The Last King of Scotland - Part 2

0:00I'm Barbara Angopa, and I'm Arca Agunco. Welcome to Hollywood Africans, the podcast with frames, records, and remakes Africa and Africans in the movies. In last week's episode, the idea I mean we met in the last King of Scotland was mostly charming, idealistic and ruthless. This week we'll see the extent of what he's prepared to do to keep power. So, Idiamine gets taken ill, and Nicholas is called to attend to him, and it ends up being wind, because Idiamine's mixed aspirin and beer, and Nicholas uses a baseball bat to wind him, and Idiamine just releases the mother of all thoughts, and then he laughs, and fortunately the

1:01whole scene's been witnessed by the Ugandan Health Minister. I mean, this scene was just so bizarre. I mean, I kind of wondered is this something that could, you know, I know that Nicholas is a fictional character, and I just think this is something really, it just makes him look like complete imbecile. It's absolutely, you know, like I just wouldn't buy that. It's just another step towards making him, there's paranoid, buffoon, you know, and the way the minister's watching is like, because he even thinks it's, you know, ridiculous. But, you know, obviously there's a part of it is where, you know, Nicholas picks up the baseball bat, and Idiamine obviously is slightly fearful, or is he going to hit me with it? Yeah. And doesn't know what he's, you know, what he's going to do. But I do think, you know, where we could have had just something more, adding, creating a more complex character. Yeah. You've got a scene like this, which is just says that he is a new. A buffoon, yeah, you know. There's no deeper analysis of why he was making certain decisions.

2:07Yeah. Do you think it was a scene maybe trying to maybe... Human actions? No, well, possibly, but to connect Nicholas to him, to sort of build the trust, and that, you know, he's got his best interests. But I think there's better ways of doing that. I don't know. That scene was really strange to me, but the way he admits shame of being seen as weak, because, you know, like people have seen him in this vulnerable position, he thought he was dying. In fact, it was just a fart. Yeah. Yeah. Sure, it's happened to many people having heart attack. Yeah. That it was just wind. It's just wind. I mean, that's a common thing, you know, but it's presented as though it's something that is very specific to him. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It's like, oh, you fool. Why don't you get that? I thought, and it's like, oh, you shouldn't mix beer with aspirin. It's like, well, you know, I think, yeah, I've got stories about university where people,

3:08medication and then they're, you know, out their drinks and stuff, and being caught out. The friend of mine was trapped in a toilet, and had to be taken out by the fire brigade. Oh, because she told me that. No, no, she'd had, she'd been, she'd had medication, yeah, painkillers, and forgot, and then decided to go out clubbing. Oh, no. And we were sort of wondering where she was, and she was trapped in the loose, because she collapsed. No, she was absolutely fine, absolutely fine, but it happened. Yeah, it happened. But here, it's made to feel like it sounds like massive. It's a pivotal way to use that. This is modern medicine. Yeah, don't you know? Yeah, I thought for us, Whitaker was really, he's such a good actor that portraying one-minute mercurial, I mean, and then the next is a comedian, a buffoon, but and paranoid, yeah, and paranoid, and predictably, I mean, because he's not happy he's been seen in this position, and so he begins a purge of people around him. It's basically the way this

4:12is used, this particular scene, to, so he's kind of like thin skin, so this incident is what they're trying, triggering. Yeah, it comes up now, get rid of people who have witnessed that, when actually it would have been slightly different. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of, again, it's, you know, it's sort of not really getting, we're not really looking deeply at the politics of the situation, and the, you know, it's just kind of boiled him down to, you know, crazy dictator. Yeah, so you don't know why he's doing things, and, you know, and he, you know, he can't just be doing things because people have seen it vulnerable. He basically wants to keep power. Yeah, you know, like most dictators, they just want to keep power. There's things they want to do, therefore, they want to keep power till then, you know, 90 something. Yeah, and then they, they keep people around them who are going to help them achieve that. They achieve whatever it is they want to achieve, but, you know, you got no sense of what he was trying to achieve. Exactly. In the story, because

5:12they have scenes like this where you were just kind of occupied with. Yeah, that, oh my god, he's so hilarious. And then it just kind of really sidetracks you. But basically, I mean, begins a purge of all the intellectuals surrounding him, especially the one who witnessed this episode. Oh, because he just couldn't stand that he'd been seen weak, and when now he's full of self-dad and paranoia, and that's what triggers him to do all these things. But why does he keep promoting inexperienced Nicholas? Like, I think he gets up to, he becomes a health minister. I think, you know, I think it's kind of going back to what I was saying before about the, you know, the playing the British against, you know, knowing their weak spots. Now, whether he knew or not, but obviously with, you know, we see Nicholas being very anti-British, you know, he is, you know, especially towards the, um, that sort of M.I.5, you know, so I'm sure Eddie, I mean, is very aware of his beliefs. Um, you know, surrounding it, you know, having, it's almost like

