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. 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 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, like ◊ most ◊ Moroccans. It is a case of post-facto Values Dissonance, but it does not make such portrayals inherently bad. Thus, the early Othello movies have a white Othello. 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. 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. 'Race' is by no means a static, universal concept. 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. One thing that must be said is that the play is, along with a lot of contemporary works, far Harsher in Hindsight.
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