Boyer, Arlynda. “The Other Interracial Marriage in Othello.” Shakespeare, vol. 11, no. 2, 2015, pp. 178-200, doi: 10.1080/17450918.2013.833977
In “The Other Interracial Marriage in Othello,”
Arlynda Boyer argues that Emilia should be cast as a black woman, saying,
“Emilia could be racially different from Iago, and ... understanding her as
such serves to illuminate the play for audiences in the here and now” (179).
She begins by considering whether original productions of the play cast Emilia
as a black or white woman—or both, depending on the context of the
audience—reminding readers that the concept of “race” as we know it today came
years after Othello’s origin, and those later perceptions shouldn’t
cause us to “whitewash” Shakespeare’s characters or how they were depicted on
stage during Shakespeare’s time. Boyer argues that Emilia could be black
because the script doesn’t define her ethnicity, and there also may have been
an audience for a black Emilia: “I am arguing an Emilia who can be either African
or Venetian, precisely because she is undefined, whose potential Africanness
may have been a staging experiment or an alteration specifically for court
performance, and whose flexibility offers us options as it may have offered the
King’s Men options” (184). At the same time, Boyer argues that contemporary
productions of Othello should cast Emilia as a black woman, as doing so
would “[force] audiences to notice complicated racial and gender hierarchies
that normally go unquestioned” (181), especially considering the fact that
there would be two interracial couples in the play: a black man/white woman and
a white man/black woman. In contemporary productions, being purposeful about
casting Emilia as a black woman could then give audiences the opportunity to
“critique and interrogate [their] shared past [of colonialism]” (181). Thus, a
black Emilia would serve as a powerful tool for cultural criticism.
In “The Other Interracial Marriage in Othello” Boyer argues and describe the character of Emilia, and how she can be both read and cast as a black woman. Boyer asks his audiences to consider the interpretive and performative possibilities in such a move and states that “however, for these first racial uses of “white” to be intelligible to their hearers, the word must already have undergone a slippage in meaning from its earlier status as a gender, moral, and class marker – that is, it must have been made available for newer alternate meanings,” (190). The essay then goes into a thought experiment and in that performance, Emilia gives us possibly the first depictions of an African woman on the English stage. And this offers an exploration of the racial and gender dynamics in not one, but two interracial marriages. With two different interracial, the article focuses on the dynamics of both marriages and how gender and race can have a large effect on the way people are portrayed.
- Priscilla Nicole Adams
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In this essay, Boyer argues that in Shakespeare’s Othello, Emilia is a character written with no defined race and because of this, when read or played as a person of color, the dynamics of the play shift considerably. Boyer argues that when Emilia is read or played as a woman of color it may “mask Iago’s villainy from the other characters” (181). Included in this mask would also be Othello’s blind trust of Iago, especially in areas of marriage. Boyer relies on omission of the text to prove her point: Emilia is the only female in the play not referred to as “fair.” Additionally, Boyer believes that Emilia and Iago’s relationship is meant to reflect Desdemona and Othello’s and to do this fully, one partner must not be Venetian. Boyer argues that Iago compares the sin Desdemona has committed to the same one he has committed (2.1.92); this means to imply that they have both married outside of their race. Finally, Boyer cites the use of the word “filth” as a racial slur. She notes that many critics take the use of “filth” (when Emilia says it to Othello, 5.2.164) to be racially motivated. A few lines later, Iago refers to Emilia in the same way. Boyer acknowledges that her argument is circumstantial; she relies heavily on omission of a defined race for Emilia. She does provide some information in response to possible rebuttals from critics. To those who would say that Iago does not approve of Desdemona’s relationship with Othello, he would never be married to a woman of color Boyer points out that there have been well-known racists (i.e. Thomas Jefferson and Strom Thurmond) who have had relationships with women of color.
-Lauren Olson
