For Whom is This History?
an interrogation and perspective on Woman King by Alinaswe Lusengo
There are many things I long for in film. And upon first glance, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Woman King seemed to satiate many of my longings. It is a film that follows the Agodjie warriors from the Kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa. The Dahomey ruled in what is now Benin, from the 1600s to the early 1900s. A film led by complex Black women characters, a fictionalisation of our rich African history, a film where whiteness is not at the centre - the promises The Woman King made to me were irresistible. It almost reminded me of how I felt anticipating Black Panther, another film hailed for its inclusion of Black characters but specifically Black African characters.
At the end of The Woman King’s two hour run, I felt overcome by many emotions. I will never deny how beautiful and profound it is to see so many Black women characters who are allowed to be nuanced and complicated (in fact, I do not know when I have ever seen so many Black women on screen). Viola Davis is unsurprisingly a star as she portrays Nanisca, leader of the Agodjie and a woman trying to outrun the pain she’s collected over the years. Lashana Lynch is magnetic playing Izogie and Thuso Mbedu gives the character of Nawi such intrigue and weight. The Agodjie are adorned with cowrie shells and tactile armour in what is some incredible costume design and as I watched these women warriors train and devote themselves to not only their cause, but to one another - I felt an envy that I could not be involved in such a powerful collective of Black womanhood. But what does it mean to romanticize the Agodjie warriors? And who is this romanticization for?
I give the film credit for its attempt to complicate our understanding of the Dahomey, particularly their participation in the transatlantic slave trade. As much as the Agodjie were incredibly powerful and strong women, their power was often used to participate in one of history’s most brutal events. Those defeated by the Agodjie were given to Dahomey’s rival kingdom - the Oyo Empire - and sold as slaves in exchange for weaponry. It is an important facet of Dahomey’s legacy and though Prince-Bythewood does not omit this in her depiction of the history, she definitely takes some liberties with the truth of what happened. And before I begin my critique, I want to preface that I do not believe that historical fiction needs to be an exact mirror to the history it depicts. It is called fiction for a reason. But I do believe that histories need to be told responsibly, especially African histories which rarely garner the mainstream attention that The Woman King received.
I believe Prince-Bythewood took the easy route, which was to portray the Dahomey as a kingdom of African liberators at odds with the moral corruption of the Oyo Empire. However, where the film chooses to depict King Ghezo - played by John Boyega - as a ruler committed to ending the slave trade, history shows him as someone who was complicit in the continuation of slavery. The Agodjie were not the freedom fighters the film makes them out to be, but rather actors in a military state that unfortunately worked to oppress many Africans. I do not bring this up to absolve Europeans of their accountability in the slave trade, but simply to acknowledge the reality of what happened - a reality that is not as likeable as we want it to be. It is easy to simply make the Agodjie a symbol of feminine empowerment but it is misleading because their legacy cannot be divorced from their participation in transatlantic slavery which is anything but empowering. Prince-Bythewood’s decision not only sells the Dahomey history short but it sells her entire film short. The Woman King might have been even more powerful if it was willing to really go there, and show us just how complicated African history is.
In the same way that Black Panther has soured in my mind the more I think about the consequences of the Wakanda-fication of African storytelling, something similar is happening the more I think about The Woman King. There is an inherent tension when a team of American filmmakers set out to make a film about Africa. I believe that though Prince-Bythewood set out to make a film about Black feminine liberation in history, she inadvertently softened our history to fit her own vision. Americans sometimes want to believe that Africa is the motherland, in that she will always mother their ideas and nurture a history that could’ve been. I am weary of this. Africa can be mother, but I long for her to be more.
I long for films about African history that are not afraid to be nuanced, even if that nuance is ugly. I long for films about African history made by Africans. I am grateful The Woman King exists, I hope that gratitude is not lost in this essay. It just seems it was not enough to satiate all of my longings, if anything it only birthed more – which is okay. May there be many more films that want to access the luscious history Africa houses, and I hope that some will get it all the way right.
For anyone looking to go beyond the fiction, please find this syllabus created by Ana Lucia Araujo, Vanessa Holden, Jessica Marie Johnson and Alex Gil: The Woman King, The Syllabus
About Alinaswe Lusengo
Alinaswe Lusengo is a budding journalist whose interests include intersectional feminism, politics and popular culture. She is a recent Honours graduate from the University of Cape Town’s Media Studies program and is currently based between Cape Town and Johannesburg.
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