6:14saying, you know, we've got your, I've got your white man under my spell. And he is, you know, I think, yeah, he's, he's someone to say, you know, this is, I, you know, he gives him the passport, doesn't he? You know, I think he's sort of saying, you know, this is, this is now, he's now one of, he's one of mine. And it's probably a constant reminder of his power to have this, you know, white doctor as his back and call, um, because he is at his back and call. Do you also think, um, he's using it for, um, he's using Nicholas for some kind of legitimacy. Like, see, if this white guy is backing me, then I am alright, not like what all you intellectuals think. I mean, it could be that, um, I think the thing is, Eddie, I mean, in this is, you know, he's challenging British authority. Yeah. So is Nicholas challenging British authority. And it's kind of like his pal somehow. Um, and, you know, he, I think they are similar in ways, you know, we see at the beginning where he, the where they first meet, which feels very contrived, but, you know, where he shoots the

7:18cow, grabs the gun, shoots it. And I think he sees somebody who is kind of maybe a little bit ruthless. Yeah. Someone has a risk taker risk taker. And, and it's, you know, maybe in a different life, they would have been friends, possibly, you know, and, you know, Nicholas is an adventurer. And he's an adventure as well. So I think he sees something in him as a person. Um, it's like, and yes, maybe it doesn't legitimize him, but also I think it's a kind of like showing his, his, his power. And he shows his hand later as to what he, which makes me, which is the reason why I think it's more about saying, look at, you know, look, I've got one of yours in my power. And who's brought into me. Yeah. So, but, but by this stage, the professionals in, in Uganda and definitely around, did you mean though, they're in a precarious situation. And it's basically, there's a purge going on. And it's somewhat similar to what happened in Cambodia, where Paul Pot went killing all these teachers and such like basically people who could have

8:24different views to him and spread, spread different views. Exactly. And that's, that's how lots of Ugandans ended up in living in Europe and US, that it was from that era that many started leaving girls, students and just stay there. So, and also, the other side of it is that's how some unqualified people start getting promoted. And to, to, you know, and then, they should have exactly, and then we, we know how that turned out in some cases. And so, basically, Nicholas Garrickan, he realises his, his made a mistake when he accused a rival of plotting against Hidi Amin after a coup attempt. And Hidi Amin then subsequently gets that doctor killed. I think he was the health minister. And it turns out his rival was actually just arranging a medical deal. And so, Nicholas now, he wants to resign and leave Uganda. And that's the, at the point, when I mean,

9:26gives him a Ugandan passport. So, he's trapped. Well, though, I didn't know why he would be trapped, because does, does, is he taking his British passport? Had he, I think he, I think he, I think he had to renew his passport. Was there a scene of trying to renew his British? I don't know, but, I don't think so. They just tried to infer that he's been trapped there, because he's got a Ugandan passport. I think, I think, I kind of felt more that he's been psychologically trapped, not, not literally trapped, because, you know, it's kind of saying, oh, look, you are, you are now one of us by giving, you know, by having this thing that you, you know, you, you join the club. Yeah. So, it's a physical representation of what actually going in his head that I am trapped, I'm now, yeah, I've got blood on my hands. And this, and this is what Hidi Amin thinks of me. Yeah. He, he has now invited me to be a citizen. Yeah. Without his knowledge. Yeah. Because he clearly didn't apply for it. No. He, he, he wanted to run away. Ugandan passport. Yeah. But just going back to earlier, you know, with the mistake that he

10:29made. Yeah. I, I didn't understand how he made that decision, because I almost felt like it was a sort of, this is a slight narrative of flooring the, I, I couldn't see the build up to this point where an intelligent man was so under the spell, I didn't feel he was so under the spell of Hidi Amin. He was supposedly so under the spell of him that he was able to feed, to go back to Hidi Amin and tell him about his minister talking. I don't know, I didn't know why he did that. Remember, there's that, at that stage, there'd been the, the coup attempt. Yeah. So the gone driving around compiler and with the car he bought for Nicholas, then there's, then there's that coup attempt, and that then, you know, I mean, is that full paranoia. And, you know, he thinks someone in his circle is, is basically plotting against him. And then when Nicholas goes to a bar or something, he sees the health minister talking to these. He does. And so I think he uses that to infer that

