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Kevin BeltingHist 39611/8/10

Shaka Zulu: the Man, the Myth and the Media

Shaka kaSenzangakhona - or Shaka Zulu as he's commonly referred

to – was, for better or worse, one of the most influential figures in

South African history. As a man, his achievements were extraordinary,

uniting a divided people against a common enemy, inventing cunning

military strategies, and inciting a social revolution. Whether all of

these changes and inventions are necessarily good things is up for

debate, and Shaka is equally viewed as a heroic defender and brutal

dictator. The trouble with Shaka is that for a long time the earliest

sources on Shaka's life were eyewitness accounts by white traders at

the end of Shaka's reign. Their accounts painted Shaka as a savage

monster, a children's book villain, essentially. (Taylor, 40)

When looking at media representations of Shaka, it's tough for

many people to shake this image of him as a brutal savage and not as

the ruler he was. Much of the history surrounding Shaka is uncertain,

as most accounts are based on eyewitnesses or oral history, though

it's clear that Shaka was not the mad man he was originally made out

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to be. He was ruthless to be sure, and “[that] he was capable of

monstrous cruelty cannot be in doubt: it is fairly clear that towards

the end of his life he was drunk with power, and perhaps a little

mad.” (Taylor, 40) but his accomplishments are still impressive, and

he did a large amount of good on the whole by most accounts.

Shaka, and really the Zulu people on the whole, are portrayed

differently depending on who is doing the portrayal. Having been at

war with the British for many years, Zulus are very rarely portrayed

positively in most forms of media, since said media is predominantly

produced by whites who tend to hold a negative historical view of

Shaka. What little wide-spread media has been made by Africans tends

to have a more clinical view of Shaka, usually showing him as what he

was: a human being, with flaws and shortcomings, but admirable

aspects as well.

Even today there are many depictions of Zulu in popular culture.

While less specifically Zulu and more African warriors in general,

it's not uncommon to see depictions of black men in loincloths,

holding large leather shields and short spears. This image was often

used in a racist way when attempting to depict Africans as backwards

and primitive. The “spear-chucking native” caricature was often used

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maliciously in propaganda, and is a stereotype that still

occasionally crops up today. For example, recently the video game

Resident Evil 5 (which takes place in modern day Africa) got into some hot

water because early previews showed the player fighting black people

wearing tribal masks and throwing spears at the player character.

Once the game was released it became clear that these weren't

intended to be racial stereotypes, but people infected by a parasite

in a deep, unexplored section of Africa. Still, this shows the

sensitivity of this issue, and demonstrates how African warriors and

Zulu in particular were given such caricaturization.

At the best of times, the Zulu are shown to be a proud, powerful

tribe. At the worst, Shaka and his people are savage monsters, little

more than a boogeyman for the protagonists to test their skill

against. All modern representations of Shaka and the Zulu, whether

good or ill, regardless of creator, tend to lionize the subject, and

even at their very worst at least grudgingly admit that they are at

least worthy adversaries. Rather than attempt to reconcile these

rather glaring differences in portrayal, this paper will simply

attempt to pick apart various representations of Shaka and the Zulu,

finally comparing them to the life of the man himself, as accurate as

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we can know from history. Note that I will be focusing primarily on

modern representations, as older depictions tended to be simple

propaganda against the Zulu, particularly when they were at war with

the English.

To start with, it's important to start with what Shaka actually

did, according to history (note that the following is a composite

summary of Taylor, Knight, and other referenced works). Shaka, born

roughly 1787, is considered to be one of the most influential leaders

in Zulu history. Under his rule, the Zulu conquered surrounding

tribes, notably the large northern Nguni tribes, and ruled an area

spanning from the Mzimkhulu river to the Phongolo. Shaka is widely

considered to be a military genius, yet ruthless and merciless as a

commander.

