Chapter 9

Adapting Othello for television in late Francoist Spain

Estudio 1 was a TV theatre series created during Franco’s dictatorship in which Shakespeare’s plays were regularly produced to serve the propaganda interests of the regime. In this paper, we explore a Estudio 1 production of Othello (1972) analyzing the contradictory meanings and readings that the figure of the ‘Moor’ has in the Spanish collective imaginary. The portrayal of Othello by the late Francoist TV adaptation confirms and authorises Spanish fears and prejudices about a militaristic, exotic but ultimately jealous and brutal ‘Moor’, who must be different from any form of ‘Spanish’ identity. The Shakespearean tragedy therefore offers the perfect opportunity to legitimise the ‘Moor’ as constructed in the crucible of Spanish history and memory – a dangerous ‘Other’ whose ultimate death following Iago’s revenge is a political and cultural necessity at the end of the tragedy.