Manipulation
While Hugo is clearly the central antagonist of the film, he takes after his early modern inspiration Iago by being a master manipulator. Hugo benefits from being O's close friend, someone O trusts and relies on for information. Hugo is also, as many successful literary antagonists are, a skilled rhetorician: he knows exactly what to say and how to say it in order to stoke O's jealousy and spur his self-destruction. Notably, Hugo's manipulation is so successful because he himself remains so detached from it, enlisting Roger and Mike as his unknowing accomplices to ensure that he himself appears as innocent as possible.
Jealousy
Jealousy is one of the central themes of the film, as well as the play that inspired it. At first, the jealousy seems to apply only to Hugo, who is so upset by his father's choice to name O Most Valuable Player that Hugo sets an entire plan in motion to destroy O's reputation. However, as the film unfolds, the primary jealous figure becomes O himself: unable to trust Desi or discern between truth and fiction, O's jealousy and possessive behavior is ultimately what leads him to murder his girlfriend and take his own life.
Hubris
Attached to the theme of jealousy in the film is hubris, or pride. Hubris has long been associated with epic heroes who "fall" due to this fatal flaw. O is no different, as his pride is what distorts his perception of reality and spurs his jealousy forward. Expressing a commitment to masculinity, honor, and reputation, O finds himself wounded when he believes Desi is cheating on him. Rather than reckon with this prideful response, however, he lashes out and kills Desi before discovering the truth and killing himself.
Gender
Gender plays an important role in the film. Shakespeare's Desdemona is known as being one of the most virginal, innocent, and upstanding female characters in all of his plays. Nelson's Desi is similar, in that she is fully committed to her relationship with O. However, Desi is also a passive character, like Desdemona, who becomes swept up in the pride and jealousy of the men in her life. As such, she and other women (including Emily, Hugo's girlfriend) become casualties of toxic masculinity and its translation to violence.
Racial Prejudice
O is the only person of color in the entire film, mirroring the traditional casting of Shakespeare's play. Hugo's jealousy toward O can be attributed, in part, to racial prejudice: seeing O's blackness as a marker of hypermasculinity and O's success as unwarranted due to his race, Hugo's plan is in many ways catalyzed by racism. That this subject never comes up explicitly in the film is likely due to the fact that it is also relatively absent from the original play. That is, Shakespeare's Othello also fails to mention race as a source of conflict because racism was so engrained in early modern European culture that audiences would have understood the significance of Othello's position as the only "moor" in the Venetian army.
Athletic Success
As mentioned, Nelson replaces Shakespeare's original military setting with basketball, drawing a parallel between the two as emblems of male teamwork, camaraderie, and competition. Despite his success on the basketball court (and Othello's success in battle), O is not able to sustain and nurture his relationship with Desi. The film suggests, then, that these "masculine" and "feminine" spheres are ultimately incompatible, showcasing how O's competitive nature does not translate well when it comes to his social life.
Appearance and Reality
O believes nearly everything that Hugo tells him, in part because Hugo is a master manipulator but also, more crucially, because O has inner conflicts that prevent him from discerning between appearance and reality. The film suggests that O fundamentally mistrusts women and that he is predisposed to perceive Desi as unfaithful despite her exaggerated innocence and virginal reputation. As such, O's inability to perceive truth leads him to accept more and more nonsensical events as reality, aided and abetted by Hugo who takes advantage of O's weakness.
