stream “dear mr. shakespeare,” the stunning british short film using spoken word to explore racism in literature and othello

”Othello” is one of the most divisive plays in Shakespeare’s canon because its main character is a Black man who marries a white woman, and all of the racism usually hidden by Black peoples’ exclusion from literature is put to the forefront. Because of this, literary scholars and artists alike, have taken to dissecting the implications of race in this play and most recently, two British creatives have taken to spoken word and film to express their sentiments. Writer Phoebe Boswell and director Shola Amoo take the narrative film to new heights, using superior visual storytelling and intense imagery to portray their dissent. Boswell riffs on her conflicted attitudes towards Othello in the film, which co-stars Ashley Thomas aka Bashy from HBO’s “The Night Of”. This is the eighth film in the British Council’s series Shakespeare Lives 2016, celebrating the playwright on the 400th anniversary of his death, so it’s important that we support this critique of his legacy, because as much as art imitates life, life is also guided by the art of the time. Stream “Dear Mr. Shakespeare” below:

By T. McLendon, AFROPUNK Contributor

Dear Mr Shakespeare from Shola Amoo on Vimeo.