Example in O Brither Where Art Thou When Everett Lies to Get Out of Situations

♫ I am a man of constant sorrow,
I've seen trouble all my days...♫

"You seek a neat fortune, you three who are at present in chains. You will find a fortune, though it will not exist the one you seek. But first... outset you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You shall see thangs, wonderful to tell..."

—The Blind Railman

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 comedy pic written and directed by The Coen Brothers, (very) loosely based on Homer'southward The Odyssey.

The story follows three escaped prisoners in Depression-era Mississippi — Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), Delmar O'Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson), and Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro). After fleeing the chain gang, they commence on a rollicking adventure in an attempt to reach a huge stash of coin that Ulysses buried in his lawn. They have only a short time to exercise this, though, as the lawn in question is in an area slated to be flooded by the Tennessee Valley Authorization to build a reservoir.

On their journey they meet, among others, a blind prophet, sirens, a Cyclops, and a gifted blackness guitarist who "sold his soul to the devil". In their attempts to evade the government and achieve the money, they air current up recording a hitting song, robbing a bank with George "Infant Face" Nelson, encountering the KKK, and inadvertently getting mixed upwardly in the state gubernatorial election. And on peak of all that, Ulysses must grapple with the prospect of reuniting with his lover and their children...

It was noted for the tremendous success of its soundtrack, virtually of which was recorded by Alison Krauss & Union Station and other country-bluegrass acts (Dan Tyminski provided Everett's singing voice).

Bonus points if you recognize the title from Preston Sturges' 1941 movie Sullivan'due south Travels.

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O Brother, Where Art Thou? provides examples of:

• Added Alliterative Appeal: "Songs of salvation to salve the soul."
• Agent Scully: Everett, who despite being pursued by Satan, coming together a prophet, being seduced by sirens, and being plainly saved from execution by divine intervention, nonetheless insists that in that location is a reasonable explanation for everything. At least it'south Lampshaded. And past the end, he doesn't really seem sure of himself any more than later seeing the cow on the roof of a shed, which the prophet told them that they would see dorsum at the beginning.
• Ambiguous Disorder: George Nelson shows symptoms of bipolar disorder. He's in an extreme manic episode when the protagonists run into him, and lapses into a deep depression after someone calls him "Babyface." Then when he'south captured and facing the electric chair, as Delmar puts it, "Looks like George is back on top!"
• Anachronism Stew: The Amalgamated flag did not get associated with the KKK and racists in general until the civil rights movement in the 1960s. In the 1920s and 30s, they still used the American flag.
• And Your Lilliputian Dog, Too!: George Nelson takes a break from shooting at the cops during his getaway drive to shoot some cows.

  George: Cows. I hate cows more than coppers!

