History Theatre / Othello

Othello's intended appearance is ambiguous; "Moor" could refer to people of European, Middle Eastern or African descent. In modern times he is usually portrayed by a black actor; in less modern times he was often played by a white actor in {{Blackface}}.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Iago has a simultaneously epic and understated one: one of the very first things he says is a detailed speech about how absolutely nothing he says is to be trusted and that he's only out for himself. Naturally, the UnwittingPawn he's talking to [[IdiotBall interprets this as meaning he has Iago's loyalty]]. The line has more weight for [=17th=] Century audiences, as in Exodus 3:14, God gave his laws to Moses on Mt. Sinai; when Moses asked God his name, He replied: "I am that I am", meaning Iago is calling himself the ''Devil''.

* HonorThyParent: Brabantio is beside himself with anger upon learning that his daughter Desdemona has eloped with Othello, to the point of denial. He hauls Othello before the Duke of Venice and accuses him of enchanting his daughter. On it being made clear that Desdemona was merely enticed by Othello's stories of his exploits in war, Brabantio asks his daughter to whom in the assembled company she most owes obedience, implying that it is to him, her father. Desdemona tactfully replies that she has learned to respect him and remains his daughter, but that as her mother preferred Brabantio over her father, so she now has a responsibility to her husband. Brabantio bitterly resigns himself to his daughter's marriage and tells Desdemona: "For your sake, jewel, / I am glad at soul I have no other child: / For thy escape would teach me tyranny, / To hang clogs on them."

* DisproportionateRetribution: Othello doesn't grant Iago the promotion he wanted, so Iago decides to ''destroy Othello's life'' [[note]]Iago ''does'' also hold a suspicion that Othello slept with his wife, although the play never says whether this has any bearing or not[[/note]].

* DrivenByEnvy: Iago is incensed by Cassio's promotion (it's implied he's been at Othello's side for a while) and strives first to take him down and then Othello himself. [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation Then again...]] Iago also says that he lies a lot, so it's entirely possible that [[ForTheEvulz he has no reason for ruining Othello's life]].

* MotiveRant: Subverted by Iago at the end. When Othello asks "why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body", Iago responds: "Demand me nothing: what you know, you know. From this time forth I never will speak word." However, during the play, Iago delivers numerous [[CharacterFilibuster soliloquies]] bragging about his intentions and offering competing motives to the audience.

* ButNotTooBlack: As the Atlantic slave trade gained ground and racism developed as a justifying philosophy for it, it became increasingly implausible to audiences that the intelligent, complex TragicHero of a Shakespeare play should be a black man. As a result (and also because not having to cake on blackface made it easier to convey emotion), a paler-skinned, Arabic Othello came into fashion, who was usually characterised as being mild-mannered and civilised or aristocratic and arrogant rather than passionate and 'bestial'. These versions stuck around even after black actors playing the lead began to become more acceptable, both because of lingering racism and because of increasing guilt over the rather grotesque caricature blackface-Othello had so often become.

* A [[Film/{{Othello 1995}} 1995 version]] starring Creator/KennethBranagh, Creator/LaurenceFishburne, and Irene Jacob. Notable for being the first film adaptation to feature a black man as Othello. (Also notable for Othello's ShirtlessScene.)

* {{Narcissist}}: Iago.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Othello and Emelia, unfortunately too late.

* MistakenForCheating: With disastrous consequences.

* ItsAllAboutMe: Iago and to a lesser extent, Othello himself.

* EveryoneHasStandards: A villainous example. Brabantio is stated to have been fond of Othello and would invite him over to hear of his stories, Othello even saying that his father in law loved him. But once Brabantio's heard that the Moor has married his daughter, he shows that he's a racist {{Jerkass}} whose absolutely disgusted by his daughter marrying a man of a different race. So basically, Brabantio has no problem being nice to Othello and treating him as a TokenBlackFriend, but he's completely averse to the idea of a family member whose not his own race.

* DomesticAbuse: Iago is all to quick to degrade his wife.
* DragonWithAnAgenda: Iago to Othello. Also to Roderigo

* TheChessmaster[=/=]EvilGenius[=/=]ManipulativeBastard: Iago is absolute definition of these types, and the inspiration for many later characters of them.

** Othello is a sympathetic version. At first [[NiceGuy he seems to be a legitimately good man who loves his wife and his good to all those around him]]. These qualities are not false, but as the play goes on, it's clear Othello is a troubled individual who just can't seem to accept that his wife is faithful, ultimately murdering her. True, he's being horribly manipulated during all this, these issues likely wouldn't have occurred if it weren't for Iago's plotting (or they would've been handled better if they had), and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone he's mortified when he realizes he's been played and his wife was innocent]], but the mere fact that he would kill the woman he loves over jealousy shows that there's a far darker side to Othello than it first appears.

* AlternateShowInterpretation: Instead of painting his face black to play Othello, Creator/PatrickStewart played the titular role in a racially inverted production, opposite an otherwise all-black cast. This was by all accounts one of the more unusual productions of the play in recent memory. And it was ''awesome''.

Othello's appearance is ambiguous; "Moor" could refer to people of European, Middle Eastern or African descent. In modern times he is usally portrayed by a black actor; in less modern times he was often played by a white actor in {{Blackface}}.

* FlawExploitation: Iago is the ''master'' of this, playing Brabantio's racism and [[OverprotectiveDad paternalism]], Cassio's low alcohol tolerance, Othello's [[GreenEyedMonster jealousy]], and Roderigo's lust (and lack of grey matter) all to his own advantage.

