Othello

Uncultured swine that I am, I haven't read or seen Othello- until now! I finished it on the way to work this morning, wait, maybe it was during my break... probably it was on the way down there. Regardless, I read it. The only characters I knew of were Othello (buh) and Iago, but I clearly had no concept of either going in.

Othello as black guy is pretty well advertised, but did you know that there are schools of thought that have him as more of an olive skinned dude? Well, there is. Of course thanks to pop culture osmosis and the weight of assumptions by people through time, the farther into the future we go the less likely it will be that people will consider anyone other than a straight black portrayal. Just a little critique of our selective cultural memory.

Also suggested is that Othello had trouble seeing, which certainly helps set the stage for deception, not only in that evidence can be falsified, but that he'd naturally have a learned trust and dependance on "good" Iago.

Turning to Iago, I'd always pictured him as a sort of vindictive old man. Well, I got the vindictive part right- turns out the guy is 28 or somewheres thereabouts. It's actually Othello who's the oldest person in the play, thought to be in his 40's or 50's. This adds to the surprise when Desdemona marries Othello in secret, more than just the mixed race relationship, there's the gulf in status and age, with all signs pointing to Desdemona being 15, or at least in her teens. Yes, a culturally accepted practice at the time, but still, even back then people must've been able to appreciate the difference between a young woman in her teens and one in her twenties. Maybe wives were universally expected to be seen and not heard, so it didn't matter what she had to add to the conversation.

I think I conflated Iago with Shylock... he said, despite the fact that he doesn't think he's read the play with Shylock in it. If it's Merchant of Venice, then I definitely haven't read it, that's the one I always blow during Jeopardy. So, it's just pop culture osmosis again that tells me Shylock is an old man.. and you see how well that knowledge base served me in knowing Iago. I'd have had better luck if I just took everything I knew of the parrot in Aladin, made it a human, and bam.

To be fair, I could have subconciously done this already, and it's just that Gilbert Gottfried, regardless of his actual age, will always sound like he's a million years old. Or whatever age a screaming parrot is. In other news, the role of the parrot Iago was perfectly cast.

Uh, but anyways, yeah, that Iago. He sure messed with everybody like a jerk.
The End.
:)