The Role of Race And Identity in Shakespeare
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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. Thanks for spending part of your day with us. I've been lucky to have the opportunity to fill in for Alison before when she took some time off to donate her kidney. Today, we're sharing some encore presentations of my conversations from that time, as well as some more recent favorites. Now, we'll get into a discussion about the intersection of race and literature with a book called The Great White Bard: How to Love Shakespeare While Talking About Race. It's written by Farah Karim Cooper.
She's the Director of Education at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and a professor of Shakespeare studies at King's College London. Listeners, I do love Shakespeare, so much so that when Professor Karim Cooper joined us, I just had to introduce the topic in a way that I hope would have made the bard proud; three verses of iambic pentameter followed by a rhyming couplet. Let's revisit that conversation about race and Shakespeare with that cheeky little sonnet to kick things off.
We venerate this Shakespeare, man and plays, but at this time, is his work relevant? Are race and gender topics he could raise or should we cancel him? His time is spent. "Go bite your tongue," one current speaker spits. These plays still speak to issues of today. Remove the pedestal on which he sits. Unveil the man, his work, through a new gaze. Professor Farah Karim Cooper's book, The Great White Bard, stares these plays in the face; from Titus, Tempest, and Macbeth. Just look, how to love Shakespeare while we talk of race, but that's the rub. What love can we allow? That's all of it, and we discuss right now. Farah, welcome to the show.
Farah Karim Cooper: That was just amazing. I love it. I hope you send me a copy of that.
Kousha Navidar: Absolutely will. Thank you so much for saying that. I see you sitting somewhere with a lot of books in the background. Where are you?
Farah Karim Cooper: I'm at the Globe Theatre. We have a wonderful research department and I'm in the library.
Kousha Navidar: Oh, wow. We're talking right from the source.
Farah Karim Cooper: Yes.
Kousha Navidar: It's appropriate that you're at the Globe Theatre because, listeners, in case you didn't catch it in the sonnet, the title of Farah's book is The Great White Bard, and it's out right now. You're the Director of Education at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and professor of Shakespeare studies at King's College London. You have all of the accolades and all of the background, but I read that you were introduced to Shakespeare through Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. What struck you in that film that sparked a lifelong commitment to Shakespeare?
Farah Karim Cooper: Do you know what? He didn't introduce me to Shakespeare. It was actually Franco Zeffirelli's film, but Robin Williams made me want to be a teacher.
Kousha Navidar: Oh, okay.
Farah Karim Cooper: Yes. When I saw Dead Poets Society, I was 18. It was the summer after I graduated high school, and I knew I wanted to major in something. I thought it was going to be law. I saw that movie, and, of course, there was a lot of Shakespeare in it, and it brought me back to Shakespeare, and I thought, "I want to do that. I want to inspire people with poetry, with great poetry."
Kousha Navidar: What is it about Shakespeare that's kept you interested for a career?
Farah Karim Cooper: I think it's the fact that he-- Every time I read a play that I've read before, I feel challenged by it in a different way. I started reading Shakespeare, obviously, when I was 15, but I didn't really get into it until I was at university. I was in my early 20s, and we read As You Like It in my college English class, and I thought, what a great play, but there's something in here that's kind of bugging me, and it was the way in which one of the characters, Rosalind, was talking about another female character who had darker qualities.
She was making fun of her eyebrows being black, and, of course, sitting in the room with black eyebrows myself, I was like, "What's wrong with that exactly?" The professor didn't problematize it in any way. What I saw, there was a space where Shakespeare can be problematized, but I was still really moved by a lot of the other things that happened in the play. I thought you surely don't have to take the whole thing at face value, that there's a lot to read into these plays.
For the last 25 years, it's just been a fantastic challenge with trying to read Shakespeare in a way in which I'm having a dialogue with him as opposed to just worshiping the ground he walked on.
Kousha Navidar: That last phrase that you said, the dialogue that reframes him instead of just worshiping the ground he walked on, is the way you start your book, actually, which is a good segue into there, because you begin your book talking about Shakespeare the man, and how our conception of him is maybe not as accurate as we believe, and maybe we should take him off this pedestal. As you heard, that's where that came from in the sonnet.
Dive into that a little bit because when I was reading that, I thought that was a super interesting take. The Shakespeare I know might not actually be the Shakespeare who was, right?
Farah Karim Cooper: Exactly. I work at the Globe Theatre, and because it's in London, we focus on, in our education department, the Shakespeare of the working playwright, basically. That person who I've been immersed in for the last 19 years that I've been working here doesn't really fit this barred notion that other people seem to think needs to be worshipped. A lot of tourists and students will come here and they'll want to worship at the mothership, and I'll say, "Well, no, this is problematic," or that the building isn't 100% accurate, and they feel very shocked by that.
I became very curious about who this other Shakespeare was that everybody was worshiping, and so when I started doing a deep dive, I realized that it was in the 18th century when Shakespeare was kind of created anew. A lot of the writers and the thinkers and artists at the time built Shakespeare up into this monument and fossilized him as a kind of beacon of English white identity.