* OverprotectiveDad: Brabantio, though it's mostly a matter of "family honour", especially since she's run off with *gasp* a ''non-Venetian'' (a ''Moor'', moreover! You know, those brown people that are the allies of the Turks!). Frankly, it could only have been worse if he was ''Genoese'' or, *gasp*, ''Catalonian''!

One thing that must be said is that the play is, along with a lot of contemporary works, far HarsherInHindsight. It was written over two centuries before the scientific classification of races and the development of racial hierarchies and stereotypes as we understand them today, not that today's understanding of the concept is quite the same. 'Race' is by no means a static, universal concept. That's not to say people didn't look down on people who weren't from their village, or their county, but people's worlds were much smaller back then, and stereotyping and discrimination were in all probability a local or inter-county thing at the time.

It's worth noting that in times past, it was usual for white actors to play Othello by way of {{Blackface}}, up to and past the 1960s, although Black actors have played the part occasionally since at least the 19th century. Thus, the early Othello movies have a {{white|MaleLead}} [[RaceLift Othello]]. It is a case of post-facto ValuesDissonance, but it does not make such portrayals inherently bad. As a Christian Moor, or part-Moor (as in, from Morocco, although that was a catch-all term to refer to any kind of Muslim - hence why the Muslims living in the southern Philippines are most commonly known as "Moros"), Othello could have been anything from a [[https://data.whicdn.com/images/188619560/original.jpg fair-skinned and blonde-haired Kabyle]] to quite dark, the phenotypical diversity of Morocco being what it is-- but he was most likely some light to medium shade of brown, [[https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/King-Mohammed-VI-Decorates-Several-Young-Moroccans-on-His-53rd-Birthday-640x480.jpg like]] [[https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Moroccans.jpg most]] [[https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/moroccans-chant-slogans-in-casablanca-on-august-23-during-a-news-photo/837988126?et=33WyDkI7S_RGpj4FFKpw8A&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gettyimages.com%2Fdetail%2Fnews-photo%2Fmoroccans-chant-slogans-in-casablanca-on-august-23-during-a-news-photo%2F837988126%3Fesource%3DSEO_GIS_CDN_Redirect#/moroccans-chant-slogans-in-casablanca-on-august-23-during-a-protest-picture-id837988126 Moroccans.]] We don't really know for sure. In his most recent portrayals he has been portrayed by very dark actors, and the "racism" angle--often using racial stereotypes as understood in the modern USA--has been played up considerably. This is an even ''more'' severe RaceLift, as Morocco's predominantly Berber population (the most likely inspiration for Othello) is, in fact, caucasian, and someone in the Mediterranean Basin was unlikely to have ever even seen a Sub-Saharan African (bar Egypt's connection with modern Sudan) in the 16th century. What slaves there were in the 16th Century Mediterranean were predominantly Slavic peoples from eastern Europe, and if anyone was doing the slaving it was probably an Italian (specifically Genoan or Venetian), a Turk, or a Tatar. Racial characterisation of Sub-Saharan African peoples as inferior, the way we understand racism against them today, came after this period. A phenomenon largely, but not entirely, confined to the Americas it was a post-facto justification of sorts for the trans-Atlantic slave trade when it got going in earnest over a century later.

But like all of Shakespeare's plays, ''Othello'' provides fodder for a multitude of different readings, including those that impose 21st-century racial and gender conflicts over the action of the play. Othello, whether black, Berber, or what-have-you, is always the Other in Venetian society, and his story has still got a lot to say to us.

* AdaptedOut: The original story's equivalents to Iago and Emilia have a daughter; she's absent in Othello.
* AerithAndBob:
** To Hispanic or Latino readers, Roderigo (translated as "Rodrigo") and Emilia feel unusually common.
** Meanwhile, Cassio's first name is Michael.

* BittersweetEnding: Either this or a DownerEnding: Iago is taken to face justice, but Desdemona, Emilia, and Othello are dead, Cassio possibly crippled, Bianca is distraught, and now the white characters are both back in charge, with their prejudices reinforced by Othello's actions.

** Brabantio isn't a as villainous as Roderigo and especially not on Iago's level, but he's still quite quick to draw swords against Othello due to being horrified at his daughter being with a Moor and even after learning that they're genuinely in love, he completely disowns her.

** The jokes Iago throws around to disarm people are a big case of HarsherInHindsight. Of course, given how ambiguous Iago's motives are, he could merely be putting on a racist and misogynistic facade, playing to his audience.
** Roederigo is this trope played very straight, being all too happy to use racist insults against Othello, and unlike Iago who can be played as ambiguously racist as seen above, there's very little to indicate that Roderigo doesn't fully believe in his hateful remarks, not to mention he comes across as too stupid to even think of putting up a facade.

* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: Cassio repeatedly insists that he's not drunk, which only makes it clear that he is.

* UnexplainedRecovery: In the final scene, Roderigo is said to have been slain after being stabbed by Iago, only for Cassio to abruptly reveal that he recovered "after long seeming dead" to reveal Iago's guilt, though it's unclear if he survived or just hung on to that point.

* UnexplainedRecovery: In the final scene, Roderigo is said to have been slain after being stabbed by Iago, only for Cassio to abruptly reveal that he recovered "after long seeming dead" to reveal Iago's guilt.