Let’s continue with this logic:
There was some controversy around the film because Dahomey was a major human trading nation and that wasn’t necessarily rendered in the film. But even as a historian I understand the difference between a documentary and a drama and in other continents there have been so many films that have taken a major figure or fighting unit and made them these glorious heroes and heroines, so why can’t we do the same thing for West Africa?
Try financing a film which makes Hawkins and Drake (??) the heroes as they haul slaves across. Same – -ish – time period, same activity, but it won’t gain coos and ahhhs for the glory of the drama and execution now, will it?
Also worth clicking through to the page just for the photo. That stern proletarian gaze into the future so well known from socialist realism – along with the quizzical “Who Farted?” look.
“Human trading nation”? Aren’t all nations on Earth human? Oh! He means *SLAVES*! Evil wipepo are slave traders, proud black Africans are human traders.
I have to agree with you jgh.
It would also be entertaining to see a film showing Drake and Hawkins allied with a couple of African kings to grab some slaves. Although I understand the Africans seized most of them and gave the English the finger.
Yer right. Had to laugh at the “fierce military general who was also deeply humane” in the armoured bra. Stock graphic novel territory.
Could this be an angle? Drake’s Spanish-speaking interpreter on his voyage round the world was an African, a former slave.
He died during the trip.
Dahomey was a vile brutal regime; slavery wasn’t by any means the worst that went on there. Still, it was black on black, so no one cares. Just like there’s no riots for the bloke beaten to death by five black coppers and no protests at the 10,000 US blacks shot by their ‘brothers’ each year.
Mind you, Mr Rogers (AKA Kendi) is right about one thing. Expecting truth from Hollywood is extremely foolish.
Incredible
Amazing
Fascinating
Masterful
Deeply humane
And that’s just from the first short paragraph along with “oftentimes fighting and defeating men, which was great to see”
Now for the reality:-
during the second war, the bulk of the Mino corps were wiped out in a matter of hours in hand-to-hand combat after the French engaged them with a bayonet charge.[16] The Dahomey lost 86 regulars and 417 Dahomey Mino, with nearly all of those deaths being inflicted by bayonets; the French lost six soldiers.
And the justification for leaving out the slave tradery bits:-
there have been so many films that have taken a major figure or fighting unit and made them these glorious heroes and heroines, so why can’t we do the same thing for West Africa?
On which basis I look forward to the writers similar generosity of spirit in the somewhat unlikely event of General Robert E Lee and the brave men of the Confederacy being honoured by Hollywood.
“Also worth clicking through to the page just for the photo. That stern proletarian gaze into the future so well known from socialist realism – along with the quizzical “Who Farted?” look.”
To me it reads: “Damn! A badly-aimed pepper-spray sends us right back to the jungle…Maybe I should think about a career change…”
. . . there have been so many films that have taken a major figure or fighting unit and made them these glorious heroes and heroines, so why can’t we do the same thing for West Africa?
I look forward to the movie about the glorious, heroic French bayonetting all the slaving, murderous black women.
“The French Conniption” starring Jean Hackman
Would he say the same thing about Birth of a Nation? How about Song of the South?
I was reading just the other day that Alexandrr the Not Bad encountered a tribe of Amazons on his way to India and was offered a bit of rumpy pumpy by their Queen. He stopped by for a fortnight, doing his “duty”.
The Scythians apparently also had a ladies batallion in their army. Pompey encountered them. He captured a few and displayed them in a Triumph and being a gentleman, didn’t have them executed afterwards.
Ok you can skip things and glorify something, but a review I saw claimed that they went beyond that to outright lies and reversal of historical facts not just skipping them which is a whole other case.
Interesting article in spiked about the rewriting of gay rights history to include ‘transwomen of colour’ from someone who was there and knew the people involved.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/01/28/the-myth-of-marsha-p-johnson/
@BniC
There’s a documentary called The Witness about the case of Kitty Genovese, a murder that took place in NYC in 1964. Her brother goes to all of the living witnesses and journalists from the event and finds out how badly the media skewed the story. The news reports said none of the witnesses came out of their apartments to help Kitty or scare away the murderer. Not only do shows like Law & Order still create plot lines based on this lie, but the brother went to fight in Vietnam and lost both of his legs as a result too, to be the hero he thought his neighbors weren’t.
The New York Times (of course) reporter who typed the original story was interviewed in the documentary and he had no regrets, even after the inaccuracies were found out decades later. He said it was worth changing public sentiment through the general spirit of the article. And there’s also the numerous accolades he received for his bullshit.
So basically, never underestimate how evil these people are.