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Africans: when ever Hollywood makes inaccurate movies about your Country how do you feel?

LightofNoor333

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I personally ALWAYS side with my countrymen even though they are betrayed as the enemy and I know it ain't gonna end well for us lmaoo it's just the principle:arrogant


I still to this day laugh at how ridiculous Blackhawk down is lol like where did they find these actors portraying somalis??e5:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

 

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I don’t care. The less white people in Africa, the better.

Although, I was born in America, so I’m not really sure if I’m considered “African”
 

Fvckiana

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I can’t stand it. Especially when they get the accent wrong!!!!!! Just stop trying at this point Hollywood! Stick to what you know.
 

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Hollywood makes films that are intentionally racist and prone to stereotypes, there’s nothing liberal about them
 

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I hate when they make up African names. I can't recall what exactly I was watching, and they gave a Sudanese character a name that isn't Sudanese...it was a made up name. They even make up whole a ss countries...yet they never create ficticious European countries. Very irritating and disrespectful.
 
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Melanin2019

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Don’t worry even filmmakers on the continent get it wrong so it’s a moot point.

But the Hollywood mistakes are inexcusable cuz they have the power n money to cast our actors writers directors linguists yet they choose not to. They have the resources to be accurate yet there’s no “accuracy” police prior to big budget release.

It also feels like when they do get it right, people don’t show up in numbers
 

Melanin2019

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I hate when they make up African names. I can't recall what exactly I was watching, and they gave a Sudanese character a name that isn't Sudanese...it was a made up name. They even make up wholea ss countries...yet they never create ficticious European countries. Very irritating and disrespectful.
Luce was like that lol
 

T H I E F S

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I was super pissed about Tears of the Sun but most Nigerians actually liked that movie.

There was a tv show a bunch of years ago called... The Philanthropist, I think? It was about this rich dude who travels the world having adventures and stuff.



And the thing about it is that a key part of the marketing was how "accurate" it is, how it's based on a true story, and how much research they supposedly did to portray the various locations accurately. They even had a website (which was new for shows back then... this was like early 2000s) to educate the viewers about all the places the lead character would travel to.

The first episode was set in Nigeria. They portrayed Abuja as a huge, filthy shanty town full of machete-wielding thugs and face-painted witch doctors roaming the dirt paths.

I helped lead a letter-writing campaign that got the show swiftly cancelled. I was very proud of that back then... dunno how I feel about it now, since I no longer support cancel culture. But that dumbass show deserved to be cancelled. It was bad enough that it was ignorant... but the fact that they were going around bragging about how much research they did. fµck!ng assholes. I still get mad thinking about it.

Just went to see if I could find it on YouTube... funny, it seems all the episodes are there except for the pilot, set in Nigeria. Naija people probably let them hear it so loud, the damn thing is mostly wiped off the internet (probably can find it on DailyMotion or something though)
 
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delicious11

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Don’t worry even filmmakers on the continent get it wrong so it’s a moot point.

But the Hollywood mistakes are inexcusable cuz they have the power n money to cast our actors writers directors linguists yet they choose not to. They have the resources to be accurate yet there’s no “accuracy” police prior to big budget release.

It also feels like when they do get it right, people don’t show up in numbers


I was going to say this..Nollywood often gets it wrong when it comes to portraying Nigeria on screen so I can't complain about Hollywood.

Re:Nollywood...they are changing now and I think Genevieve Nnaji's movies been snubbed for an Oscar nomination because they spoke English has something to do with it.

My biggest issue with Nollywood has always been language as it takes away from the sense of realism that the character is trying to portray...no you will not find a Mama in the village speaking the Queen's English and neither are people working in a bus park, Genevieve! No, a woman who lives in large mansion with about two or three cars to drive...will not be running the streets begging for money to feed her child...I digress.

That being said, I am looking forward to the Hollywood production of Fela...I would also like "Things Fall Apart" to be given the Hollywood treatment. Hollywood to mean Hollywood studio budget but obviously with a professionally trained and experienced Nigerian Director at the fore.
 

