Shakespeare's Othello toes the line between a social critique miles ahead of its time and a typical Jacobean depiction of race. Somehow, this adaptation from the 2000s crosses that line into purely derivative racism.
To begin with, the set up is completely distant from the original Othello. Odin swears, unlike Othello's poetic language, he and Desi have a sexual and physical relationship, unlike the idealistic intellectual relationship portrayed in the first Act, and the choice to adapt Othello's military prowess as Odin's basketball skills not only undercuts Shakespeare's original positioning of Othello in stereotypically white spheres to highlight his isolation, but relies on stereotypes of today that depict Black people, especially Black men, as hyper-masculine basketball players. For some reason, after Roderigo and Iago (Roger and Hugo) accuse Odin of raping Desi, him and 'Big Mike' attack Roger - unlike the reasonable, level-headed Othello Shakespeare introduce us to, who appears honestly unaware of Roderigo the entire play. Repeatedly, the movie establishes an Othello constructed around modern day stereotypes of Black Americans, while initially Shakespeare's Othello exists in juxtaposition with Jacobean stereotypes of 'Moors'. Not only does this undercut and undermine Othello's tragic fall, the premise of the entire play, but it manages to double down on the racist elements present in Shakespeare's original work.
Aside from the racial stereotypes, it is bizarre to portray Iago in such a sympathetic light. Iago lays out his motivations for his manipulation of Othello as a hatred driven by him choosing Cassio over Iago himself, and a unfounded rumour that Othello slept with Emilia. In this movie, Hugo is being neglected and publicly humiliated by his dad, who claims Odin as his son. Before Hugo drives Odin to kill Michael and Desi, we are shown a scene where Hugo's Dad invites Hugo over for dinner, only to talk about Odin. Iago's purposefully disturbing sexual motivations are cut out. Furthermore, the movie removes the blame for the racial abuse Othello faces from Iago's shoulders, when Michael, unprompted, calls Odin racial slurs and mocks him to Hugo. The tragedy of Othello believing that Cassio and Desdemona would do this to him despite their loyalty and love is undercut by the fact Michael, at the very least, is incredibly racist. Similarly, the movie attempts to portray a flirty scene of Odin and Desi lying together in bed, where Odin says he's allowed to call himself the N-word, and Desi asks why she shouldn't be able to say it when her people invented the word. THIS IS NOT A CUTE OR COMPELLING RELATIONSHIP?? Othello's public striking of Desdemona and attempts to bend her to his will in front of Lodovico are cut, and replaced by a rape scene, that Desi attempts to justify by arguing that Emily wouldn't be calling it rape if Othello was white. That's actually not how rape works, and escalates Othello's already stereotypical domestic violence to an incredibly racist portrayal of the violent, hypersexual Black man.
Multiple casting choices also undercut Othello's isolation. While a Black teenager in 2000s America is not as isolated as a Black man in 1600s Venice, casting figures like the policeman at the end of the movie as Black undercuts the message of institutional oppression - they arrive to enforce the justice that disproportionately impacts Othello, and while Black police officers do uphold the racist police institution, it doesn't have the same visual power. Furthermore, the casting of the opposing basketball teams as Black characters could've been really interesting, in the context of Othello's association with the Ottoman invaders in the play, however, this goes completely unmentioned, and makes it feel like once again, the people behind the movie are stereotyping Black athletes as basketball players.
Overall, the movie waters down a lot of the original messages. It even cuts out Emilia's proto-feminist speech, which would've been interesting alongside Emily's nuanced take on 'marital' rape, which was legal at the time of the movie. However, the reliance on stereotypes even more than Shakespeare with a lot less excuses than a pre-colonial playwright ultimately makes the movie suffer.
