Viola Davis Comes to Life As 'The Woman King' in ELLE Brazil October by Mar + Vin

All reports are that ‘The Woman King’ reigns supreme at the Toronto International Film Festival, which opened on September 8 and closes on Sunday, September 18.

Gina Prince-Bythewood directed the historical epic set in West Africa in 1823. Tony and Oscar award winner Viola Davis, featured here in four covers of the October 2022 issue of ELLE Brazil, stars as Nanisca, a force of nature in Dahomey, West Africa. Today Dahomey is located in what we know as southern Benin.

Brazil’s photographers Mar + Vin [Marcos Florentino + Kelvin Yule] [IG] photograph Davis, styled by Juliana Jimenez for editorial director Susan Barbosa [IG].

As the leader of the Agojie, the all-woman army of the African kingdom, Davis’s character led a fighting force so fierce that even enemies spoke of its “prodigious bravery”.

Damoney’s 6.000 warrior women raided villages under darkness, taking captives while beheading resisters, as trophies of war. The Agojie commanded the respect of European visitors, who often compared them to the ‘Amazons’, the legendary warrior women — now confirmed as real by researchers — of Greek mythology.

The film opens in America Friday, September 16, and the formidable presence of Viola Davis will touchdown in Brazil, to promote the release of ‘The Woman King’ on September 22.

‘The Woman King’ is the first time that the American film industry has dramatized the ferociously compelling, and disruptive-to-all-psyches story of these legendary warrior women. The film takes place against the backdrop of regional conflicts engulfing the region and the looming probability of European colonization.

The film comes at an important time in America as MAGA-Republicans seek to shut down the stories of slavery and colonialism, for fear of the truths of history becoming better known to America’s kids and old people, both.

This recent Smithsonian article reminds us that dramatic liberties have been taken with the film. As we work hard to speak to the truth of the slave trade, historians agree that the film is not telling a factual story in many areas.

I can’t believe that Viola Davis won’t work to discuss these realities — or post a well-researched counter narrative.

In our already-fraught state of race relations in America, the Smithsonian argues that:

“ . . . the kingdom’s involvement in the slave trade doesn’t align as neatly with the historical record. 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.”

Make no mistake that the right-wing will seize upon these alleged discrepancies, which is why AOC will explore them in-depth out of the gate.

Just as Southenerns have rewritten the alleged glory of the Confederacy to be factually incorrect, they should understand — and have no issue with — factual changes in the history of Dahomey for the purposes of a dramatization of this African nation’s powerful women warriors.

As we really rev up this The Wokes channel, I am consolidating content from all over the website. Much of it is a decade old or even older.

Ever since Charlottesville and then the murder of George Floyd in 2020, followed by my then move to Virginia in an effort to better understand the American story, I’ve read stories about lynching and burning people in alive in America that sent me into a deep depression.

I’ve wept so many tears post-George Floyd that I contracted an eye infection and the Black doctor who treated me said “Miss Anne, you have to stop weeping. No matter what I give you to stop the infection, it won’t work if you keep crying.”

I saw a broadcast today of a youngish man speaking from Texas, and he said something that rang very true to me. His argument is that when the newspaper images from lynchings — often a form of entertainment in America memorialized on postcards — or images in the Smithsonian collections are shown online by websites like Anne of Carversville, people are going to recognize faces that are in family albums all over America.

So I understand that if AOC writes about real history vs the storyline in ‘The Woman King’, that I have a one-to-one obligation to share the American horror stories that have upset me so deeply and should not be buried from the facts of racial history in this country. This is the promise I make for Anne of Carversville.

It’s a fact that I won’t win any popularity contests — as truth-tellers always upset people on all sides — but this is the best way forward for me and the readers who trust me. Just know that the land below me was a Confederate rest station/hospital during the Civil War.

Now that is a trip for a Yankee like me!

I knew about the Dahomey Amazons, after posting this article about powerful West African women several years ago. Let me be clear that no one challenges the history of these ferocious women. The challenges come around the avoidance of confronting African participation in the slave trade. This is NOT a new topic in America’s race war of facts.

In the film Nanisca disapproves of the slave trade after experiencing its horrors personally. She urges Ghezo to end Dahomey’s close relationship with Portuguese slave traders and shift to production of palm oil as the kingdom's main export.

The Smithsonian says history is well documented that in real life:

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 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.

WEST AFRICAN QUEENS OF DAHOMEY, NOW BENIN. THESE FIERCE FIGHTERS WERE ALSO CALLED THE DAHOMEY AMAZONS. THIS IMAGE IS LIKELY TAKEN 1900-1912. PHOTO: FRANCOIS-EDMOND FORTIER.

