ABSTRACT
The chapter begins with an overview of Shakespeare’s work in the Iranian context, considering a critical history that overrepresents a politics of resistance in Shakespearean adaptions. I focus on Varuj Karim-Masihi’s Tardid/Doubt (2009), an Iranian cinematic adaption of Hamlet. Drawing on Alison Kafer and Eunjung Kim’s work on disability and intersectionality, the chapter considers how gender is in dynamic tension with disability representation in the film. Following Michael Bérubé’s work on intellectual disability, I argue that Karim-Masihi’s decision to recast the Laertes character Danial as an intellectually disabled character affects not only the social world of the characters, particularly that of his sister Mahtab/Ophelia, whose life is enriched by this protective relationship, but the social world of the plot, as his intellectual disability solves problems of motive in the play. This chapter thus demonstrates how Siavash’s feigned madness, Mahtalat/Gertrude’s plunge into genuine madness, and Danial’s intellectual disability all serve the narrative function of severing madness from Mahtab’s character. Although Karim-Marisi’s film positions Mahtab as an independent subject whose agency is directed towards care for her brother, she cannot prevent his death as she rewrites the tragedy’s ending.
