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“O Brother, Where Art Thou?” as a Secondary Source for The Great Depression in the
American South
Radio Days
As the technology, business methods, and regulation of radio developed the more influence it had over Americans. By 1929, 80% of
radios could be bought on credit. Between 1929-1936, an average of 600 stations were operational in the U.S. The reach of radio was
enormous. Mass communication and entertainment could reach Americans within their own homes, and capitalized on by business
advertisers, artists, and politicians. Between 1930-1937 ‘radio homes” increased from 45.8% to 82%. But the reach was not equal
demographically or geographically. Between 1930-1936 Southern states saw an increase from 12% to 48% in radio homes. While
telephone subscriptions and movie attendance dropped slightly during the hardest years of the Great Depression, radio sales increased.
It was a cheaper form of entertainment and rarely worth selling used. Stations could rarely afford to pay performers in the 1920s,
offering airtime merely as a promotion, but by the late 1930s advertisers sponsored most programming, pleasing the listeners who
received more quality shows, and pleasing the artists who were actually compensated<1>. In the “O Brother” radio serves as a major
plot driver. One politician character references its importance as a tool for “mass communicating.” The three escaped convict
protagonist (Clooney, Nelson, and Torturro) earn some quick cash by recording a folk song “Man of Constant Sorrow” at a radio
station. There popularity grows over the radio, which eventually helps them get pardoned in the end.
As American as Bank Robbery!
Bank robbery, as paradoxical as it may be, has been glorified and cherished in American culture. By the rise of organized crime and
gangsters in the 1920s/30s, many Americans already knew the names and told stories of famous bank robbers and outlaws of the Wild
West like Jesse James. The Depression fueled bank robbery and criminals like Bonnie and Clyde, whose stories provided real-life
melodrama during the hard knock Depression, excited the public. Bonnie and Clyde covered the Midwest and the South in their
escapades, but bank robber Lester Gillis, famously known as George “Baby Face” Nelson, along with his wife and gang kept mostly
to Illinois, except for a short run across the country to California and back in the early 1930s. He was gunned down and found dead in
Illinois on November 28, 1934. He was known to be hot tempered over the “Baby Face” nickname. Sensationalized in their lifetimes
and glorified in films soon after, bank robbers continue to be beloved parts of American legends<2>. “Baby Face” Nelson is portrayed
in the movie completely inaccurately, except perhaps in temperament, and of course, he was in fact a bank robber. The Coens’
inclusion of the character served more to color the heroes’ adventure than anything else. The invocation of a slightly more obscure
criminal was probably also used to promote the general theme of American legendry during the era. The movie depicts Nelson as
being a lone ranger robber who gets captured and marches off to be executed by electrocution near the movies end.
African Americans and Blues Legends
Most young black southerners of the blues generation worked as migrants, circling from farm to city getting various low paid jobs.
Many of the first Mississippi blues musicians came from farming families, often returning to that work after a few years. But
depending on the venues and their audiences, successful musicians like Robert Johnson sometimes earned more money on a Saturday
night than a week of plantation work. Much like the spirituals and gospels created during slavery, blues music was directly reflected
the situation of black men and women in the 1920s/1930s. Stories of a Faustian agreement sprung up around well-known, and shortlived Robert Johnson, but that legend supposedly originated with an earlier musician named Tommy Johnson (unrelated). It is said
that Tommy Johnson sold his soul to the devil at a dark crossroads in exchange for masterful musical skill. He suffered greatly from
his gambling and alcoholism, apparently believing that he signed away his right to ever record music again while drunk early in his
career. Still, Johnson greatly influenced the genre and continues to be covered by artists. Both Johnsons worked on farms before their
musical careers<3>. Although the film calls one integral character Tommy Johnson, the portrayal is probably more accurately a
mixture of the two famous Johnson blue artists. He is not a drunk or a gambler, yet anyway, in the movie. There is no account of either
Johnson having hung around with some white escaped convicts, nor having a run-in with the Klan and barely escaping with his life.
But once again, the American legend is invoked and accurately described.