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I was going to say this..Nollywood often gets it wrong when it comes to portraying Nigeria on screen so I can't complain about Hollywood.

Re:Nollywood...they are changing now and I think Genevieve Nnaji's movies been snubbed for an Oscar nomination because they spoke English has something to do with it.

My biggest issue with Nollywood has always been language as it takes away from the sense of realism that the character is trying to portray...no you will not find a Mama in the village speaking the Queen's English and neither are people working in a bus park, Genevieve! No, a woman who lives in large mansion with about two or three cars to drive...will not be running the streets begging for money to feed her child...I digress.

That being said, I am looking forward to the Hollywood production of Fela...I would also like "Things Fall Apart" to be given the Hollywood treatment. Hollywood to mean Hollywood studio budget but obviously with a professionally trained and experienced Nigerian Director at the fore.
Are Nollywood movies meant to be realistic?
 

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I have aboriginal Native American and African on my moms side and does any one notice how they always have white men to play the NA. I never see black NA with dark skin in films
 
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Melanin2019

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A whole lot of signifying in Hollywood,
I was going to say this..Nollywood often gets it wrong when it comes to portraying Nigeria on screen so I can't complain about Hollywood.

Re:Nollywood...they are changing now and I think Genevieve Nnaji's movies been snubbed for an Oscar nomination because they spoke English has something to do with it.

My biggest issue with Nollywood has always been language as it takes away from the sense of realism that the character is trying to portray...no you will not find a Mama in the village speaking the Queen's English and neither are people working in a bus park, Genevieve! No, a woman who lives in large mansion with about two or three cars to drive...will not be running the streets begging for money to feed her child...I digress.

That being said, I am looking forward to the Hollywood production of Fela...I would also like "Things Fall Apart" to be given the Hollywood treatment. Hollywood to mean Hollywood studio budget but obviously with a professionally trained and experienced Nigerian Director at the fore.
It happens quite a bit and in these quarantine times I’ve been getting acquainted with all the mistakes. Smh

- Yvonne Okoro playing a “Caribbean Princess” on holiday in Ghana still had a Ghanaian accent urgh
- There was once a Ali n Pawpaw film I saw in which they portrayed people from a super isolated village, the language they used was very clearly jibberish, but cuz if the comedic nature twas not so glaring
But for me, Hollywood getting wrong is more painful than Nollywood, I don’t know why it just is. Genevieve ain’t done, neither is Shirley Frimpong Manso or Leila Djansi and countless others who prove Hollywood wrong in their films.

I look forward to more Chimamanda books being given the Hollywood treatment. Perhaps one day The Alchemist will also finally make it to big screen as well
 

LLJ

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deeply annoyed. Especially in this day and age of Google and people from everywhere being everywhere. It's not hard to find a native of my country in the US to help them fact check. They did a whole movie with the lead who was supposed to be from my country doing a Zimbabwean accent.
 

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I will never get over Will Smith's "Nigerian" accent in Concussion smh. e1
 
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I'm Somali and I thought Captain Phillips was the funniest thing I have ever seen. They really chose the ugliest Somali they could find.
 

LightofNoor333

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I'm Somali and I thought Captain Phillips was the funniest thing I have ever seen. They really chose the ugliest Somali they could find.
tenor-2.gif

I REFUSE to watch that fµck!ng movie lmaoo

The only pirate movie I thought was decent (still western BS propaganda but still) was fishing without nets

The men didnt look straight extraerrestrial :cry:
20200513_140830.jpg

And this cute short film
 

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I was going to say this..Nollywood often gets it wrong when it comes to portraying Nigeria on screen so I can't complain about Hollywood.

Re:Nollywood...they are changing now and I think Genevieve Nnaji's movies been snubbed for an Oscar nomination because they spoke English has something to do with it.