It was really convenient for them to do that because, at the same time, England was becoming a maritime empire and trying to rationalize and justify its colonization of other nations, as well as its engagement in the slave trade. Those two things are not coincidental that Shakespeare rose to a godly status at that time, which he wasn't prior to that.
Kousha Navidar: I'm talking to Farah Karim Cooper, who just came out with a new book about Shakespeare and race called The Great White Bard, and I want to point out that this isn't just an academic conversation. The book is filled with academic research and theory, but the actual practical application of making these kinds of ideas has received a lot of backlash for you personally.
I read in 2018 you faced backlash for trying to discuss Shakespeare and race at the Globe Theater. It was in an interview with Hyphen that you said you were attacked on Twitter and written about on Breitbart. Why do you think that happened? Do you feel like there was any risk coming out with this book specifically?
Farah Karim Cooper: Yes. In 2018 was the first Shakespeare and Race Festival that I curated at the Globe, and at that time, there was less vitriol. It was more like, "Why are we talking about Shakespeare and race? Shakespeare's got nothing to do with race." That led me to thinking about writing this book, but it was in 2020 when I launched the anti-racist Shakespeare webinars that there was a horrible backlash, very racist backlash, and my own ethnic origins were brought into the conversation. "Oh, she's a woman of color that's why she's talking about race."
Actually, I had been at the Globe for 17 years by that point. That backlash is about ownership. It's about people feeling that something is being taken away from them, and after the Black Lives Matter movement went global and organizations like museums and galleries and theaters started to take it seriously, that's when you started to see a really racist backlash against any kind of progressive movement, whether it's in a theater or a museum. I certainly had to face that in 2020.
Kousha Navidar: Were you worried coming out with this book? It seems like you're leaning into it even further. Tell me about that.
Farah Karim Cooper: I was a little bit worried about it, probably more so in the UK because I think in the UK, there's a special sense of ownership of Shakespeare in the way that there isn't in the US. I'm American, but I'm also a Pakistani, and so I think it's a double whammy for the British. Whereas in America, I feel like I was less worried because Americans don't mind other Americans talking about Shakespeare.
[laughter]
Farah Karim Cooper: I was, in the UK, concerned about that, but I think it obviously didn't stop me because what I'm trying to do is keep Shakespeare around. I'm explicitly not advocating canceling Shakespeare. I think that's what they all thought I was doing when I was running those webinars.
Kousha Navidar: Got you. You said before, in a previous question, how really there are so many ways in which Shakespeare can apply to issues of today, and in your book, you go through different plays. One that stood out to me, there's a whole chapter on Othello. In your book, you take us through a lot of plays, and the chapter about Othello is called Model Minority. There's a line in Othello where he's described as being far more fair than Black.
I thought your theory of the model minority as displayed through this character is gripping, especially thinking about how society treats notable people of color today. I think there's a lot of parallels there, so I wanted to dive into that but with a caveat that not everyone is in AP English right now. For those of us who are a little further out from the SATs, maybe we just start with the premise of Othello, and then can you lay out your conception of the model minority there?
Farah Karim Cooper: Sure. Shakespeare sets Othello in 16th-century Venice, which was a very multicultural society because Venice was a trading giant in this time period. It was really financially lucrative for them to have people from all backgrounds working and living in Venice. It's about a Black African Moor, known as a Moor in that time period, who was the captain of the Venetian army.
It starts with another member of the army screaming and shouting outside the door or window of Othello's now father-in-law saying that-- basically shouting a lot of racist epithets about how his white daughter has married a Black man and she's done so without her father's consent. It starts with this idea of there's been some sort of violation, a Black man has married a white woman, and this is a problem.
It ends up at the court of the duke who is dealing with other issues because the Turks are now circling around their outpost in Cyprus, and they need Othello to do some work for them and to fight off the Turks. The duke says, "Oh, look, it's okay. It's fine. Othello is a great guy. We've all worked with him. We know him really well." That's when the line comes out, "He is far more fair than Black." What he's saying there is that essentially, "Look, he doesn't act Black, he acts white, he acts like us. Let's just be okay with this."
What you have there is a situation in which somebody who has violated a racial code in Venetian society is given a pass because he's very useful to that society. What happens in the rest of the play is that Iago works on him and tries to convince him that his wife is having an affair with his lieutenant. Unfortunately, Othello believes him and they plot to murder Desdemona, and they do. He does.
It's a heartbreaking, heart-wrenching play. What's difficult about it is that it seems to fulfill stereotypes about Black men and Black masculinity. It's always been a bit of a problem to stage. It's a fantastic play though. It's a real exploration of interracial relationships in a white-dominant society.
Kousha Navidar: Have you seen this play used towards the end that you're talking about in the books through either stage or a classroom being able to broach these kinds of topics? Has it been effective?