Typically as a result of conquest, the local tribes' identities

would be quashed in favor of the now-ruling Zulu, transforming all of

that land and all of the tribes into one unified Zulu tribe. While

this resulted in the loss of more specific customs, it made the Zulu

stronger and greater as a whole. Much about Shaka himself remains

shrouded in mystery to this day, with historical accounts relying

mostly on oral traditions and stories. While Shaka as a person might

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not be known with crystal clear clarity, we can quite clearly see the

echoes his reign has left on Africa, even to this day. He brought

about military reforms never seen among the tribes, including forced

marches, new weapons (more focus on strong melee combat with large

shields and short spears), his famous “buffalo horns” tactics, and

the idea of moving war away from tribal shouting matches and more

towards brutal, but total, conquest.

Shaka himself is normally seen as being harsh and brutal, and

from all accounts this was probably the case. However, Shaka never

seemed to pride himself on being a “good” man, and was more focused

on being an effective leader and expanding his reign; at that, he was

exceptional. While it's true that he wrought a large amount of

destruction, his success as a military leader is undeniable. Shaka is

portrayed differently by many people: some feel he was a great hero,

some a terrible monster, with most realizing that he was somewhere in

between, like most men.

The first work to look at actually happens to be one of the more

famous films of the 20th century: Zulu, made in 1964. Many people hold

Zulu in high regard, not as a documentary (though for a movie intended

to entertain, it's remarkably accurate) or as an in-depth look into

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Zulu culture, but simply as a very, very good, gritty war movie. Zulu

portrays the events at Rorke's Drift in the Anglo-Zulu War. In the

movie, we see little of the Zulu themselves, and they mostly play the

parts of relatively faceless antagonists. The plot of the film

revolves around Lt. John Chard assuming command of a small British

detachment after learning of a defeat at Isandlwana. He orders the

men to hole up at Rorke's Drift as the massive Zulu force approaches.

The attack, according to the film, was ordered by the Zulu king

Cetshwayo. The soldiers stand strong in the face of crushing defeat,

but through courage and cunning, they manage to repel the attackers.

A pivotal scene in the film shows the Zulu banging on their shields

and singing a war chant; a common psychological tactic employed by

Zulu warriors. The British respond with a chant of their own, singing

“Men of Harlech” and attempting to drown out the chanting enemies.

This resorts in a sort of “sing battle” to psych out their respective

opponents. After this the Zulu charge for one last assault, are

repelled thanks to the English force's wits. The Zulus sing a song

praising the British for their bravery and then they peacefully leave

the battlefield.

Naturally, being a movie about British soldiers made by an

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American director living in the United Kingdom, the movie largely

adopts the point of view of the English. The Zulu are resolutely the

antagonists of the film, which makes sense considering the two forces

are at war with each other. That being said, the Zulu are treated

quite fairly, considering their role in the film. It would have been

easy to turn them into truly faceless savages, slaughtering their way

across the countryside, raping and pillaging as they go. Instead

they're fairly rational and human enemies, all things considered, who

lose with dignity and good sportsmanship. For a dramatized account of

a brutal war with the Zulu, they are treated quite well, as

characters. Or at least as well as the “bad guys” can be.

Being a dramatized account of a battle in a long and bloody war,

it's natural that certain liberties would be taken and there would be

some discrepancy with what actually happened during the battle. While

there were a few minor historical issues - such as some soldiers

using the wrong model of gun, actors being younger or older than

their real-world counterparts, incorrect facial hair, etc. - there

were two key issues that gave the film a sinister (though not

necessarily intentional) tone towards the end. Notably, the Zulu

warriors at the end of the film singing a song of their bravery and

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leaving peacefully. While this is a nice, somewhat condescending

ending that leaves the viewer instinctively saying “Oh look, those

savages might be primitive, but they have honor.” Compared to some of

the racist portrayals of African tribes in the past, this is a

downright respectful resolution, but thatt's not what happened. While

the Zulu had certainly suffered heavy losses, much heavier than they

expected, the British were on the verge of defeat. The Zulu lost more

men than they intended, but victory would have still been possible.

