Time+Era+Criticism8

=__Time Era Criticism: __ 1985-Present = Othello is a tragedy. But whose tragedy is it? - Today, we don't think twice about how our country will be represented by hating the president. Many people are publicly against George Bush, even though four years ago the United States, as a whole, voted for him. Today, hatred is much more vocalized. Back then, Iago fought hard to hide his disdain for his enemy, Othello.
 * "It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place, to be produced (as, If I stay, I shall) against the Moor." (page 6)**

Web Posts:
 * When talking about **Sex in Othello** the characters use such phrases as, "black sheep tupping the white ewe"; not only does that show racism but also the difference of sex in that time versus [|today's society.]
 * Shakespeare had no choice but to mask his **Sexual References**, but in today's society [|lyrics are overtly sexual] and played on the radio with minimal censorship. It was in the late eighties that this all began causing a wide spread reaction.
 * Shakespeare used his artistic liberties to **Push the Boundaries** on [|social issues] such as race and pleasrue.
 * [|Click here] to read about how we ** Push the Boundaries **in today's society.
 * It's **Historical Criticism** like you've never seen it before! [|On this site] there is criticism on Othello spanning the ages.
 * **I** **ago Is Not An Ordinary Villain.** He is intelligent and cunning; he uses peoples' weakness to his advantage to achieve his goals. [|Click here] to further dissect the character of Iago.

News Articles:
 * For an opinion article about **Othello and Obama** [|click here]. The article goes into how man feels threatened by the "black super-male". In Othello, Brabantio fears that Desdemona, his daughter, will be stolen away by Othello. Obama's white voters are threatened by his success.

Blog Posts:
 * This [|blog post] deals with what the writer calls "The Othello Complex" and Barack Obama.
 * This man [|blogs] about the racism in today's society with Don Imus, Rodney King, etc. "Casting for the stage should be colorblind."

RSS Feeds: rss url="http://news.google.com/news?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&tab=wn&hl=en&nolr=1&q=%22Othello%22&btnG=Search+News" link="true" description="true" number="5"

Pictures: Like Othello, 2008's Democratic Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, "Is a figure that captivates, intrigues, and inspires white society." - from the article "Obama Is An Othello For Our Times" by Venetia Thompson
 * [[image:http://www.donkeydish.com/images/gallery/michelle-and-barack-obama_350x270.jpg width="270" height="213" caption="Michelle and Barak Obama "]] || [[image:http://www.theothelloproject.com/_Media/othello-and-desdemona_large.jpeg width="168" height="216" caption="Othello and Desdemona"]] ||

Black and White Cookies...living proof of a successful marriage between ebony and ivory



Videos: media type="youtube" key="8Nz6GQpUV0c" height="344" width="425"
 * This video is about the controversy with Obama and Ludacris's song about his election. There was much controversy with the lyrics of this song because it insulted President Bush, Hilary Clinton, McCain, etc and supported Obama. In today's society we vocalize more about what we hate and what we love. A theme in Othello: secrets. Also this video talks about the common "vernacular" used by today's rappers, words that are degrading towards women, etc. It is a constant battle for rappers to say what they want without seeming uneducated or rude. In Othello, Iago uses different, but also degrading, terms to describe Desdemona and Othello's love.

"It Can't Be True" from the new musical 13! media type="youtube" key="VgXgnh_HTnQ" height="344" width="425"

Vote Yes on Proposition 8 Commerical: media type="youtube" key="75J3TN9Zzck" height="344" width="425" Ignorant teenagers talking about Proposition 8: media type="youtube" key="A-jc4ujp9Ok" height="344" width="425"
 * How do you think Propositon 8 relates to Othello? Do you think America has progressed at all since Othello? Use the stylistic writing we have learned in class to write your anwser to this question. Also, consider this quote from Othello: "Because we come to do you service and you think we are ruffians, you'll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse. You'll have your nephews neigh to you. You'll have coursers for cousins and gennets for germans" (page 10). This relates Othello to a horse, saying their marriage is tainted, and that their family will be ruined. Isn't that exactly what the people on the** **video are saying?**

Podcast and Radio Programs:
 * For** Help with the Text **check out the Othello track on the NotePads podcast found on ITunes

Criticism Quotes:
 * **"Flattery and false friendship were topics that preoccupied many people during the Renaissance, a period in which private connections were even more important than today in determining a person's economic success, social status, and even his deeper sense of self-worth. We pride ourselves, in the present era, on objective measurements of merit, including impartial testing, "blind" reviews, and the detached assessments of disinterested peers. Of course, establishing personal connections--winning friends and influencing people--is hardly unimportant even now, but in the early modern period the process of achieving (and maintaining) social status and social security depended crucially on earning the trust and respect of others."** **(Evan)** The definition of success has been altered with the changing years. Back in Shakespeare’s era flattery and false friendship were the soul tools required to get ahead. Secret allies controlled a persons economic success and over all social status. But in today’s society success is much more merit based. We work for what we want and promotions are earned not paid off to the boss. For the most part. This criticism explains the shifting importance of winning friends and influencing people, and explains that although it isn’t absent in today’s society, it ruled social behavior back in the day.

