"The Bluff: pirate movie with a variation." Topic

I went to the cast & crew premiere of this Amazon Prime pirate movie tonight.

Disclaimer: my daughter was involved in the production. I still maintain it is well worth seeing.

I'd recommend leaving historical knowledge at the door & enjoying it as a pirate fantasy piece. Great production values, pretty good acting, a reasonably compelling plot & very entertaining.

It is also not your usual pirate movie – there's a variation which gives it added zest.

Watched it today. It was entertaining, bit he's right not historical at all. Still a good romp

There are echoes of history in it – the second in command being the Quartermaster, female pirates etc.

One thing that struck me was the pirates' secret language that was a manufactured composite of Malay / Malay trade pidgin, Arabic loan-words (common among sailors and traders), Portuguese maritime terms and a bit of gibberish / phonetic invention for cinematic effect.

Given "Bloody Mary" was played by an actor from south Asia & the historical reality of the very bloody Malay pirates, it struck a chord with me. My girl was unable to tell me if this was deliberate or not.

But, yes, not a very historical movie – just fun.

Actually, outside of two woman who disguised themselves as men, there were no women pirates during the Golden Age of Pirates. It is a Hollywood myth and one I am getting quite sick of. Taught a course on piracy for many years and had this come up time and again. Absolutely there were no woman captains.

I appreciate your knowledge Grattan. I do believe it was not unusual for Dyak & Malay pirates to include women as a part, even leading.

Among the various Dyak groups of Borneo, women were part of a strongly martial culture. Women did take part in warfare, including head-hunting raids, especially in defence of longhouses. Some women held ritual or spiritual authority (shamans, omen-readers) that could influence when raids occurred.

However, although direct command of raiding parties & pirate ventures was overwhelmingly male on occasion it seemed women sometimes led. Older Malay women, often widows, were also known to lead.

European observers in the 18th–19th centuries did record women giving orders, directing logistics and occasionally being acknowledged as leaders of raiding groups.

This was rare, but not unheard of. BTW Patrick O'Brian has a Dyak woman pirate in one of his great novels.

Now "The Bluff" cannot be accused of being historically accurate in any meaningful sense, but as the lead was of Indian origin, I think she was meant to follow in this tradition rather than the European one. It was not implicitly spoken of in the movie but as I indicated above about the movie's 'pirate patois', it seems some one did some research.

Ochoin,

You are correct. Women were more active with Asian piracy. My bad, I assumed this was a Golden Age of Pirates movie. I will remove my objections.

There has been suspicion raised that Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts might have been a cross-dressing woman. Roberts certainly had very strict rules protecting women captives, while also prohibiting women on board his ships (to avoid accidental recognition of a "sister," perhaps?). He even prohibited the drinking of rum (or any alcoholic beverages) aboard his ships— highly unusual for a man of that era, much less a pirate. Entirely circumstantial, of course, but he also favored very elegant attire that would easily disguise his sex either way. Though, again, fancy dress was not unusual for men of the period. If you had wealth, you flaunted it.

It really can't be known how many pirates were or weren't women in disguise. Two are known to history, because they were arrested and charged. But that does not mean there were not more. Certainly the cultures from which European pirates hailed were unlikely to produce female sailors, and would of course discourage the same if not overtly but simply by the weight of social expectations for the sexes. (The thought "I want to be a pirate" much less "I want to be a sailor" would have been outside the experience or expectations of most women, even from the poorest edges of society.)
Thus, Mary Reed and Ann Bonney were sensational surprises eagerly reported by the chroniclers for their rarity (at the very least)— but could others have escaped such scrutiny and exposure (or public mention)? Certainly.
One must also note that pirate "colonies" like Tortuga certainly had significant numbers of women in residence, so at least women performed "support" roles for the pirates, not all of which would have been direct prostitution. Did any conceal themselves as men from time to time? Perhaps— we just don't have those names; pirates were not all that big on records, and literacy among the crews would have been as rare as any women.