuguese slave traders and shift to production of palm oil as the kingdom's main export. Dahomey has long paid tribute to the Oyo but is beginning to assert itself under the leadership of Ghezo and General Nanisca. The Woman King opens in 1823 with a successful raid by the Agojie, who free captives bound for enslavement from the clutches of the Oyo Empire, a powerful Yoruba state in what is now southwestern Nigeria. Viola Davis (left) as Nanisca and John Boyega (right) as King Ghezo (Nanisca and Nawi share names with documented members of the Agojie but are not exact mirrors of these women.) King Ghezo (played by John Boyega) is the exception according to Lynne Ellsworth Larsen, an architectural historian who studies gender dynamics in Dahomey, Ghezo (reigned 1818 to 1858) and his son Glele (reigned 1858 to 1889) presided over what’s seen as “the golden age of Dahomean history,” ushering in an era of economic prosperity and political strength. Though the broad strokes of the film are historically accurate, the majority of its characters are fictional, including Davis’ Nanisca and Thuso Mbedu’s Nawi, a young warrior-in-training. In short, yes, but with extensive dramatic license. So there you go.”įrom the origins of the Agojie to Dahomey’s eventual fate, here’s what you need to know about the true history behind The Woman King ahead of its arrival in theaters on September 16. … like it when women are pretty and blond or close to pretty and blond. “We don’t always want different or new, unless you have a big star attached, a big male star. “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,” Davis tells Keegan. As the Hollywood Reporter’s Rebecca Keegan writes, The Woman King is “the product of a thousand battles” fought by Davis and Prince-Bythewood, both of whom have spoken out about the obstacles the production team faced when pitching a historical epic centered on strong Black women. ![]()
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