The reason the Zulu fled was because a column of English

reinforcements had come to relieve them (Laband, 56), and the Zulu

were not prepared to face the full force the British now had. To the

viewer who didn't know this, the film's ending would probably have

been a reasonably respectful portrayal of the enemy. However, to

those who know what actually happened, it seems like the film managed

to make the Zulu out to be rather stupid, tactically-speaking.

Instead of finishing the battle like they planned, or fleeing due to

superior numbers, the film gives the more condescending ending it

has. Though once again: for a British movie about British soldiers

fighting the Zulu, it was a remarkably respectful portrayal, all

things considered.

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Probably the next most famous mainstream work involving the Zulu

is the television miniseries Shaka Zulu from 1986. It is a portrayal of

Shaka's life, based primarily on the writings of the white British

traders who dealt with him. While the miniseries itself was probably

one of the more accurate portrayals of Shaka in mass media to date,

it came during a tumultuous time in South Africa's history. Since in

1986 South Africa was really beginning to feel the anti-apartheid

heat, the miniseries couldn't help but sort of be “dragged into it”.

It also didn't do itself any favors in terms of actually

contextualizing Shaka's rise, and turned him into an almost

mythological figure, instead of a historical one. As Tomaselli puts

it:

No attempt is made by the director of the series to historically

contextualize the rise of Shaka. His ascendance to power was

presented in terms of the 'great-man' theory. As Faure himself

states: "License has been taken, but always with one aim in mind

- to tell the story of a man, who in his own time, became a

living legend! We had to do justice to that story while at the same

time bringing to life the traditions and mythology of that period". I

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will argue that Faure's 'license' was couched, perhaps

unintentionally, within apartheid discourse, and does no justice to

either Shaka or history (see also Hamilton 1989). Viewers, are

kept in the dark about the conditions in South East Africa, such

as drought and the disruption of the Zanzibar trading routes by the

Portuguese, that could have led to the phenomenon of Zulu ascendancy

in the region. The result is a Zulu nationalist 'myth' centered

upon the personality of one man. It is a myth which complemented

apartheid-ordered South Africa and which ignores the conditions

resulting in the consolidation of a number of other large

kingdoms which emerged in South East Africa after 1750, but pre-

dating Shaka's accession to power. These conditions included

territorial expansion, military innovations and harsh conditions

of existence (Hamilton 1989:7).

It's hard to put it any better than that. The series presented

Shaka as a sort of disconnected force of nature, outside of the

natural climate that allowed him to rise to power. The historical

context is never fully explored.

I personally feel that the series didn't intentionally attempt

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to spur apartheid movements or really have any particular agenda

outside of portraying Shaka's life. While it was probably a noble

pursuit to make a documentary about Shaka, doing so in a dramatized

way tends to cheapen the effect that the series would've otherwise

had, especially at the time it was released. While the series itself

garnered a large amount of praise from critics, it's hard to ignore

some of the liberties it takes. There's one particularly deceitful

section where the series seems to try and portray the Zulu as a more

savage people than they are. Again, Tomaselli states it better than I

can:

An ill-placed, almost morbid fascination occurs in the Zululand

scenes in Shaka Zulu on ceremonies and rituals of Zulu life. Since

such occasions are associated with 'extraordinary' or exotic behavior

in any society, the result is the representation of Zulus as a

bizarre and violent people. 'Normal', mundane life is seldom to

be seen in the TV series. If white rituals such as marriages,

public hangings, funerals, pomp and ceremony were filmed in the same

way, the camera deliberately seeking out the ritualistic order and

latent violence of such scenes, it would be just as possible to

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image white societies as incomprehensible, threatening and overly

ordered as the director has done with the black society depicted.

There are several cultural fallacies in the production, for

example, execution by impaling on long poles did not occur (Msimang

1990:248) ; and, in the scene in which brideprice for Nandi is

negotiated is impossible, as she would not have been permitted to

attend the proceedings nor have a say in the number of cattle to be

exchanged (Msimang 1990:249).