My biggest issue with Nollywood has always been language as it takes away from the sense of realism that the character is trying to portray...no you will not find a Mama in the village speaking the Queen's English and neither are people working in a bus park, Genevieve! No, a woman who lives in large mansion with about two or three cars to drive...will not be running the streets begging for money to feed her child...I digress.

That being said, I am looking forward to the Hollywood production of Fela...I would also like "Things Fall Apart" to be given the Hollywood treatment. Hollywood to mean Hollywood studio budget but obviously with a professionally trained and experienced Nigerian Director at the fore.

Things Fall Apart is one of my favourite Chinua Achebe books. It would make a great movie
 

MargaeryTyrell

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(My post wasn’t supposed to be so long lol)

It annoys me, I can’t remember any Hollywood film based in Nigeria, but I still get annoyed for other places on the continent. Like Last King of Scotland, while Forest Whitaker was amazing and did his research on Idi Amin. It rubbed me the wrong way that the protagonist was a white Scottish man looking for ‘adventure’. His character was boring, the story should be centred on Idi Amin or native opposition to Amin. It spent more time on the white man in Africa trope, rather than Idi Amin’s psychology and how the people fought against him. Africans (other than Amin) are passive beings in this film.

Speaking of passive beings, Blood Diamonds, that is based on the civil war that happened in Sierra Leone from 1991-2000 also portrays Africans as extremely violent or passive, no in between. Dijmon was great in regards to acting skills, but his character is naive and quite frankly stupid who needed a white man to guide him at every step(Leo’s character), even when it came to dodging bullets :disdain .African women are portrayed even worse, either wailing for help or prostitutes soliciting themselves to Leonardo’s character. The only black character that has proper agency is the older black man that runs a sanctuary for former child soldiers, but he’s injured and disappears after 10 mins on screen while the bland white woman photojournalist has more screen time. To fulfill the kickass, independent woman trope (Black women weren’t given the same feminist courtesy).

Black women are hardly characters at all in this film. There’s the prostitutes, victims of the rebels, Djimon’s wife, that’s it and they have like five lines between them. The war isn’t really explained properly, although that’s somewhat understandable because it is complex and you can’t fit all that in a movie, however it wasn’t just a fight over diamonds(that just fuelled it). I’m half Sierra Leonean and heard real stories of people persevering this film doesn’t do my countrymen and women justice.

The interesting part was Leo’s white ‘Rhodesian’ character; racist and resenting Africa because his parents were killed (his mum raped)by Black Zimbabwean revolutionaries, but ultimately as another white African settler pointed out that was ‘home’. He wouldn’t fit in elsewhere despite being white, that’s something not shown in cinema often, but it’s accurate for a lot of White Zimbabweans that would be around Leo’s character’s age. Interesting how he is the only character with depth and a proper background story to explain why he is the way he is.
 
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Things Fall Apart is one of my favourite Chinua Achebe books. It would make a great movie

it’s already a great movie


But the one that gets me is district 9

i laugh my head off at that sh!t

so ignant yet so funny
 

Melanin2019

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(My post wasn’t supposed to be so long lol)

It annoys me, I can’t remember any Hollywood film based in Nigeria, but I still get annoyed for other places on the continent. Like Last King of Scotland, while Forest Whitaker was amazing and did his research on Idi Amin. It rubbed me the wrong way that the protagonist was a white Scottish man looking for ‘adventure’. His character was boring, the story should be centred on Idi Amin or native opposition to Amin. It spent more time on the white man in Africa trope, rather than Idi Amin’s psychology and how the people fought against him. Africans (other than Amin) are passive beings in this film.

Speaking of passive beings, Blood Diamonds, that is based on the civil war that happened in Sierra Leone from 1991-2000 also portrays Africans as extremely violent or passive, no in between. Dijmon was great in regards to acting skills, but his character is naive and quite frankly stupid who needed a white man to guide him at every step(Leo’s character), even when it came to dodging bullets:)disdain). African women are portrayed even worse, either wailing for help or prostitutes soliciting themselves to Leonardo’s character. The only black character that has proper agency is the older black man that runs a sanctuary for former child soldiers, but he’s injured and disappears after 10 mins on screen while the bland white woman photojournalist has more screen time. To fulfill the kickass, independent women trope (Black women weren’t given the same feminist courtesy).

