O Brother Where Art the Odyssey By Jon Raby
In the Movie O Brother Where Art Thou?, The Coen brothers sought not to adapt Homers classic The Odyssey, but to re-create it. They do this by using the general structure of the book, and the cultural values that can be deduced from it, and molding them to our cultural values here in the United States. (Or at least what they believe them to be!). I believe that they did create a set of American cultural values to be analyzed and that they also successfully represented the core of Homers Odyssey by creating heroes that exemplify these American values to be explored and evolved from.
The Odyssey focussed on three Greek cultural values or laws, xenia (guest host relationship), marriage/kinship, and sacrifice to the gods, and on the importance of a form of power or justice: metis. I believe that O Brother re-creates these ideas for our time and society.
Xenia has been transformed into friendship and teamwork. Though Ulysses, Pete, and Delmar are guests in some places such as the house of Petes kin, most of their time is spent in the woods in front of a campfire. They rely more on stealing, and luck, than on guest host relationships to survive. I believe this value has been represented as friendship for a few reasons. The first being the very beginning of the movie. The three men running through a cornfield chained together. This is a literal metaphor: they are chained together. Then they will come upon a blind black man, who I think represents the character of Theban Teiresias who Odysseus meets in the underworld. This blind black man tells their future. When he does this he does not tell only the future of Ulysses, he says all three men will get home safely and see strange things, like a cow on top of a barn. In the Odyssey only Odysseus receives a fortune, and only he survives the journey, because he is the leader and hero. But in O Brother and in our society much more emphasis is put on teamwork and helping out your fellow man, or woman. This is why no leader is ever chosen for the group, though they do fight over it. No one has full say in what they will do. The men must trust one persons idea in order to follow him. This fits how I would act in a group, I would not follow blindly the orders of someone else, and I think much of our society is like this. Supposedly our political system is based on this thought too. Checks and balances. Always there is supposed to be one form of government checking another for mistakes and bad reasoning, so that none have too much power. This is why children learn team work in grade school.
Marriage/Kinship has been kept relatively the same. Ulysses is trying to get home to his family, who he loves. His wife wants to move on and remarry and he must show her that he will be a good husband and father. His wife is very much in control of the relationship, unlike in Greek history. She as well as Ulysses has expectations of what attitudes and behaviors they want from their husband or wife. Thus marriage is not defined by social expectations, like in the Odyssey, but by personal ones, what a person wants from their spouse to make themselves happy, compared to what a husband wants his wife to be as in the past. This is basic evolution towards a more heart or spirit driven world instead of a mental or physically driven one, because we care about the heart finding happiness. And because women have more respect and equality. I can only hope that these are truly American cultural values.
And the Third value focused on in both stories, and of major importance to both the ancient Greek society and ours is belief systems relating to a god or gods. For the Odyssey and the ancient Greeks this was the laws of Sacrifice. In the Odyssey there is a strict system of offering sacrifice to the gods so that they protect and help you instead of hurting you. In the story Odysseus men eat the sacred caves of the gods, and they all end up dying for it, because they have offended the gods. In O Brother there is a character named Baby faced Nelson, George Nelson (who in reality was a real Bank robber during the depression), he hates cows and kills some with his Tommy gun. It seems like only comedy, but actually is a reference to The Odyssey. The difference here is that George Nelson is eventually caught, but it is not because he angered some god, it is because wanted to get caught in order to increase his fame. This is a major difference because it takes away the power of the gods.
In O Brother Christianity is the focus of the beliefs in our society. Though even this is questioned often. Pete and Delmar, after being baptized, get made fun of by Ulysses. And there is the character of Tommy Johnson who sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads. He helps them out, eventually becoming the fourth member of their group and falling into and out of trouble with them. His character is primarily good not evil, though he has done this evil act of selling his soul to the Devil. All of this brings forth questions of the importance of God and the Devil, and how much power they have in our lives. It is generally considered that they are unseen gods that will only act upon us until after our death, in judgement. Though certainly some believe they have physical influence on our waking lives, and undeniably they have some kind of influence on our lives if we give it to them. If we base our choices on God or the Devil, then they are influencing us.
