The (In)Sides Beyond Male Friendship-Desire: Alterity and Minorities in Michael Radford’s Merchant of Venice (2004)

Abstract

[Abstract] One of Shakespeare’s most controversial play is undoubtedly The Merchant of Venice, brought to the screen by Michael Radford (1984, White Mischief, Addicted to the Stars) in 2004, becoming the first attempt to revise the Shakespearean text for a contemporary mass audience. Radford clearly opens a path for the interpretation of a possible homoerotic relationship between the main characters, Antonio and Basanio, visually sustained on a set of subtle hints and glimpses that constitute the main core for our analysis in this paper. Radford explores the discourse of otherness and presents a reflection on minorities in his adaptation through the figure of Antonio and his implied homoerotic desires, together with the ambivalent depiction of Shylock (the revengeful usurer- the sympathetic villain). The film hence may promote a reflection on our treatment of those minorities, those individuals that due to different circumstances happen to fall outside the scope of the standardized boundaries of the social structures and remain outside the mainstream.