the american mythos

There are few things that can be classified as distinctly an American tradition, rooted in America. America is a melting pot, therefore traditions and customs are often borrowed and modified to fit within our cross-cultural life. This syncretism is part of what makes America, in theory at least, so appealing—you bring your heritage and be accepted into America’s broader culture.

O Brother Where Art Thou is not one of those things. Well, it is but not in the way celebrations like Feast of Saint Patrick, or St. Patrick’s Day, have been adapted. While the movie is a retelling of The Odyssey, it was an adaptation of it. However, it can’t be considered syncretic in the “America’s a melting pot” way because it doesn’t bring elements of Hellenistic and Depression-era Mississippi culture together in something new, rather it creates a new version of the epic within the South.

Nevertheless, O Brother Where Art is still, in fact, a piece of American mythos. Here, I use this term as defined Jay Parini’s “The American Mythos” from Daedalus. In their article, they posit that rather than longstanding religious or tribal alliances, America has replaced these culture-shaping traditions with lofty Anglo-Saxon ideals, particularly liberty, equality, and justice. Parini, in the same vein as many other scholars, continues to attempt to identify the whens, whys, hows, etc. of these values and identify their significance. (You can read it here—I recommend it).

Knowing that America was largely populated by immigrants and that its mythos is rooted in borrowed ideals from its colonizers, an American retelling of The Odyssey seems in order. This is where the Coen Brothers’ explicit attempt to, O Brother Where Art Thou, enters.

In The Odyssey, a central theme is the Greek value xenia and its observance. Any version of the myth must emphasize the concept of welcoming strangers as one would gods. In a standard modernized Greek version, this could be cheaply obtained by the protagonist meeting a variety of people, some kind and some not. But in order to grasp xenia at its most meaningful, a service to the gods, there must a be a cultural value on hospitality and on the Divine. Only in this way, would the audience be able to understand both the importance of the protagonist receiving help from strangers as a means of furthering plot and a cultural expectation.

O Brother Where Art Thou masterfully creates a sort of “American xenia” in its setting being the South. If you know anything of what to expect in the South, you at least know about Southern hospitality. The South, if you’re the right color, is one the most open and welcoming places in America. Kindness and respect are mainstays in interactions with strangers. Furthermore, Southern hospitality is meant to be extended to all, in following with an idea that a person in need, must be helped. As such, anyone Everett, Delmar, Pete, and later Tommy, came across who helped them, through offering a place to stay, pomade, or a ride, didn’t seem out of the ordinary both within the world of the movie and as an audience. Their aid to the escapees, much like the aid offered by the various kings, princesses, and goddesses, followed within values expected to be expressed in the South, as well as was reminiscent of the original Greek tradition of xenia.

All in all, O Brother Where Art Thou cleverly alludes to The Odyssey while still remaining true to American traditions of borrowing lore and legend from Europe and modifying their morals with tales which reaffirm the significance of America’s core mythos.  

- Tina

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