Farah Karim Cooper: Yes, I think it's harder in classrooms. That's something that I've actually been thinking about how to address. A colleague of mine and I have been discussing it because a lot of teachers, especially white teachers, aren't necessarily equipped to have a conversation about race that isn't going to make all the students in the room feel objectified or uncomfortable. What I also get at the book is about discomfort and being able to lean into the discomfort of having conversations. Shakespeare, for him, he was an advocate of discomfort.
You were not comfortable when you went to see a Shakespearean tragedy. He didn't want you to be. We should try and be comfortable in the classroom. There are productions who have tried very hard to lean into the racial tension and angst in play, but often, it can be unsuccessful, particularly if it's a white director that sees too much optimism in the play and says, "Oh, this play really is not about race, it's about redemption of characters who've been singled out for some reason." I'm like, "Well, the reason is race."
[laughter]
Kousha Navidar: Do you feel like there's an adaptation that really nailed it?
Farah Karim Cooper: Yes. There's a couple, but one most recently at the National Theater, it was directed actually by Clint Dyer, who is a Black director. He's the first Black director to direct it for a major national theater in the United Kingdom.
Kousha Navidar: Wow.
Farah Karim Cooper: He was trying to get at the systemic racism, not just the racist guy who shouts racist language, because it's really easy for us to point fingers at the explicit racist. It's just harder for us to see the systemic racism in society, and so he really brings out that aspect of the play.
Kousha Navidar: Othello is a tragedy. I want to move to comedy because this was another huge part of your book. You also spend a significant time talking about race and comedy. One line that I really took out of here was, "When I set out to write this book," you write, "I had no intention of trying to separate Shakespeare from the racism that emerges from his texts. My goal was always to show how it rears its head, even in the moments that are the most unexpected or that seems innocuous."
That term innocuous to you really came up because it is not something that-- Elizabethan language is not something that you just read. Once you get it, you've got to dive into the text. How much of Shakespeare's comedy comes from racism in the terms that he uses? How much of it relies on racism?
Farah Karim Cooper: I think if you look at his contemporaries, other people who wrote plays at the time, you would say, "Oh, Shakespeare was not racist."
Kousha Navidar: Oh, wow.
Farah Karim Cooper: Yes. There's a lot of really stereotypical portrayals of people from other nations and other races and ethnicities who are really leaning into that stereotypical villain where Shakespeare always provides a bit of dimensionality. What is interesting is that in a lot of his comedies, he's using anti-Black racism as a source of humor. That would've made people laugh, some of the comments that you hear in some of his most delightful comedies, and because the racism isn't the undercurrent of the play, it's easy to miss it.
You'll just get, all of a sudden, a comment like in Much Ado About Nothing, where the character Benedick is talking with his friend Claudio about a woman that Claudio has a crush on. He says, "Oh, she's too brown for a fair praise." That would've made people laugh. What he's saying is that she's not attractive enough to praise her. Fair, in that time, was a very elite form of whiteness.
It meant beautiful and virtuous and white with a luster or a shine. That shine is the virtue of the woman. No woman of color could ever achieve that because she's not white enough. He's saying that this woman is too brown, even if she's not brown, but he is using brown as a way of denigrating people of color.
Kousha Navidar: We've barely scratched the surface about all of these plays that you bring up and the ways in which we can reframe Shakespeare. I think the last question I want to go out on about the minute we have left is, what makes all that effort worth it? Is this making it a false dichotomy about why Shakespeare versus other people-- but why is it specifically so worth it to try to keep Shakespeare resonant with society today?
Farah Karim Cooper: That's such a good question, and I'm a little biased because I love Shakespeare. I could have passed him on when I was a graduate student and studied medieval literature instead, but then I'd be in a whole lot of trouble there.
[laughter]
Farah Karim Cooper: I think Shakespeare is still valuable for us because of the contemporary nature of some of the issues that he raises in his plays. There's a great speech in Midsummer Night's Dream where he talks about the destruction of the planet because of the way people are behaving towards each other. The powerful resonance of that today is admissible. Shakespeare is able to articulate or help you to think about questions that are so urgent in your own moment.
It's not that other writers aren't. I think other writers need to be brought into dialogue with Shakespeare. If you teach Othello, teach Toni Morrison's Desdemona, it's incredibly lucrative intellectually and emotionally to keep Shakespeare in the curriculum.
Kousha Navidar: I've been talking to Farah Karim Cooper about her new book The Great White Bard: How to Love Shakespeare while Talking About Race. It's available now. Farah, thank you so much, and I'll send you the sonnet.
Farah Karim Cooper: Thank you. Please do. Thanks for having me.
Kousha Navidar: The book is called The Great White Bard: How to Love Shakespeare While Talking About Race. It's written by Farah Karim Cooper. She's the Director of Education at Shakespeare's Globe Theater and professor of Shakespeare studies at King's College London.
Up next, New Yorker cartoonist Navied Mahdavian moved from San Francisco to rural Idaho in 2016, living for a while without heat or a working toilet. His graphic memoir is called This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America. We'll hear all about it after a quick break. This is All Of It.
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