Southern Politicians
Another figure of iconic of the 1930s was the politician, a sort of stock character. Huey Long is the greatest example in American
history, rising through radio and the desperation of people in the Great Depression. Though Long was considered a thug-intimidator
and heavily into nepotism and the spoils system, he made huge reforms as Louisiana’s governor in the early 1930s. W. Lee “Pappy”
O’Daniel also gained fame as a radio personality with his bluegrass band the Hillbilly Boys. Running for his only term as governor of
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Texas, O’Daniel promoted his Flour Mill Company, with the slogan “Pass the buiscuits, Pappy” and promoted reform using a broom
to symbolize cleaning up after dirty politics, a common tactic of the time. Governor Davis of Louisiana also was known through the
radio from his popular rendition of “You Are My Sunshine” and Texas Governor Neff famously pardoned a country singer after a
good performance<4>. The Pappy O’Daniels in “O Brother” is definitely an amalgamation of the above figures. He promotes his
“Flour Hour” over the radio, pardons the three flawed heroes in the end, is accused of nepotism and ineffectiveness, and calls on
newly gained supporters to join in a glorious round of “You Are My Sunshine.” However, it is his opponent that uses old-timey music,
bandwagon campaigning, and shakes a broom for theatrics.
Life on the Chain Gang
Years of hard labor in unregulated penitentiaries or labor camps were common sentences for minor crimes committed by poor
whites or blacks in the South for decades. Life on the chain gang was written about firsthand and by socially conscious writers. I am a
Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) was one of the first film depictions of the cruel labor system. Songs about the chain gang were
created by the convicts themselves and by folk/blues artists in the jazz age. Escape was fairly frequent. Punishment usually included
torture such as the sweatbox, a dramatically prolonged sentence, and in most extreme scenarios death during re-capture<5>. The three
convicts escape without explanation, straight off the chain gang as if it were as easy as that at the very start of the movie to the song
“Big Rock Candy Mountain,” describing a perfect world absent of manual labor. But the escapees are constantly eluding their
pursuers within inches of their life. The scene where the vigilante-like law whips Pete and when they are all nearly hung is sinister but
not far off from the hard and unjust life most criminals were subjected. The picture-show scene with the convicts is actually an
allusion to a scene in Preston Sturges’ film “Sullivan’s Travels”, from where “O Brother” received its name.
The Klu Klux Klan
The Klan, at its height during the revival, had 3 million members, who discriminated and sometimes physically harmed and
murdered Jews, Catholics, Immigrants, and Blacks in the 1930s. The demographics was an equal cross-section of white men and up to
500, 000 white women at one point. This meant the law was often involved in the clan, along with politicians, and businessmen. Some
politicians couldn’t get elected without the support of the Klan. Rallies were secret, as were identities, but in many cases public,
daytime marches were held in the streets as intimidation<6>.(See link to early footage in Gallery page). The KKK rally in the film is
meant to be both sinister and absurd, almost like the “O-wee-O” scene from “Wizard of Oz.” The films comic approach does not keep
it from being truthful, though. The racist sentiments expressed by the red-robed wizard, who is actually the political gubernatorial
candidate, are true to KKK doctrine. The sacredness of the Confederate flag and the lynching of an innocent black man (here Johnson)
are also accurate to say of a KKK rally or meeting in 1937 Mississippi.
Overall, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” is a flawed source to use for the past, however, the film goes far beyond what the filmmakers
claim. The allusions are rich a copious, but furthermore the film dares tackle a period and a subject that is based more in cultural
history than war, biography, political events, etc. And cultural history is a far more ambiguous field than the others. The Coens’ film
does a commendable job at creating an accurate setting and image of the diverse Great Depression society in the American South.
Endnotes
<1> Douglas B. Craig, Fireside Politics: Radio and Political Culture in the United States, 1920-1940, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2000).
<2>Hugh Ruppersburg, “Oh, So Many Startlements…History, Race, and Myth in O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Southern Cultures 9,
no. 4 (Winter, 2003).
<3>Ted Ownby, American Dreams in Mississippi: Consumers, Poverty, & Culture, 1830-1998 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 1999).
<4>Ruppersburg, ibid.
<5> Jeanne Perreault, Chain Gang Narratives and the Politics of “Speaking For” Biography 24, no. 1 (Winter, 2001): 152-171.
<6>Bill Brummell, “Klu Klux Klan: A Secret History (3/9)” The History Channel, 1998,