"O" What a Movie

I'm just going to throw this out there: I really like this movie so far! I love that everything about it screams Othello. From names to character qualities, "O" hits Othello dead on while simultaneously modernizing the play in an incredibly relatable and fun way. That being said, there is one area of the adaptation that doesn't quite sit the same. What I am referring to is the circumstances surrounding Des' character.

By this, I mean to say that there is something about the "O" Des that just doesn't sit the same way it does in the play, Othello. Specifically, in the modernized movie version, Des is a sexual being, whereas, in the play, she is the image of purity and chastity. Why would the director of "O" chose to portray her in this way that seems contradictory to the original image of Des? Thinking of the possible answers to this question, I wonder if maybe it would have been unrealistic to remove sex from the modern relationship between Des and Oden. As a successful adaptation, the movie may have needed to incorporate more sex into the modern version because, let's face it, our recent society is dipped in sexuality.

But then, maybe the director is attempting to suggest that the original Desdemona was not as virginal and pure as the words used to describe her suggest. Although I suspect this to not be the case and, in fact, quite unlikely, I still wonder if the director of "O" imagined there to be some truth to the accusations against Desdemona in which she is accused of being unfaithful. Maybe his suspicions about the true nature of Desdemona's character led him to portray the movie Des in a much less innocent way.

I guess the reason I was drawn to these sorts of questions is because the movie does well to stick to the play and its original portrayals, but I feel there is a lingering, almost unidentifiable, difference in Des. As we continue to watch the movie, you can bet I will be keeping a close eye on her....