The Coens' Critique

I think that most of us will agree that O Brother, Where Art Thou? was packed with very clever and well-thought out comedic moments as well as some good ole’ fashioned slapstick. All this on top of the Coen brothers’ intriguing and very unique re-staging of a classic hero’s journey made for a very enjoyable film experience. Furthermore, there seems to be a level of judgment and commentary from the Coen brothers regarding a question which has been very popular in our class: is Odysseus as great as everyone makes him out to be?

Any reader of the Odyssey knows that Odysseus is far from perfect. Strong, cunning, and handsome? Undeniably. But he is in equal measure prideful, unfaithful, and selfish. And any viewer of O Brother, Where Are Thou? could make similar observations about Ulysses Everett McGill: he’s suave and has a pretty rockin’ voice, but he’s a criminal, a conman, and the list goes on. I think the Coen brothers intentionally created Everett’s character with amplified versions of some of Odysseus’ flaws in an effort to inject their personal opinions about Odysseus into the film.

First off, what has been the general consensus as to Odysseus’ greatest flaw? Everyone say it with me: Pride. Odysseus screws up tons of stuff because he’s prideful, two main examples being the loss of much of his crew to Polyphemus and then his pissing off Poseidon by hurting the cyclops.  All this could easily have been avoided. And if you were to choose a single object to associate with Everett McGill? Dapper Dan. Everett is so vain that his first concern after his encounter with the sirens is the appearance of his hair.

But the Coen brothers don’t stop at vanity. Everett is also prideful in tons of ways in the film. When Pete and Delmar get baptized, Everett does not, calling himself a man of reason and science as opposed to his easily satisfied, simple-minded companions. In addition, despite declaring himself the leader of the trio and calling himself “the tactician” pretty early on, Big Dan lures Everett and Delmar to the picnic super easily. Everett doesn’t even retaliate when Big Dan whacks Delmar with a branch, but instead goes for a “What’s going on, Big Dan?” And finally, when Everett is about to hanged, he cries out to God for mercy and forgiveness, and expresses his desire for more time with his children… but then immediately retracts these sentiments when he’s safely floating on the lake, claiming he knew all along that the valley was being flooded, and that this was presumably his plan? I don’t think so.

We also discussed in class that a possible parallel to The Odyssey’s Aeolian winds incident was Everett basically ruining Pete’s life by convincing him to escape with only two weeks left on his sentence. Pete was so close, but was then driven so far away by someone else’s actions/motives. But in the film, it’s flipped from The Odyssey. The main character is the one who ruins it for his crew instead of the other way around. Finally, the plot of the film is fundamentally driven by the fact that Everett is a criminal, as opposed to Odysseus’ struggles tracing back to his heroism at war.

So, it seems that the Coen brothers agree with the majority of us – Odysseus isn’t as great as Homer makes him out to be. Their exemplification of the same flaws Odysseus has, along with more flaws to further undermine Everett’s initially heroic image suggest that the Coen brothers could be critiquing The Odyssey in their film instead of simply recreating it in a very different setting.