What it comes down to is that in America you can believe whatever you want, and anything can play a part in our lives and future if we want it to. This too is in our codified laws, our bill of rights created two-hundred years ago. And it is not uncommon to have friends and even family that believe completely differently than our own. It is a part of our belief system to allow others to have their own specific set of beliefs.
Possibly the most important area of focus in both of these stories is Metis. It is a form of power relying on intelligence to win battles and gain power over others. It is basically what makes the heroes, heroes in both stories. Metis is really entirely different in The Odyssey and O Brother. In the Odyssey, Odysseus is a cunning trickster. He out-thinks his enemies and thinks ahead of those trying to trick him. He represents a high Greek ideal that people should strive to be intelligent to get ahead in life, and to not be fooled by their enemies.
Ulysses is definitely not a smart man. He may be considered book smart, and is insightful about the future, but he is not cunning. He is beaten up and robbed by the Cyclops, John Goodman, because he is dumb to the Cyclopss ill intentions of robbing them. Truthfully he is a bumbling moron and this is why he is so funny. But there is a power that Ulysses does posses, he is cool. People like him and he can convince them to help him. This is taken to its fullest extent with the creation of the Soggy Bottom boys band, where Ulysses, Delmer, and Pete, along with Tommy Johnson the best guitar player around, make up a band for some extra money. The band becomes so popular on the radio that the governor pardons them. This is an American value and form of power. Fame, popularity, coolness, to have people look up to you as an idol. We look up to actors and bands and any kind famous person like they are gods. In fact if you happen to turn on The TV and watch an episode of American Idol it can be seen how far this has gone.
Without the huge popular support of the Soggy Bottom Boys the guys would not have gotten out of trouble, and Ulysses would not have gotten his wife to think about taking him back. There is more to this power in the movie too. There is a Governors race between the current governor and Homer Stokes, the KKK leader. The current governor makes a statement about using the radio to reach people, mass communication. This is basically a popularity contest as well, who can get more people to vote for them. Constantly the two opponents are trying to figure out how to get more people to like them, not how to be a better governors. It is actually because of this that the current governor pardons the Soggy Bottom Boys, to gain popularity with the people.
Fame has become the metis of our society. We still recognize smart people, and cunning people, but more important is what people think of us. The looser can get little done in the realm of the public, and when he (or she) does, it parallels a rise in what the people around him think he can do, the power they give him with their belief in him. In high school it is the cool kids that have all of the fun, and later on in life the cool kids fade into the shadows and new people rise up to be looked up to as the ones who are actually cool. What people think of you is very important in this society. Most people work very hard in life to liked.
Metis, Xenia, Marriage/Kinship, and Deity based Belief Systems, the Coen brothers have recreated these things for our time. They have done it successfully in my opinion. I see all of these values and forms of power in my life and believe them to be valid ideals in our society. The question now is how can we gain from them, and how can we evolve them. Certainly they are not all good values to aspire to, but they have some merit. To work as a team is good and to care what others think about you, but to look up to people so much that we dont hold them accountable for their actions is not. We should take what is good from our past, and loose what is not so good. We can evolve the good things further and learn from the bad. That marriage is more about both man and woman being happy and their souls fulfilled is good, but we can take this further, we can learn how to better fulfill ours souls. And if we see that politics has become a popularity contest and not about finding a valuable representative for our country, well, we can begin to look past coolness and look for true merits in these politicians. We can do this in everyday life to, in high school the uncool kids can realize that they too can have fun, and that they are no better or worse than the popular kids. A valuable model has been set by the Coen brothers, one using a 2,500 year old structure, now we must analyze it, work on it and change it for the future.
Comments