What we know for sure is that Viola Davis — and all that she stands for — reigns supreme. Davis is always at the center of swirling cultural vibrations and all women — not only women of color — should be thrilled with this historical, cinematic narrative.

Those of us who are deep researchers into the facts of history know that the patriarchy is real and has had dramatic impact on the lives of all women. We also know that there is strong evidence of African cultures where women had much more power and influence than those women who landed on American shores on the Mayflower. Their societies were often notably more egalitarian, until slave traders, colonizers and Christianity got involved in their affairs.

To be continued . . . Anne

As African Art Thrives, Museums Grapple With Legacy of Colonialism

In 1897, British troops looted thousands of pieces of culturally significant art, which came to reside in private and public collections, including this cooper plaque (detail) now held at the Smithsonian Institution..

By Nina Kravinsky. First published by The Smithsonian

In 1897, 1,200 British troops captured and burned Benin City. It marked the end of independence for the Kingdom of Benin, which was in the modern-day Edo state in southern Nigeria. In addition to razing the city, British troops looted thousands of pieces of priceless and culturally significant art, known as the Benin bronzes.

More than a century later, the museums that house these pieces are grappling with the legacy of colonialism. Leaders in Africa have continued their call to get the Benin bronzes and other works of art taken by colonists back, at the same time as new museums open up across Africa. (In 2017, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art organized its first traveling exhibition in Africa showcasing the work of the Nigerian photographer Chief S. O. Alonge. The show, catalogue and educational program were organized and produced in partnership with Nigeria's national museum in Benin City. Alonge was the official photographer to the Royal Court of Benin.)

The British Museum, which has the largest collection of Benin bronzes, is in communication with Nigeria about returning the bronzes. They’re waiting for the completion of the Benin Royal Museum, a project planned for Benin City. Edo state officials recently tapped architect David Adjaye, who designed the National Museum of African American History and Culture, to do a feasibility study on the site.

the Benin Royal Museum will house many of the bronzes looted by the british and spread across multiple museums and individual collections.

Additionally, Nigeria’s first privately funded university museum opened at the Pan-Atlantic University east of Lagos in October thanks to a large donation from Yoruba Prince Yemisi Shyllon, Smithsonian’s Charlotte Ashamu pointed out at a panel on the problems facing Africa’s museum sector last month.

Ashamu grew up in Lagos and is now an associate director at the African Art Museum. The panel was part of a Global Consortium for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage symposium co-hosted by Yale University and the Smithsonian Institution and organized by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Ashamu says the opening of new museums in Africa, like Shyllon’s, is of significant importance.

“It’s changing the narrative that I hear often in the United States, and that’s the narrative that Africans can’t pay or don’t have resources to support their own cultural sector,” Ashamu says. “There are plenty of resources. There is wealth, and it is being invested in the museum and cultural sector.”

Ashamu says Shyllon’s museum is just one example of many new, similar projects across Africa where personal wealth is being invested in the arts.

But Athman Hussein, the assistant director of the National Museums of Kenya, says that private investments alone won’t get many of the public museums in Kenya to the place they need to be to handle large collections of repatriated objects.

He says a lack of funding from the state has made it hard to even keep lights and air conditioning on in some museums.

“You cannot sugar-coat issues,” Hussein says. “If you go to a doctor, or in this case a consortium . . . you have to speak to what is ailing.”

Phantasmagoria: Prince Yemisi Shyllon stands beside a piece of artwork by Ahmed Akinrinola in his Lagos garden © Adeola Olagunju for the FT

Plus, Hussein says there are other obstacles facing the continent’s cultural heritage sector, like security. He says in Kenya, increasing security threats mean dwindling tourism numbers, which further impacts attendance at museums. Several panelists at the event expressed the importance of not sticking solely to traditional, Western models of museums. Ashamu says African museums need to start looking into “innovative business models.”

That’s just what Uganda’s Kampala Biennale is aiming to do. The group pairs emerging Ugandan artists with experienced artists for mentorships to empower and teach a new generation of artists in the country. They also host arts festivals around Uganda.

The Biennale’s director, Daudi Karungi, says that the idea of brick-and-mortar museums are less important to him than arts education and creating culturally relevant spaces for art and history. In fact, he says the museum of the future he’d like to see in Uganda wouldn’t look much like what museum-goers in the West are used to.

“Our museum, if it ever happens … it will be one of free entrance, it’ll have no opening or closing times, the community where it is will be the guides and the keepers of the objects, it should be in rooms, outdoors, in homes, on the streets,” Karungi says. “It should not be called a museum, because of course a museum is what we know. So this new thing has to be something else.”

