In 1979 an academic qualification work entitled “Les Amazones du Danxomè: 1645 - 1900” was published in France.

The historian Amélie Degbelo, who comes from Benin in West Africa, reports on an encounter with an old woman named Nawi, who claimed to have been an "Amazon" in her youth.

She had fought with a women's unit against French colonial rule in 1892 and could well be considered the last representative of a military regiment that by then already had legendary status: the Agojie (a word from the Fon language) were a fighting unit made up of women .

In 1998, the journalist and diplomat Stanley B. Alpern took up the story of the Agojie and added another to the occidental formatting: his book "Amazons of Black Sparta" must be considered the main inspiration behind the current film "The Woman King". suspect, which "inspired by real events" tells a Hollywood version of the story of the warrior women of Dahomey.

“The Woman King” dispenses with the mediation by a white main character, which has almost always been the norm up to now, but instead suggests a historical immediacy that does not conceal its proximity to the legend.

It's clearly a modern legend: American cinema makes amends by attempting to overwrite older racist or stereotypical depictions of Africa.

"The Woman King", i.e. a queen on the throne, is only a hope in the year 1823 in the kingdom of Dahomey.

The government is held by King Ghezo, who lives in a palace he shares with the Agojie.

The fighters practice beheading enemies on bales of straw, but their leader is also called to higher things.

Not only is Nanisca one of Ghezo's most important advisors, she also has a plan

which should change the whole state model of Dahomey.

Because up to now people have lived here not least from the slave trade, but now there is an opportunity to set a new example in a dispute with the Oyo empire.

According to Nanisca's suggestions, Dahomey should switch to palm oil, which from today's perspective is quite an ambivalent undertaking, which is also said to have clearly monocultural traits.

But projected back to 1823, palm oil is definitely better than the human trade that the Portuguese conducted in “The Woman King” via the port of Ouidah with the active participation of the Oyo.

Written by Dana Stevens and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, Dahomey is set to make the transition to a post-colonial order in the early 19th century, preferably with an intellectual queen and a resilient, non-exploitative economy right away.

However, these clearly programmatic aspects are embedded in genre logics, with which “The Woman King” first seeks its place in current mainstream cinema.

Because it is clearly a large-scale commercial production that nevertheless tries something unusual.

The result is a feminist-inspired superhero film that does without supernatural powers, and which, in addition to the references to free-floating or flying adventures from the Marvel or DC comic worlds, tries to be historical in a very concrete way.

And in two respects, that a dramaturgy of characters like in “The Woman King” is something new for Hollywood, i.e. historical in itself: the imposing Viola Davis in the leading role, Thuso Mbedu as Nawi, Lashana, known from the latest Bond film Lynch as Izogie, you have to generate audience interest here that Hollywood has long focused on white teenagers.

It almost seems like an allusion to this common logic that Nawi then still has to deal with a (half) Portuguese,

Incidentally, historical fairness would dictate that, together with this attempt at a revision of 130 years of western film history, a genuinely African film should be brought to the cinema again, which tried something similar to "The Woman King" much earlier.

Med Hondo's "Sarraounia" (1986) was titled "The Battle of the Black Queen" in German and, with a no less prototypical interest, attempted to create a female identification figure for African post-colonial traditions.

The director from Mauritania, who works mainly in France, chose a different context for this, namely a French expedition to Chad at the end of the 19th century, which in fact consisted of a series of massacres.

Queen Sarraounia, who opposes the Europeans, is a conceivable film historical role model for Nanisca.

A modest blockbuster by its standards, "Sarranouia" was already an attempt at a modern legend based on actual events.

You have to think of the African cinema nomads Med Hondo and Maria Bello, the white producer behind "The Woman King", in order to better understand where we - as a European audience, as a critical public - stand today with our pictures of Africa.