As a historical documentary and dramatization, Shaka Zulu takes

more liberties than it can really afford to. Instead of being a

clinical, historical, biographical look at Shaka as I believe they

intended it to be, Shaka Zulu ended up being a more sensationalist

piece, focusing on too many negative aspects and painting a skewed

picture for the viewer. If it were released at any other time it may

have just been another vaguely stereotypical view of Zulu culture and

Shaka himself, but since it was released during this peak of

apartheid, it garnered a much closer look than it may have otherwise

deserved.

On a related note, let's take a look at the movie Shaka Zulu: The

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Last Great Warrior (sometimes Shaka Zulu: The Citadel). The movie is ostensibly

a sequel to the miniseries Shaka Zulu, which we covered above. The Last

Great Warrior stars David Hasselhoff (yes, that David Hasselhoff) as a

slave trader who has captured Shaka with the intent of selling him,

but he escapes with a white stowaway woman aboard David's ship. Shaka

brings the woman to his tribe to show him the ways of his people, to

show that they are not savages, but noble warriors. Or possibly to

kill her and eat her. It's honestly quite hard to tell. The acting

and production are pretty terrible, even for a low-budget movie like

this. At least I hope it was low-budget, otherwise that was just

embarrassing. Shaka is portrayed as a mystical, fierce, yet kind

hearted and noble leader of men. I think that's the case, anyway. The

movie is very schizophrenic and poorly written, it's hard to tell

what exactly is happening at any given moment. At the end of the

movie, Shaka spares Hasselhoff's character for whatever reason, (this

isn't made particularly clear) showing himself to be a benevolent and

selfless man. While I suppose this is a nice image, it's not

particularly accurate. By all accounts, Shaka was a brutal, ruthless,

yet effective commander (Taylor, 42). In the movie, Shaka is merciful

and occasionally downright adorable, like when he oh-so-softly pulls

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the covers up over the woman he kidnapped, showing that he's not such

a bad guy after all. While I suppose it is good he is not a complete

and utter savage, it's also not particularly true to Shaka's

character. “Soft and cuddly” doesn't particularly describe Shaka,

even in the most lenient depictions.

The whole film is just wildly inaccurate. The entire premise of

the movie is that Hasselhoff has captured Shaka with the intent to

sell him. This never happened, naturally. Were Shaka to ever be

captured, it's unlikely that Hasselhoff's character would've ever

made it to his boat alive. After escaping, Shaka fights some white

men with Southern United States accents for no reason, then he

returns to his tribe (kidnapped nameless white woman in tow) to go to

war with the British. Again, none of this ever happened. Shaka warred

with other African tribes, uniting them under the Zulu name,

certainly, but he never went to war with the English. And those are

just some of the big flaws. This is all ignoring the other

historically incorrect accents, costumes, weapons, locations, people,

events, history, etc. Oh, and despite effectively being portrayed as

immoral slave-trading psychopaths, the white guys are still supposed

to be the good guys at the end. All of this could be forgiven as just

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a silly fictional action movie, but it's presented as fact, and comes

from the same man who brought us the Shaka Zulu miniseries, normally

lauded for its (relative) accuracy.

This movie is really only notable because it's literally a

sequel to the “historically accurate” Shaka Zulu miniseries. It's

written and directed by the same guy who wrote for Shaka Zulu, and

audiences for The Last Warrior were led to believe that it tried to

achieve the same level of accuracy. As evidenced above, this is not

the case. The Last Warrior is almost more insulting than just the plain

old racist propaganda people used to see in older media. This movie

actively tried to strip away the mercilessly brutal, yet incredibly

effective persona Shaka had earned for himself. Now who knows, maybe

in his personal life, in those private moments in the early dawn,

Shaka loved to pet bunnies and dance with butterflies in the field,

but that's not the way Shaka wanted others to view him as far as we

know. Shaka was a great and powerful leader who united the Zulu

people, for better or for worse, but portraying him as a puppy-

hugging lovable man is like an insult to his legacy. Now, I don't

mean to presume to speak for Shaka, since I certainly didn't know him

personally, so maybe he really was fluffy kittens and rainbows in his

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personal life, but since every historical text and account seems to

dispute that, it seems irresponsible to paint him as such.