11:29he's the plotter. Well, it was such a leap. It was a very massive, it was a massive leap to me. Is it jealousy? Is he now? I don't know what I do. I felt it was like a floor in the storytelling. You know, that trajectory that Nicholas is supposed to have, you know, going from a naive person who gets trapped to someone who, you know, that's desperately needed to get out. I didn't know when he became somebody who would report on somebody. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I didn't feel it was within his character to want to go and report. But maybe the whole thing of, because he was, he could have died in that assassination attempt. So he basically is taking on the paranoia. Yeah. Exactly. He's taking it on himself. Well, you see what? I mean, if that was the case, I wish it would spell it out. They didn't spell it out. They didn't spell it out at all. Because I just thought, wow, what a leap that he has turned against this man who's actually, you know, he's got no other reason

12:34to think that he would, you know, it's not like there's any suspicious behaviour before this. And then this happens and then he's put two and two together. You know, it just comes out of nowhere that he then goes to him and says, says this thing, you know. And yeah, psychologically, I think is what I'm, you know, it didn't work for me. Yeah. So, but I thought that that it was somehow that scene, there's seek few scenes show how dictatorships were, like that suck people in, slowly make them complicit in crime so. But did you think, I mean, did you wonder what, what is it that Nicholas has to gain? That's the thing from, you know, and gain or lose. I just don't understand why he was there. Yeah. I would have already left a long time ago. The minute the coup happened, I wanted to have stayed out of just being on the plane. That was my slight issue with some of this that, yes, it, I mean, is a very charismatic sort of person. But the kind of behaviour and the violence, you know, was the doctor so unaware of what was going on that, you know, that he was able to

13:39just carry on his normal. Yeah. Because I, yeah, I didn't quite understand what was in it for him. You know, he's a middle class guy with money, you know, what, what does he want from EDM in? Yeah. And it was, it's never really made. I mean, it's, it's real seeking to a massive degree if you stay on for, I don't know. But then when you, yeah, I mean, but thrill seeking to get what? Exactly. But also the, the other way that EDM in was controlling people's, of course, through violence. So Nicholas is now on the run after he gets EDM means wife pregnant. That's K, with, she's turned up a few times at the reception. And he's looked after her when he treats her son when he's ill. And he finds her body mutilated at Mulaga Hospital, which was the main hospital, it's the main referral hospital of the entire country. And I think how they did it is so vile that her body was chopped up and then sewed together again. The arms in the leg position,

14:41the legs in the arm. I mean, it's clearly a message. Completely. Yeah, but it's a message to who, though. It's both of them. I mean, it's just to Nicholas. But what I, what I was thinking all the long was, what was K thinking? I know. I think story wise, it didn't 100% make sense. You never really got into that. You know, I mean, my feeling is, you know, you've got this woman who is married to the most, and that time she would have known he's a murderous dictator. It was going around. Yeah. People were disappearing. People were disappearing. People were being found dead. You know, he would go around shooting. You know, he was doing openly nasty things. And, you know, yeah, she wanted to have an affair. She founds he's Nicholas. He was helpful to her, probably filled a gap for her because he was attentive and was there when his son was very sick and, obviously, saved his life. But to go to a point where you would have an affair with someone when you know your husband would take you out, because she must have known. She must have known. I mean, we didn't see enough of that to kind of really get a strong sense of that danger. Maybe

15:47that was part of the shock of when we do eventually see her dead. I don't know. Okay. But what I do know about the real life character, she was more educated than Edie Amine. Edie Amine didn't really have an education. She, I think, she even went to university, although I'm not 100% sure. She was also a dancer. I don't know how, and the person who she had the affair with was not the Nicholas character. It was a, it was a Ugandan doctor, but all the same. But he was still the doctor of the president. I think she had an affair with. That's, or a doctor. I don't know if it was the president's doctor, but it was a doctor. That's who she still had an affair. She had an affair. Yeah. And to me, there's two things. One, the way she thought that she was able to do that, that the freedom, like, where did she, I don't know that, where did she get the confidence? Where did she get the confidence? Yeah. To do that. And, and not think there would be any repercussions