The Smithsonian Institution is also exploring new ways to get objects back into the communities they come from. For example, the National Museum of Natural History’s Repatriation Office teamed up with the Tlingit Kiks.ádi clan in Southeast Alaska to create a reproduction of a sacred hat that had entered the museum's collections in 1884 but was too badly broken to be worn in clan ceremonies. The 3-D hat, dedicated in a ceremony earlier this fall, represented a new form of cultural restoration using digitization and replication technology to go beyond restoration.

Michael Atwood Mason, director of the Smithsonian Folklife and Cultural Heritage, points out that the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology is also making short-term loans so pieces of indigenous art can spend time closer to the communities where they’re from.

Gus Casely-Hayford. Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

“Many of us recognize that there is a historical imbalance in relationships, and we’re seeking ways to ameliorate that,” Mason says.

“There is a huge territory for us to explore in terms of potential collaboration,” says Gus Casely-Hayford, director of the African Art Museum. But for now, he says their first goal is on other kinds of partnerships to benefit Africa’s museum sector, like conservation and curation training.

Some panelists say it might be a long road for many of Africa’s museums before they’re ready to get back some of the larger or more delicate collections. Casely-Hayford says one Smithsonian study found that the vast majority of museums in Africa don’t feel they have the resources to tell their own stories in the way they’d like.

But Casely-Hayford, who recently announced he is leaving the Smithsonian to head the Victoria & Albert East in London, says going down that road is crucial for the future.

“Culture is essentially defining what we are, where we’ve been and where we might be going,” he says. “And I just think in Africa, the continent in this very moment is on the cusp of true greatness. Culture must be absolutely part of its nations’ narratives.”

Queen Elizabeth II & Ghana President Nkrumah In A 1961 Diplomat Foxtrot Watched In Black & White

(L) The real-life foxtrot between Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah and Queen Elizabeth II and (R) 'The Crown's' version of the splendid dance featuring actors Claire Foy as Elizabeth II and Danny Sapan as Nkrumah

Who knew! In season 2, episode 8 of 'The Crown' Dear Mrs Kennedy, the geopolitics of the Cold War collide with Queen Elizabeth's pondering her private insecurities as monarch with the rising popular evangelicalism of America's Reverand Billy Graham, the global popularity of The Kennedys and the crumbling of the British Empire.  

Queen Elizabeth meets Jackie Kennedy, who seemingly has every male in Europe trailing and fantasizing about her every move, and hears through the grapevine some very unflattering comments made about her averageness. Mrs. Kennedy -- who later apologizes and says she was under pep drugs at the time -- referenced Elizabeth's inability to inspire Britain, let alone an empire breaking away from her influence. 

Claire Foy is fantastic here, fully capturing the naive insights of a woman unused to making honest personal connections; then thinking she had made a connection with Jackie Kennedy in the privacy of her private quarters and corgis, and then Elizabeth's devastation on hearing about Jackie’s unkind comments at a later gathering.

An opportunity for Queen Elizabeth to redeem herself in her own eyes and those in-the-know about the diplomatic incident between the two women presents itself in the Ghanaian capital of Accra. President Kwame Nkrumah has announced his intention to lead his newly independent nation into a strategic alliance with Communist Russia, a harsh reality realized with Russia has outbidding the US in helping Ghana to build the Volta Dam.

Queen Elizabeth arriving on her hstory-making trip to Ghana.

It’s thrilling to see Elizabeth rise to the occasion, becoming an active, independent agent as opposed to a passive observer of her life, buffeted by events and people acting out of her control on the world stage. Defying her Prime Minister, her advisers, the British press and even her husband, Elizabeth travels to Ghana with a single-minded goal. The Queen will bring the Ghana back into the Commonwealth by any means necessary -- and that includes a foxtrot. Note that in real life, PM Harold Macmillan did champion Elizabeth II going to Ghana, believing she could be his "charm offensive."

In consenting to a foxtrot -- yes, it happened for real -- with Nkrumah, Elizabeth II achieves more in a few minutes than British diplomats dealing with the young nation have managed to achieve in weeks. The dance scene itself is quite dazzling, as Elizabeth finds her Jackie-O side. Comparing the images from 'The Crown' above and the real-life photos below,  there is more physical space between the couple in the real-life dance -- if these images don't distort the truth. And we must always remember that 'The Crown' is a fictionalized account of history, viewed through the lens of the British Empire and Britain's crumbling monarchy.  

In reality, the Akosombo Dam was completed in 1965, in a project jointly financed by Ghana, the World Bank, the United States and the United Kingdom. Few sources -- even those who write that 'The Crown' is racist ( well SURE it is, given that colonialism was racist) -- debate that this foxtrot between Elizabeth II and President Kwame Nkrumah -- The Lion of Africa --was a diplomatic success on multiple fronts.

Here we have actual footage from the Queen's visit to northern Ghana. Note that there is hardly a woman in sight, except for Elizabeth II.