As an example of a modern and positive representation of the

Zulu in media, let's turn to the world of video games. An unlikely

place to look, but there's one popular game in particular that bears

looking in to: Civilization IV. Civilization is a best-selling game that

involves the player choosing a country and taking them from the Stone

Age up through the Information Age and beyond. I make a note of

Civilization because it's one of the few games to include accurate

historical and societal information in the game itself. The Zulu

faction in the game is controlled by Shaka, and the player can look

up real-world information in his biography section. The Zulu in the

game tend to be faster and more lightly armored than other

civilizations, but they are strong hunters and farmers and are

tenacious fighers, able to stand up effectively to other

civilizations like the British (reminiscent of the real-world Anglo-

Zulu war). A player utilizing the Zulu can use real tactics Shaka

used, including the psychological shield-banging and chanting, as

well as the “buffalo horns” formation Shaka is credited with using.

Their increased mobility in game is credited to Shaka's real

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insistence on sandal-less feet and forced marches. This is

represented in game by the Zulu's ability to move quicker through

harsh terrain than other armies.

I bring up Civilization because it manages to do what many myths,

movies and TV shows fail to do: it paints Shaka and the Zulu in a

clinical, educational light, more so than almost anything else I've

seen, outside of a literal textbook. While their forces have

advantages and disadvantages, they are roughly equal in power to

anyone else in the game. Their strengths and weaknesses are shown

plainly and with regard to the real warriors they represent. From

strategies to armament, their portrayal in this video game is more

accurate than many movies. It presents a textbook view of Shaka and

the Zulu, with as much information as the average layman is likely to

care about. It manages to portray the Zulu as a strong, independent

people capable of fighting with the best of them, without making them

out to be mysterious, bloodthirsty savages or mystical shaman from

another land, or really any other stereotype that people end up

pandering to.

It's hard to compare Civilization to movies, books, or even other

video games simply because there isn't really a “plot” to be had. As

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a player you maneuver your nation into war or diplomacy with other

nations, establish trade routes through hostile areas, and other

things like that. However, you don't have to do these things with

regard to historical significance, and more than likely won't in

order to “win” the game (i.e. become the most powerful civilization).

For example, Shaka isn't assassinated in 1828, and you never even

have to have the Anglo-Zulu war. It's entirely possible to win the

game completely peacefully, never warring with anyone else. In that

respect, the game isn't historically accurate, but the ability to

read about Shaka's life and implement his real-world tactics

certainly makes it more educational than the majority of other mass

media about the Zulu.

Civilization may still be seen as an odd addition to this list, and

in all honesty it probably is. However, video games as a whole (and I

say this as someone who loves video games) tend to be as historically

accurate as the movie 300's portrayal of the Battle of Thermopylae,

which is to say “not at all”. In a medium where vampires fight Nazis

for stolen gold, a large steroid-fueled man kills his way through the

entire Greek pantheon, Italian plumbers commit turtle/weird-lumpy-

mushroom-thing genocide, and bikini-clad women steal fictional

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artifacts from yet more Nazis, it's nice to see that a game can be

fun, yet educational enough to ignite the interest of people who may

otherwise never know anything of importance about Shaka or the Zulu

people. Granted, it's in a game where your goal is to either kill

everyone else on the planet or get to space first, but let's take

small victories where we can get them, shall we?

This topic as a whole is difficult to sum up in such a

relatively small amount of space. It's entirely possible to go on and

on about various movies, TV shows, books, comics and the like

portraying Shaka Zulu and his tribe, whether for good or for ill, but

I'd just be going over the same points I've been hammering home this

whole time. There are good and bad depictions of everything, and the

Zulu are no exception. While some works have made legitimate attempts

to historically portray Shaka correctly, there are just as many

others that are shallow, inaccurate and occasionally downright

racist.

