O Brother, Where Art Thou a Public Affairs katabasis by THE COEN BROTHERS

Welcome to Mississippi

1930s America as DYSTOPIA Great time to be alive if one is white and wealthy Great Depression is at its worst in middle 1930s Jim Crow laws are alive and well (not just in the South) Telephones and electric power are still a luxury Politicians like Menelaus “Pappy” O’Daniel abound World War II is on the horizon People are looking for answers But a lot of great music is being written

The Great Depression The Great Depression was the deepest and longest economic downturn in the history of the Western world. In the United States, it began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing industrial output to decline and failing companies to lay off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression was worst, 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed. Though the relief and reform measures started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped lessen the worst effects, the economy would not fully turn around until World War II made American industry great again.

Jim Crow Laws Beginning in the 1880s, Southern states and cities passed laws legalizing segregation between blacks and whites. A Supreme Court ruling in 1896 that “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional accelerated the process. Railways and streetcars, public waiting rooms, restaurants, theaters, and parks were segregated; separate schools, hospitals, and other public institutions, generally inferior, were designated for blacks. In 1954, the Supreme Court decided in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. that“separate but equal” was unconstitutional. Blacks in the South used legal suits and non-violent protest to hasten desegregation. Southern whites often responded with violence, and federal troops were often needed to protect blacks. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 all but ended Jim Crow laws.

Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Laws

Tennessee Valley Authority Federally owned company created by Congress on May 18, 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development to the Tennessee River valley, a region particularly affected by the Great Depression. TVA was created not only as a provider, but also as a regional development agency that would use federal experts and especially electricity to rapidly modernize the region's economy and society. TVA’s service area covers most of Tennessee, large portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small portions of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Tennessee Valley Authority

Parallels to Odyssey Old man on hand-car = Tiresias Two dumb sidekicks = Odysseus’s dumb crew Baptism at the river = Lotus Eaters feed the crew poppies Blind man at radio station = Homer George Nelson, cow killer = Cattle of the Sun Women singing over the laundry = Sirens Pete gets turned into a toad = Circe turns men into pigs Big Dan Teague = Polyphemus the Cyclops Vernon T. Waldrup = Penelope’s suitors Dresses as hobo to see Penny = Odysseus disguised as beggar Jail warden is after Everett = Poseidon is after Odysseus

Katabatic Elements Old man on hand-car = Tiresias George Nelson = surly boatman and Sacrificed Man Tight Spot at the farm = liminal experience Buried Treasure = the quest for knowledge Sirens, Big Dan Teague = monsters Tommy Johnson = guide, potential Sacrificed Man Tennessee Valley Authority = benevolent deity