Black women are hardly characters at all in this film. There’s the prostitutes, victims of the rebels, Djimon’s wife, that’s it. The war isn’t really explained properly, although that’s somewhat understandable because it is complex and you can’t fit all that in a movie, however it wasn’t just a fight over diamonds(that just fuelled it).

The interesting part was Leo’s white ‘Rhodesian’ character; racist and resenting Africa because his parents were killed (his mum raped)by Black Zimbabwean revolutionaries, but ultimately as another white African settler pointed out that was ‘home’. He wouldn’t fit in elsewhere despite being white, that’s something not shown in cinema often, but it’s accurate for a lot of White Zimbabweans that would be around Leo’s character’s age. Interesting how he is the only character with depth and a proper background story to explain why he is the way he is.
Well said, I hated the make up I. The last king of Scotland, I noticed the body paint they used on him for more melanin right at the cuff of his arms, it’s not a big deal but I add that to list if grievances.

the last Nigeria based Hollywood film for me was Half if a Yellow Sun which got canned because Of casting but I felt it was a decent production showing Nigerians if various class
 

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What about?

Mandela with Idris
Hotel Rwanda
The boxing one with Matt Damon?or was it Rugby, Invictus

I really liked Totsi, but always think Hollywood movies about Africa will be problematic and kind of boring. I have only seen Blood Diamonds and The Last King and agree with Margaery - that was like a film critique.
 

MargaeryTyrell

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You made some points, sis! I remember watching a Nigerian film and an old man snapped “how the fµck do you think I feel?!” at someone. It took me out of the scene for a moment. Would an old African man speak that way, even if he was ‘westernised’? Unlikely.

The worst offenders are Ghanaians. I’ll watch a film and the characters are named ‘John Smith’, ‘Linda Hamilton’, ‘Pedro Cruz’ this is highly unrealistic. Do some Africans have these names? Sure, especially in certain countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola) but they’re not that common and especially not common in Ghana. I’ll watch a film and they all have English first AND last names smh or worse Latin names - in Ghana! Also, they try and copy American mannerisms, accents and phrases and it just makes me cringe. Don’t get me started on the blue and green contact lenses I’m seeing actresses wear these days. It’s so sad, when will these directors and writers learn to be themselves. The majority of consumers of these films are Africans and secondly Caribbean people, so who are they performing for?

Be authentic, the film can still be great while maintaining African culture. Just look how great South Korean films are. I’m not Korean and don’t even speak the language but I enjoyed Parasite, it’s one of my top films. It seems like some Africans are brainwashed and think anything American/western is good, so they’ll copy that. Not knowing it makes the film horrible lol.


I was going to say this..Nollywood often gets it wrong when it comes to portraying Nigeria on screen so I can't complain about Hollywood.

Re:Nollywood...they are changing now and I think Genevieve Nnaji's movies been snubbed for an Oscar nomination because they spoke English has something to do with it.

My biggest issue with Nollywood has always been language as it takes away from the sense of realism that the character is trying to portray...no you will not find a Mama in the village speaking the Queen's English and neither are people working in a bus park, Genevieve! No, a woman who lives in large mansion with about two or three cars to drive...will not be running the streets begging for money to feed her child...I digress.

That being said, I am looking forward to the Hollywood production of Fela...I would also like "Things Fall Apart" to be given the Hollywood treatment. Hollywood to mean Hollywood studio budget but obviously with a professionally trained and experienced Nigerian Director at the fore.
 

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East African here (not a horner). The Last King of Scotland was trash, and Forest Whitaker did not do the Ugandan accent well at all, despite how much he was praised). I grew up around Ugandans my whole life, so I know it very well.

