The image of a hillbilly transcends mere representations of Southern Appalachia & the Ozarks. Hillbillies are and are seen as “other” in the terms of American society. Hillbillies do not fit the mold, part of both minority and majority identities. Hillbillies are less a social group but an evolutionary group, a brutish predecessor to the middle-class suburbanite/urbanite. To further solidify the status of the middle class, hillbillies are constantly belittled and used as a source of humor in mass media. However, hillbillies as a people in time and place do not exist in the eyes of the media. Rather, hillbillies are seen as a specific evolutionary stage of humanity, the bridge between chaotic subsistence and organized society. This is best seen …show more content…
In the movie, the story of The Odyssey is retold through the antics of three escaped prison convicts during the Great Depression. The three main characters each represent a different stereotype of “hillbilly,” despite none of them being from a mountainous area themselves. Pete represents the ignorant & violent hillbilly, Delmar the comical & uneducated, and Everett the family-oriented & scheming mastermind. Throughout the movie, Everett is used as an example of the socially acceptable hillbilly: intelligent and functional within the constraints of society but steeped in backwards mannerisms that set him apart from the rest of “refined” society. For example, Everett is the breadwinner for his family, but instead of making his money as an honest businessman, he ended up in jail for practicing law without a license. This leads to Everett’s wife Penny leaving him as the campaign manager of a local politician. Everett spends the movie enacting a variety of schemes to win back his wife, but only does so when he successfully proves that he is beyond the brutish, uneducated actions of his past. The movie O Brother, Where Art Thou also promotes the false narrative of hillbillies and rednecks being …show more content…
Movies, whether pure fiction like O Brother, Where Art Thou or fictionalized truth like Hillbilly Elegy, both promote antiquated stereotypes regarding hillbillies to sell the most palatable, feel-good story. The average, middle-class consumer has evolved past their uneducated, impoverished hillbilly predecessors, but to see those predecessors in their “natural habitat” is a chance to gain a closer personal understanding of the past. That false sense of closeness also enables the average movie-goer to feel as if they themselves are the generation freshly graduated from the backwoods, only a step removed from the “American frontiersman.” While the hillbilly may largely be seen as a negative stereotype, there is a cultural fascination with their way of life. This fascination breeds a desire to feel closer, to feel connected with a simpler way of life, even if no self-respecting middle class movie-goer would ever truly want to truly live the life of a hillbilly.
O Brother Where Art Thou is a film set in 1920’s America and begins with an invocation to the muse. This film takes a modern twist on the Greek Epic, The Odyssey. Many themes come to mind when discussing O Brother Where Art Thou and Sullivan’s Travels. A Theme I find heavily intertwined in both films is the power of laughter and especially, civil inequalities. These films are about a journey of self-discovery that take the character’s everywhere and then back home. The Coen Brothers seem to not only
The Coen Brothers’ “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?”, loosely based on Homer’s classic adventure The Odyssey, is a film amusingly filled with themes of symbolism similar to those found in Homer’s epic, while still maintaining a sense of originality and style that they have become so renowned for. An exciting and entertaining blend of high adventure, humour, and heartfelt emotion, at first glance, the film barely resembles Homer’s poem: only certain elements are obvious, such as the main character’s name
fact, one of Hollywood's best adaptation is the comedy “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” by the Cohen brothers. The Cohen brothers cleverly reconstructed The Odyssey with a 20th century twist. The film and the literary works provided a parallel journey of the main characters determination to return home. When analyzing the stories themes it had compelling correlations, which focused on perseverance and personal growth. O Brother, Where Art Thou explored new ways to experience The Odyssey's epic adventure
I will analyze the similarities between “O Brother Where Are Tho” and the “Odyssey”. In “Odyssey”, Odysseus leaves his home and family for an epic battle in Troy. He spends a decade later trying to return home, battling various evils so that he may eventually be able to return home. In absence, his wife Penelope has resisted the local suitor’s attempts to win her hand in marriage. The movie “O Brother Where Are Tho” stars George Clooney as “Ulysses Everett McGill” who is chained to two other
Being a generally required read, most everyone has heard of The Odyssey by Homer, meanwhile, very few have recognized the connection between it and its partner movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou? by the Coen brothers. Being purposely made to portray the large epic, O Brother, Where Art Thou is full of juicy details that one would not truly understand unless they had read the epic. Throughout the movie one can find the original basics that Homer incorporated into The Odyssey with ease. The similarities
