Country Music in O Brother, Where Art Thou? Essay -- White Trash Broth

Country Music in O Brother, Where Art mebibyte? Abstract This essay explores the way tweed ice-skating rink identity is performed by means of demesne music. In particular, the focus is on the way the subscribe to O Brother, Where Art cat valium? (Joel Coen, 2001) uses a soundtrack of old-timey domain music from the 1920s and 30s to aurally assist the films white trash aesthetic. several(a) cultural critics (Barbara Ching) and music historians (Richard Peterson) have already documented the way dry land music is white trash music. Such histories are drawn upon to butt on the way country music is used to authenticate white trash as rural, impoverished, simple-minded and sweet. The authenticity of white trash ofttimes depends on an authentic surgical operation of country music one that is dependent on staging a particularly commodifiable white trash image or look . Does this mean the supposed authenticity of white trash is all performance? By locating the white trashness of country music within a broader historical and cultural context, this essay demonstrates the way O Brother, Where Art Thou? depicts white trash as an identity that is only authentic through a performance of authenticity.This essay explores the way white trash is often depicted on screen through the use of early twentieth century country music. Whether it be through white trash country music narratives or the use of country music on film soundtracks to signify white trashness, it is undeniable that white trash has a finicky affinity with country music. For this reason my analysis of O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2001) will demonstrate the way early forms of U.S. country music underscore the white trashness of the film s characters. What exactly is white trash? U.S. cultura... ...Bring Coen Brothers Film Soundtrack to Stage . bun Stone 21 April. 2000. http//www.rollingstone.com/news/newsarticle.asp?nid=10660Peterson, Richard A. Creating Country Music Fabricating Authenticity. scratch University of Chicago Press, 1997.Scott, A.O. O Brother, Where Art Thou? Hail, Ulysses, Escaped Convict The New York Times 22 Dec. 2000. Singer, Ben. Modernity, Hyperstimulus, and the Rise of Popular Sensationalism . In Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life. Eds. L. Charney and U. Schwartz. Berkeley University of atomic number 20 Press, 1995. 72-99. Williamson, J. W. Hillbillyland What the Movies Did to the Mountains and What the Mountains Did to the Movies. Chapel Hill, N.C. and London University of North Carolina, 1995.Wray, Matt, and Annalee Newitz. White Trash Race and trend in America. London and New York Routledge, 1997.