The thing is that most people don't even have a clue what different African accents sound like, so as long as they have the "standard" African accent, that's convincing enough, lol. I'm often surprised that even some Africans themselves can barely tell the difference between certain African accents.

Don Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda also sounded horrible, and didn't even pronounce the Rwandan name properly, lol. Same goes for Idris Elba in Sometimes in April where he was supposed to playing a Rwandan but sounded Nigerian. Everyone in that movie sounded Nigerian, even though it's about Rwanda, lmao!

The worst has to be Kerry Washington in The Last King of Scotland though. Her "Ugandan" accent was absolutely atrocious and sounded so cartoonish.
 
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MargaeryTyrell

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Well said, I hated the make up I. The last king of Scotland, I noticed the body paint they used on him for more melanin right at the cuff of his arms, it’s not a big deal but I add that to list if grievances.

the last Nigeria based Hollywood film for me was Half if a Yellow Sun which got canned because Of casting but I felt it was a decent production showing Nigerians if various class

Yeah, the body paint was a bit...

They did it to Kerry Washington too, like it’s ok for her character to be brown skinned. There are brown skinned Ugandans. No need to ‘Black’ her up moree2 . It plays into the one dimensional view they have of Africans.

Half of the Yellow Sun was made by an independent (western) company. It was ok, but too short to really go into detail about the civil war. It was better than other African films, I guess that’s because it wasn’t a big Hollywood production and it’s based on a Nigerian author’s book.
 

MargaeryTyrell

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I agree with most of your post. I was impressed by Forest Whitaker’s accent especially because it didn’t sound like the typical Coming to America ‘African’ accent that sounds a bit South African, a bit British, vaguely East African and something else(?). I’m not Ugandan, so I wouldn’t be able to catch things that you would, but I thought he sounded like some of my mum’s Ugandan friends (guess I was wrong e2 ). His acting was on point, though. You’re right about Kerry, she had the “Coming to America” accent I was talking about :ROFLMAO:

East African here (not a horner). The Last King of Scotland was trash, and Forest Whitaker did not do the Ugandan accent well at all, despite how much he was praised). I grew up around Ugandans my whole life, so I know it very well.

The thing is that most people don't even have a clue what different African accents sound like, so as long as they have the "standard" African accent, that's convincing enough, lol. I'm often surprised that even some Africans themselves can barely tell the difference between certain African accents.

Don Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda also sounded horrible, and didn't even pronounce the Rwandan name properly, lol. Same goes for Idris Elba in Sometimes in April where he was supposed to playing a Rwandan but sounded Nigerian. Everyone in that movie sounded Nigerian, even though it's about Rwanda, lmao!

The worst has to Kerry Washington in The Last King of Scotland though. Her "Ugandan" accent was absolutely atrocious and sounded so cartoonish.
 

MargaeryTyrell

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What about?

Mandela with Idris
Hotel Rwanda
The boxing one with Matt Damon?or was it Rugby, Invictus

I really liked Totsi, but always think Hollywood movies about Africa will be problematic and kind of boring. I have only seen Blood Diamonds and The Last King and agree with Margaery - that was like a film critique.


Is Hotel Rwanda good? I haven’t watched it. I only saw scenes on YouTube.
 

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Is Hotel Rwanda good? I haven’t watched it. I only saw scenes on YouTube.

Hotel Rwanda is trash and tells a false story about that man and what he supposedly did. Plus, Don Cheadle's accent is quite bad and awfully distracting. He keeps mispronouncing his own character's name to begin with, lol. Just all around trash and above all, inaccurate.

Invictus was ok, Morgan Freeman's accent was overdone, but Matt Damon's white South African accent was right on the money. Absolutely impeccably done (as much as I don't like him and don't want to give him props).
 

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Is Hotel Rwanda good? I haven’t watched it. I only saw scenes on YouTube.

Not seen any of them. TBH the trailers to a lot of these films with known actors doing bad accents put me off. Plus I think the west has this obsession with African countries being war torn and full of despotic warlords and child soldiers.
 

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