O Brother, Where Art Thou? - From Greek Classic to American Original In the winter of 2001, American audiences initially paid little attention to Joel and Ethan Coen's Depression era, jail-break, musical "buddy" comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou? The film's reputation lingered, however, and over the next seven months O Brother eventually grossed a significant $45.5 million (imdb.com). Loosely adapted from Homer’s The Odyssey, the film focuses on Ulysses Everett McGill’s (George Clooney’s) journey
Written by Ethan and Joel Coen and released on DVD by Touchstone Pictures and Universal Pictures in 2001, O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? is supposed to be the first professional film in history to be digitally enhanced, in its entirety. The movie is a loose adaptation of the epic poem The Odyssey in which three escaped convicts; Everett Ulysses McGill (George Clooney,) and his two partners Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) and Pete (John Turturro) experience the adventures of “Ulysses” (Homer) in varying ways
film O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a reinterpretation of the epic poem The Odyssey. The Coen brothers, writers and directors of the film, did not over analyze their representation. “It just sort of occurred to us after we’d gotten into it somewhat that it was a story about someone going home, and sort of episodic in nature, and it kind of evolved into that,” says Joel Coen in Blood Siblings, “It’s very loosely and very sort of unseriously based on The Odyssey” (Woods 32). O Brother, Where Art Thou
O Brother, Where Art Thou, a film written and directed by the Coen brothers, is a modern day interpretation of Homer’s ancient epic the Odyssey. The opening credits of the movie quote the invocation of the Muse from the first lines of the epic: “Oh Muse sing in me, and through me tell the story of the man skilled in all the ways of contending, A wanderer, harried for years on end”. The film follows Ulysses Everett McGill (portrayed by George Clooney), a depression era Odysseus, and his men Delmar
There are many things that went into the making of the Coen brothers' film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” A couple of aspects that really stood out however, were the Sound Design and the Acting. The music that was chosen to accompany the scenes in the movie was very well chosen and set the mood, as well as gave an insight to the location. The movie also included a few big name actors, most notably George Clooney and his star persona that he brought with him. The technical approach that he took for
The Odyssey in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou The movie O Brother, Where Art Thou is a wonderful movie that was directed by the Coen brothers. The movie features a cast of talented actors, the movie has also won several awards. The book The Odyssey is a timeless classic and it was written by the mysterious bard Homer. The book tells the tale of our hero Odysseus as he attempts to make it home to his wife. There are many ways to relate the movie plot and characters, to Odysseus's journey in The
O Brother, Where Art Thou is set in Mississippi in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. This film starts by showing a Prison labor camp with men chained performing manual labor. This film expressed a famous group known as the Klu Klux Klan, which had greatly increased in size during the Great Depression. Popularity of the radio was a historical event displayed on this film that proved that the radio helped to widen the musical careers of many as well as bring news and religion to some. Religion
The Odyssey, an epic story by Homer is a Greek poem written in 700 BC. It is a piece of literature that has been widely analysed because of the hero, Odysseus. O Brother, Where Art Thou is an 2000 adventure comedy film by Joel and Ethan Coen. This film has been described to be a retelling of the epic story The Odyssey with Ulysses Everett McGill (Everett) being the hero of the film. The two pieces of literature are based around their different cultures, but the Hero’s journey and adventure are the
think that they would, but if you stopped and thought, would they? We can see multiple versions of brotherhood in our friendships. In the book Of Mice and Men, George and Lenny’s friendship is a rare form of friendship. In the Coen Brothers’ film O’ Brother, Where Art Thou? We see Everett, Pete, and Delmar's friendship grow throughout their adventures. How do their stories, so different, still connect us with brotherhood and friendship? Brotherhood is something so big that no person should go without
film O Brother, Where Art Thou? the audience is given an opportunity to experience a spectacular adventure, filled with not only the sense of journey, but also the senses of peril and excitement. A tale about a Greek hero being compared to a film set in Middle America starring three jail-escapees seems rather far-fetched. However, upon closer inspection, both actually share a lot in common. The Odyssey stars Odysseus, a man famous for his heroics in the Trojan War. O Brother, Where Art Thou? shows