While there's enough examples - both modern and older, of works

involving Shaka and the Zulu, whether mythological or accurate – to

fill multiple books, this is still a difficult topic to write about

without spilling into rambling. It's all the same points repeated

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again and again. Shaka was a man. He was a powerful, influential man

known for his brutality and military genius, but he was still just a

man. Every great man in history tends to suffer similar portrayals

for good or for ill. Almost this exact paper could be written about

multiple other figures in history: Genghis Khan, Caesar, Washington,

Lincoln, Confucius, Cleopatra, practically anyone you can name.

As we've seen above, media – whether it's movies, books, or TV –

tends to have one of two jobs: to entertain, or to educate. It's a

rare piece of work that can blend these without sacrificing the

other. Shaka Zulu attempted to do both, but it ended up with a

dramatized vision of the Zulu that didn't do them justice. Zulu came

close, but only did so by picking an event that lent itself well to

film (the battle of Rorke's Drift) and trying not to characterize the

Zulu too much, whether for good or for ill. The Last Warrior effectively

did away with historical accuracy and tried for pure entertainment.

If it hadn't tried to lend itself an air of legitimate ethos, it may

have worked if it were just a complete fiction, but it tried to make

itself seem historically accurate, and it suffered for it.

Oddly enough, the piece of media that managed to most seamlessly

blend education and entertainment was Civilization IV, and it did so by

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doing away with history entirely. It taught you about history by

showing you what didn't happen. It seemed to say: “Sure, you managed

to conquer the entire world with the Zulu, and that's great, but

here's what really happened.” and it managed to be a fairly effective

learning tool.

What I'm really trying to say here, by talking around in odd

circles, is that every media representation of something, Zulu

included, tends to have flaws. It's very hard to get something

historically accurate yet still engaging and entertaining. Some

things, like Zulu or Civilization IV manage to do it reasonably well, but

it's still tough. The most you can hope for is that you manage to

make a movie that isn't too terrible, or too indefensibly racist. I

know this paper ended up being fairly short, but as I said too many

times already: I could continue listing pieces of work and adding

them to the list, but they'd look awfully similar to what's already

there. So rather than continue talking in circles to hammer the nail

in even further, I'll just leave it with this: Shaka was a man. An

influential man, but still human. I feel the most any piece of media

can do is try to fairly represent that. He wasn't a demigod, or a

terrible monster from the deepest pits of hell. He was just a man.

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Works Cited and Consulted

Civilization IV. New York, NY: Take-Two Interactive, 2005.

Endfield, Cy, Dir. Zulu. Perf. Baker, Stanley. Diamond Films: 1964, Film.

Golan, Daphna. Inventing Shaka: Using History in the Construction of Zulu Nationalism. Boulder, CO:

L. Rienner Publishers, 1994. Print.

Hamilton, Carolyn. Terrific majesty: the Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ Press, 1998. Print.

Knight, Ian. The National Army Museum Book of The Zulu War. London: Pan Macmillan, 2003. Print.

Laband, John, and Ian Knight. The Anglo-Zulu War. Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1996.

Print.

Morris, Donald. The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation. Jackson, TN: Da

Capo Press, 1998. Print.

Ritter, E. Shaka Zulu: the Rise of the Zulu Empire. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1990. Print.

Shaka Zulu. South African Broadcasting Corporation: 1986. Television. 22 Oct 2010.

Sinclair, Joshua, Dir. Shaka Zulu: The Last Great Warrior. Perf. Hasselhoff, David. 2001, Film.

Tomaselli, Keyan G. "'SHAKA ZULU' AND VISUAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF HISTORY." Screening

the Past: An International, Refereed, Electronic Journal of Visual Media & History 15

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(2003): 1. Historical Abstracts. EBSCO. Web. 22 Oct. 2010.

Taylor, Stephen. Shaka's Children. London: Harpercollins, 1995. Print.

Wylie, Dan. Savage delight: White Myths of Shaka. Scottsville, South Africa: University of Kwazulu

Natal Press, 2001. Print.

Wylie, Dan. Myth of Iron: Shaka in History. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2008. Print.