16:48to the judgment, because Ugando is conservative and it was then. And it's not that foods things don't happen, but there is judgment. And clearly, people must have been talked about it, otherwise she wouldn't have been killed. Yeah. And she was probably spied upon and he was probably spied upon. Because even though, yeah, I do think that the president was a bit of a puppet master. And I think he knew a lot of what was going on. And he was probably well aware of what she was up to, probably for quite a bit of time. In the film, it clearly is, because he's watching Nicholas in a different way, because he's aware that he's having the affair. But what motivates her, I think, is that, you know, because you get a sense that there's a kind of coldness from him, you know, he's got all these other wives, you know, when they're at the, the kind of, what is it? The diplomats reception. Yeah, when they're at the diplomats reception, you know, there's a kind of distancing between her and the other women. So she feels like someone who's

17:50quite an isolated character. She feels above them because she's educated and the other two are and they're older and she's, you know, obviously pretty, you know, they're older wise, you know, she's the pretty young wife. Yeah. So maybe as isolated and in that way. And maybe that's why people have got eyes on her because she's, you know, pretty. But she, she does feel isolated and I think invulnerable. She does come across as a very sort of vulnerable person. And then when her son has, is it an epileptic fit? I think it's an epileptic fit. Yeah. But she's also lonely. She is, she is lonely. Yeah. Yeah. But still to choose him that was kind of like really full hearty. I'm wondering was she expecting a visa to get her? Well, I think in, you know, she probably fell in love with him for all those things. She's lonely. She's isolated. He saved her child from death. You know, he's a hero, you know. But obviously the point where I guess trying to get at is that why would you then take that further leap and have an affair with anybody because of who

18:56your husband is, but also with this guy who is so obviously stands out and so obviously all eyes are on him because he's like the only white European that's amongst the palace community. Exactly. It do mean he's kind of like a recurring figure in Hollywood films. There's, there's been the raid on Antevi and victory at Antevi about the rescue of Israeli civilians when a hijack plane landed in Antevi. And there's a mean, the rise and fall, which focuses more and it even mean himself. There's also Miraner's Mississippi masala, which deals with the fall out of the, um, idiomines expel when, which deals with the fall out of the idiomine expelled Asians from Uganda. Why do you think he's such a compelling character in film? I think he's compelling because I think, you know, dictators and people who try to break ranks and,

19:58you know, break with the orthodoxy and, you know, he's a rebel, you know, and rebels are supposedly a sexy right. And, you know, and he's charming, you know, he's funny, he kind of will be blunt in a way and a very humorous way. Like, you know, at the dinner party, him saying, you know, that he will challenge people, but he does it all in sounding in, in, you know, with humor. Yeah. And he knows what to say in the right ways of saying. But then, you know, you've got that marked with, you know, on the other side of that, you've got the kind of propensity for violence. Yeah. You don't see him doing any violence himself. I don't believe that we do see him. No, he orders violence. He orders violence. He's, he's, he's, you know, he is super powerful. Yeah. He's got everybody at his back and call. But, you know, but with this particular story, he's, you know, I think he's, he's much more interesting than presented in

21:02this story in, in the kind of given the sort of social and political context and also where he came from and, and rose to. But he comes across in this story a bit like a Bond villain, you know, even with his people, his henchman. I mean, if you said it wasn't a real person, you would think he was like a Bond villain. To some degree. Yeah. You know, and, you know, he walks a bit like a gang leader rather than a president, I think in this film. But, um, and also it, I think that one of the reasons is, it's sort of interest people, maybe for the wrong reasons, is the stories that you hear about him about being a cannibal, you know, or kinds of jokes about. Yeah, what he jokes about. And, and all kinds of things that we're in the press about the kind of man and the kind of the real kind of inhuman things that he was supposed to have done. Yeah. Because I remember even growing up in, in, in Zambia, um, hearing these stories about and being really afraid. Yeah. Of, of this man, you know, um, and I think it's, he's a complex character, but he's also a bogeyman. I think so. I think

22:08it, if you look at it from in Britain, very struggling with its, um, identity after it lost, um, colonies, he's kind of the, the nightmare figure. Yeah. Absolutely. He really is. Yeah. And that's, um, and so you have to kind of like make him a buffoon and, and make him somehow crazy to deal with this that look what's happened to him because this is what's in control now. And also craziness, you know, you know, people are sort of portraying it as though it's, um, it's something that's come from him. That kind of has come from him. It's got nothing to do with what's going on in the outside world, what, all the history of the place. Yeah. That's kind of, you know, it's his own issues. Yeah. And, and also don't know if he was, you're not crazy. I'm not great with it. But it must have been something in him. Yeah. Um, that was, um, intelligent enough to rise to that rank. Yeah. I mean, he can't be just, um, completely mad. There must be, there must have been something that was, and apart from when we see at the beginning where we've got him, where we see the speech, um, at the

