Calls for ‘The Woman King’ to Be Boycotted Amid Slave Trade Criticism

Viola Davis‘ new film has sparked a fierce debate about Hollywood protecting onerous truths by means of a lens — together with slavery … leading to some calling for a boycott of this one.

“The Woman King” hit theaters this weekend, however nearly as rapidly because the hype for the flick began hovering … the pushback additionally started — with some calling for an outright shunning due to what they understand as whitewashing the historical past of the themes depicted.

The criticism … the African tribe proven on display, the Dahomey, in addition to their all-female army regiment, the Agodjie, are offered as righteous, empowering liberators in all of the advertising and marketing up to now … when in actuality, they have been knee-deep within the Atlantic slave commerce.

The file is not fairly … Dahomey was considered one of a handful of tribes within the seventeenth/18th/nineteenth centuries that captured and offered off Black slaves to Europeans — a method of commerce they continued for a very good whereas … till the Brits really pressured them to cease within the mid-1800s.

The trailer would not allude to any of this in any respect … it simply exhibits Viola coaching a brand new wave of recruits for the Agodjie and battling towards what seem to be white colonizers in a showdown. Because of this, it appears, a very good handful of oldsters are crying foul — alleging the studio, Sony, is making an attempt to rewrite historical past and downplay the Dahomey’s half in all this.

While some have made it clear they’re towards glorifying anybody who facilitated the slave commerce, white or Black, and seem lifeless set on boycotting … others are arguing folks ought to see the movie for themselves, saying it DOES in actual fact sort out the problem with nuance.

However, there’ve been some historians weighing in — who’re each educated on this topic and have seen the film — and so they say … yeah, ‘TWK’ does blur the strains a bit by making the Dahomey look extra like victims of circumstance than keen individuals.

We have not seen it but, so we will not say for certain what’s or is not proven. What we do know is that the evaluations are glowing — however many critics aren’t exhibiting their playing cards on this particular difficulty of the slave commerce and the way the Dahomey’s relationship to it’s dealt with within the film.

With that stated, it appears cheap to have people go see it with their very own two eyes and make up their very own minds. While it is inside everybody’s proper to boycott/name for a boycott — it appears sorta foolish with out having absorbed the fabric and debating it after the very fact.