The army of 4,000 Benin warriors that inspired Viola Davis’ “King Woman”

this dora milajethey are not, at least not entirely, the product of the fantasies of a screenwriter or comic book creator who, as they call themselves, inspired two ‘Black Panther’ movies to date, Stan Lee. They were conceived in his image and likeness. Agojie, ruthless warriors embodying the military might of the Dahomey kingdom for almost two centuries, and in its golden age, In the middle of the 19th century they began to form an army of 4,000 men..

Thanks to those women and their resounding fighting methods –They would cut off the heads of their enemies to present to their rulers. as the trophy, that region in the region we know today Benin He succeeded in establishing his supremacy over the neighboring kingdoms of West Africa.

New fiction ‘King Woman’ starring Viola Davisit now places Agojie at the center of a narrative adventure loosely inspired by historical events, combining epic spectacle with candid melodrama, and seeks to function as a celebration. female empowerment and racial pride. “For a long time, Hollywood has stereotypically portrayed Africa,” Gina Prince-Bythewood said during the presentation of her fifth feature film as a director at the last Toronto Film Festival (TIFF). “This movie shows dark-skinned women taking on men and decisively defeating them, which makes it different and radical.”

So it took more than seven years for ‘King Woman’ to come true from being a crazy idea, and by the way took the box office success of ‘Black Panther’ to entice investors. “We had to fight tooth and nail to convince people we needed a big budget to tell this story,” says Davis, who is also a co-producer of the film. “Black people, and especially Black women, have been invisible for very long.; Our voices are hoarse. And you have to take risks to stop that from happening.

The Agojie corpse is believed to have been created in the middle of the 17th century and was originally dedicated to hunting elephants; After King Ghezo’s accession to the throne in the early 19th century, they were recruited into the Dahomey army after the kingdom’s continued military efforts saw its male population drop significantly.

In the next decades they achieved countless victories on the battlefield until the arrival of French troops in 1890 precipitated the fall of the empire, as the film recreates and in 1823 allows Dahomey to free himself from his duties to the Oyo empire; Colonization brought about a setback for women’s rights in the region, as the French banned the female population from accessing education and any form of social leadership.

“The history of Africa was written by Europe and therefore the legacy of these warriors has been silenced.”He remembers Prince-Bythewood. “Our movie tries to give it the visibility it deserves.”

In any case, and as would probably be expected given the extreme sensitivity of our time, the United States premiere of ‘Woman the King’, argument. despite what is known as “Dahomey Amazons” They have become symbols of strength and courage, they were also complicit in the capture and sale of other Africans To meet the needs of European slaveholders and thereby finance the enormous needs of their armies. According to its critics, the film justified this disturbing aspect of Agojie to the point of turning both Davis’s portrayed military leader and King Ghezo himself into something akin to abolitionists; in fact, the monarch did not agree to end Dahomey’s involvement in the slave trade until thirty years after the events described in the film, and even then he did so only temporarily.

“When we started researching these women’s backgrounds, we realized that for the most part, the official narrative is designed to dehumanize them and make them seem wild, and to minimize Europe’s role in slavery.”, Prince-Bythewood responds to neutralize these criticisms. “His case is nothing more than countless examples of the West’s humiliation of African history as a whole. A lot of work is still needed to repair this damage, and no one should doubt that our film is trying to help with that.”