> In movies like Silence of the Lambs, No Country for Old Men, and Saw, acts of evil are pre-calculated, manipulative and entertaining for the villain. Their victims are brutalized and tortured. However, the kind of tragedy that Othello is experiencing is much worse than any other kind of tragedy: he is being manipulated by someone who he loves and trusts implicitly. The kind of pain that Othello will experience will be exponentially greater because he will not only lose his sanity, and his love, he will be striped of his trust and his friend. Is it worse when you are tortured to death, or slowly destroyed one lie at a time?
 * ** "That year, O. J. could be seen everywhere: on magazine covers in his prison blues, on C-Span's marathon trial reports, even on late-show revivals of the Naked Gun films, which featured Simpson in cameo roles. The Simpson trial lent Othello  an aura of contemporality. The trial also stimulated public appetite for the image of the menacing black male body." ( **   Royster, Francesca T. "The "End of Race" and the Future of Early Modern Cultural Studies." __Shakespeare Studies__ (1998): 59. __Questia__. 13 Nov. 2008 .   **)** Othello, the movie, had just come out in 1995 when the trials of OJ Simpson were happening. During that year people changed their opinions on the character Othello from an innocent victim to a black man asking for trouble, a black man with anger problems. We, the United States, elected a black president. Yet have our sterotypes on the black man changed?
 * ** “Othello is Shakespeare's most relentless and excruciating tragedy. Othello concentrates on the systematic immolation of one man.” (Bent) (**Ancona, Francesco Aristide. “Honest Iago and the Evil Nature of Words.” Questia Online Library. 2005. Questia Media America. 13 Nov. 2008 **.)**
 * **What if you were evil? How would you destroy your enemies? Would you do it by telling the truth? Probably not. But, if you were Iago, you would. And it makes perfect sense. (Ancona)** **(** Ancona, Francesco Aristide. “Honest Iago and the Evil Nature of Words.” Questia Online Library. 2005. Questia Media America. 13 Nov. 2008 .**)** In a world that has become so full of lies and deceit, there is one sure fire way to become evil: tell the truth. In Shakespeare's play “Othello,” Iago is grand puppeteer behind his master scheme to achieve his goals of becoming lieutenant. However, Iago does not go about attaining this dream by concocting fanciful stories of failure and wrong doing; he simply uses a few well placed truths to turn Othello against Desdemona, ruin Cassio, and take over his position as lieutenant. When Iago questions Cassio about his affair with Bianca, he does not use false information. And when he leads Othello to believe that Cassio is speaking of Desdemona, he does so by using the truth. Cassio is talking about his whore. Iago is a master truth teller, using the truth to his advantage and letting his victims interpret the information for the worse, which is his plan all along.


 * T ** here is no new passion under the sun, least of all jealousy: otherwise Othello would be completely incomprehensible to us. Instead, it strikes an immediate chord in all of us. But the antiquity of a passion, and its universal comprehensibility, does not necessarily mean that it arises with the same frequency in all ages and all places. The morbidly acute sense of honour which once led men of a certain class unhesitatingly to duel with one another is now rather alien to us, and seems rather ridiculous, though we all understand wounded honour well enough. By contrast, we live in a golden age of jealousy .** **(**Dalrymple, Theodore. "Why Women Are Tortured by Jealous Men." __New Statesman__ 18 Sept. 1998: 32+. __Questia__. 13 Nov. 2008 .**)** In Othello's time period jealousy was taking care of in a way that dehumanized men. Men resorted to violence and death to solve a problem. I'd like to say that we have evolved, and yes as the criticism says, "we live in a golden age of jealousy", yet in today's society we deal with jealousy with other mediums. Talking behind ones back seems to be the medium of choice. The green-eyed monster constantly shows up in high school, especially among girls. The consent jealousy of everyone can drive one mad. For a current example, Mean Girls. The girls literally went insane over what they didn't have or what they had and other people wanted, just as in Othello. Have we even evolved at all?