23:13beginning to the crowds. That's the only time we get to see him selling what he has to offer. Yeah. But we don't continuously see him, um, constantly selling, um, what it is, what it is trying to achieve. Yeah. Um, and the way he's trying to achieve it is obviously wrong. Yeah. Um, but what is it he's trying to achieve? Yeah. So there's a, and also why are all those people supporting him? Yeah. You know, because it, and it's like with Nicholas, you don't quite get it. What the attraction to him. Yeah. Um, and I think a lot of the way he is written is stuff that we get from papers or from magazines. I kind of feel like has anyone really dug deep. Yeah. You know, to present someone more complicated. I think there's some good stories that people could still tell about EDM. Yeah. There's, um, there's, there are a series of famous photographs, actually, of EDM, which show, um, British men kneeling before him, swearing allegiance to him while they're receiving their citizenship papers. And then there's another one. I think it's probably from

24:16the same series of photographs that shows these same men possibly. They're carrying it in mean on a, a litter. So, um, I'm, I'm going to person on the Hollywood African social media, so everyone can see them. But I think in 1975, these photos would have been completely shocking and provocative to a lot of, um, Europeans, yeah. What, why, so where did you find these pictures? Um, they're just, a lot of your gannins know them. Um, they're famous pictures of that time. Okay. And, um, the photos, basically, that they're flipping expectations of what you expect, you know, you're, if you don't expect in social hierarchy. So I think that's one of the reasons that EDM mean story keeps coming back like, look at what this guy did. Yeah. And then, but I think, you know, this, this, there was an opportunity to, to, I guess, explore that. And maybe that's what they were doing trying to do with Nicholas's character. Yeah. But it just didn't, you know, how did

25:18these men in these pictures? And why did they want the citizenship? Yeah. Why do they want citizenship? And why were they willing to sort of serve him? Yeah. And, and I think this was an opportunity in the last King Scotland to really present it that way. Yeah. In the film. I haven't read the book. So I don't know if the book goes there. But, um, it, it's just a short coming of it that I just didn't quite understand. Yeah. But, um, I think the majority of people who, when they think of it, I mean, they do think of the, the cannibal stories and all of that kind of stuff. And that's how what his image has been for a really long time. But recently, um, I, I noticed on TikTok, um, I mean, it's having a bit of a, a revival. And there's, um, there's loads of, there's lots of short clips. He's, he had this very direct and simple way of speaking. And then they've clipped up lots of, um, part interviews he, he did, which are very anti-colonial and, um, anti-establishment. Anti-establishment. Anti-establishment. And I think it's very attractive to, to young people. And

26:21so basically, a lot of, um, I mean, on TikTok, he's, he really is, people are re-appraising him for, for whether that was good or a bad thing. I don't know. But, well, I hope people, when they're re-appraising him, don't forget those half a million people, um, that were murdered. Correct. You know what I mean? Because, you know, what it's, it's like, you know, people praising Hitler or Mussolini or whatever, you know, that is just wrong. Um, and, and just seeing it to the, you know, yes, he might have been a clever intelligent blah, blah, blah, but still a murderer. Um, and, and I think it's really important to understand how these dictators are made, um, and how they're enabled to stay in power, um, and do what they do and how it is that they bring other people with them. Yeah. Um, because they're obviously giving people to some degree, something that they're wanting. Um, you know, it's kind of like, say, you know, some people at the moment in power, you know, or coming, trying to get into power, where, you know, they are, want to be dictators or

27:22dictators, um, and people are in through all of some of these people. Yeah. I think that the context of this reached TikTok rear-praisele, and it's not broad, but, um, where I see a lot of people commenting on clips, and it means, um, um, of old idiomine clips. I think it's the context of when it's happening, like, um, these days, um, it's not a unipolar world anymore, like it, it's, there's more non-alignment in the world at the moment, like you've got, um, regional blocks, you know, new regional blocks coming up and all of this kind of stuff. So, um, and then, and basically anti-imperialism. And so that's why someone who was at the forefront of that back in the 70s is coming back into fashion. Yeah. But as I said, you know, just hopefully for the, you know, that people will get understand the full context. So that brings us to the end of Hollywood Africans, but you can continue the conversation on Facebook, X, Instagram, and threads. We'll be back

28:26next week. I'm Barbara and Gopo. I'm a marketer. Bye. Bye.