Othman the Nubian was the recurrent role of Egyptian stage and film star, Ali al-Kassar. Al-Kassar made this character hugely popular - playing it in blackface - first in his stage comedies during the 1910s and 1920s, and then, albeit changed and transformed, in his comedy films during the 1930s and 1940s. Partly drawing on stock representations of black people in 19th century Egyptian literature and journalism, and partly used advertently to prescribe an ideal vision of the “new” and “modern” Egypt, Othman the Nubian’s character was laden with different meanings, sometimes competing and contradictory ones. As a black man, Othman was a part of a marginalized community, bundled up with other, semi-“foreign”, characters who occupied a liminal space in Egyptian society; and at the same time he was meant to epitomize an “all-Egyptian” figure, a part of a colorblind and racially-equal Egypt. He represented the “everyman”, whom middle and lower-middle class spectators could readily identify with, rooting for him throughout his exploits with upper-class men and women. But these exploits were based on a series of mistaken identities that once revealed, reaffirmed the existing social order. Othman's character was also thoroughly sexualized: he was always implicated or consorted with elite women, while having marital problems with his wife Umm Ahmad, usually expressed in a very bawdy language. Using al-Kassar’s plays, films, and biographies, this study will examine the articulation of black identity in Egypt during the first half of the twentieth century through the portrayal of Othman the Nubian in popular culture, which was geared towards an emerging urban middle class, using the tools of a new mass media. It will explore this character’s various frames of reference, from the anti-colonial struggle, to different constructions of Egyptian nationalism, interactions with other liminal groups in Egyptian society, class hierarchy and mobility, and the sexual anxieties aroused by Othman's exploits. Finally, this study will ask some questions about representativeness and reception, arguing that, on the whole, there was a wide gap between what Othman’s character presented, and the lived experiences of black people in Egypt. It will also argue that al-Kassar tried to echo the fiery intellectual debates of the time and their different national and social visions for a nation which was in a political, economic and social flux; while at the same time catering to viewers’ tastes, on which he depended commercially.