• Pointer Catch: It looks like Big Dan Teague is going to get skewered by the pole of a falling Amalgamated flag... but and so he stops the pointy tip inches from his face up by catching it with both hands. Still, a flaming cross does him over but afterwards.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Some of Homer Stokes' accusations most the heroes nigh the end of the picture show: "These boys is not white! Hell, they own't even old-timey."
  • Ane of the people attention George Nelson's march toward the electric chair is most upset well-nigh his having shot a cow with a tommy-gun.
• At the Crossroads: The iii meet Tommy here after he sold his soul to the devil ("I wasn't usin' it for nothin'") to go a famous musician; this is based on the existent life Tommy Johnson who was the originator of the story. Yes, he did it before Robert Johnson.
• Vanquish Them at Their Own Game: Pappy's son offers ane of his brighter options to beat Stokes in that they could get a dwarf fifty-fifty stumpier than his. Pappy angrily shoots it downward, pointing out that Follow the Leader at this point would just make them look like even bigger laughingstocks and pathetically desperate for any points, assuming that they could even find a stumpier dwarf.
• Conventionalities Makes You Stupid: Everett repeatedly chides people for their religious faith. Examples:
  • When Everett witnesses a riverside baptism service, he comments: "Well, I guess hard times flush out the chumps; everybody'south lookin' for answers."
  • After Everett's travel companions go baptized themselves, Everett remarks; "Baptism! You two are dumber than a purse of hammers."
  • Toward the end of the picture, when facing his own death, Everett falls on his knees and repents of his sins before God. Later on he is delivered from expiry (thanks to a sudden and massive inundation of h2o), Everett discounts his conversion by noting that "any human being being volition bandage about in a moment of stress." When his companions proclaim that the flood was an act of God, Everett comments, "Once again, you hayseeds are showin' your want for intellect." (Note: Everett's watery conservancy functions as a clever twist on Death by Irony. Deliverance by Irony, peradventure? Miraculous Baptism?)
• Berserk Button:
  • Don't call George Nelson "Babyface" ("He's a live wire, ain't he?"). Truth in Television with the real George Nelson.
    • Possibly an inverted trope, as he's already an established madman, and calling him "Babyface" actually shatters his ego, lowering his self-esteem.
  • As well, Pete doesn't accept kindly to people stealing from his kin.
  • Don't carp offering Everett Fop. He's a Dapper Dan homo!
• Bewitched Amphibians: Delmar is at one indicate convinced that Pete was transformed into a frog.
• Bitch in Sheep'south Clothing: Homer Stokes seems like a nice enough guy and possibly a amend governor than Pappy O'Daniel. And then we come across him leading a Ku Klux Klan rally...
• Black-and-Gray Morality:
  • The protagonists exist on the grey side. Three escaped convicts and a musician who sold his soul to the Devil ("I wasn't using it"). Everett is a consummate liar who tricked the others into thinking that there was treasure so they would help him escape prison in time to stop his wife from remarrying. Pete is loyal to his friends and family, though he is a bit violent. Delmar and Tommy are genuinely nice fellows, merely Delmar did in fact rob a Piggly Wiggly and lie about it, while Tommy ran off on his own when there was trouble.
  • Pappy O'Daniel and Penny are slightly further downward, merely still gray. Pappy is rude, selfish, and opportunistic. However, co-ordinate to him, he tried everything he could to assistance the people that now support Homer Stokes. He likewise has no problem with the Soggy Bottom Boys including a black guitarist, even smiling when he notes "folks don't seem to mind they's integrated." Penny told her daughters that their father was hit past a train. But, given that Everett is a conman and a convict, she is right that remarrying the wealthy and "bona fide" Waldrip is probably best for her daughters.
  • The antagonists are firmly on the black side of things. The Sheriff does a great deal of impairment in his pursuit of the protagonists, threatening to hang Pete if he doesn't give upwardly his friends' destination. He also tries to hang them fifty-fifty afterward they were pardoned, and includes Tommy in the hanging simply for associating with them. Also, he might be Satan. Big Dan Teague is a conman worse than Everett: he assaults Everett and Delmar for their coin, and afterwards participates in a lynch mob. Homer Stokes presents himself as the "servant of the little man", simply it turns out that he's a G Dragon of the KKK, leading the lynch mob to kill Tommy. And, finally, how on earth did Waldrip know that Tommy had sold his soul to the devil?
• Breathy Lies: "That own't your daddy. Your daddy was hit past a train."
• Blind Seer: Lampshaded by Everett, who insists that the man has a Disability Superpower.
• Bookends: The film opens with a concatenation gang together working near a railroad runway and singing. Shortly afterward escaping the chain gang, the protagonists meet the blind prophet on a push-car. The film closes with Everett and Penny'southward daughters tied together by twine walking over a railroad track and singing. And the blind prophet can exist seen passing by on the tracks.
• Interruption Abroad Pop Striking:
  • The soundtrack had its own sequels.
  • In-film too, since the Soggy Bottom Boys' singing is so good that it helps resolve the plot.
• Brick Joke:
  • After mocking Delmar and Pete for being baptized early in the movie, skeptic Everett admits his failings and begs for mercy in a Not-So-Concluding Confession at the gallows. He is then forcibly immersed by the floodwaters, and anybody is saved. Literally.
  • Early in the movie Everett, Delmar and Pete run into a bullheaded prophet who claims, "Y'all will see thangs, wonderful to tell. Y'all shall see a moo-cow on the roof of a cotton business firm." At the end of the movie, they practice indeed see a cow on a cotton wool house roof.
• Censorship past Spelling: Sort of. One character wants to forestall his son from knowing that his female parent left the family, then he just says "Mrs. Hogwallop upward and R-U-N-Due north-O-F-T." Subverted after on, in that the kid knew exactly what he was talking nearly, anyway.
• Chained Heat: The 3 convicts are chained together for awhile at the get-go.
• Chekhov's Gun: Everett'due south pomade, particularly its distinctive smell, which lets the Sheriff runway them down.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Delmar "Nosotros Thought You Was a Toad" O'Donnell.
• Color Wash: The hue and saturation of the moving picture was messed with until everything was an intensely colorful brown, imitating the look of sepia-toned photos. Without this, the Mississippi (and Due south Carolina, for some scenes) summer mural would have been a brilliant green, which the creators said was likewise vivid for the Depression era Dust Bowl-blazon feel they were going for.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • After they go escape and don't quite get in onto the train, Everett and Pete both retrieve they should be the i in charge.

  Pete: Well, I recollect it should exist yours truly!
  Everett: Well, I think it should exist yours truly, too!
  Beat They turn and look at Delmar.
  Delmar: Okay, I'm with y'all fellers.

  • When Everett admits he made the treasure up to convince his chainmates — i.e., Pete and Delmar — to help him escape, Pete realizes that l years will be added to each of their sentences for fleeing the concatenation gang, and that he won't get out of prison until he's 84 years former. Delmar happily chimes in, "Well, I'll simply be 82!"
  • Too, when Pete responds to Delmar's whispered "Nosotros thought yous was a toad" line with a confused Flat "What", Delmar repeats the whisper more than slowly and emphatically.
• Comic Trio: Everett is The Leader, Delmar is The Fool, and Pete is the Only Sane Man (compared to the other two, at least).
• Customs-Threatening Construction: Ulysses Everett McGill needs to recollect a treasure buried in the backyard of his old house. Withal, the expanse is scheduled to be flooded by Tennessee Valley Authority's damming activity. In this example, Ulysses doesn't e'er attempt to prevent the construction (in fact, he sees it as the Dawn of an Era) — information technology but serves every bit an inexorable borderline for Ulysses and his partners to reach the homestead.
• Contrived Coincidence: Of course the guy the KKK decides to lynch is the one our heroes know and are on friendly terms with. Not also contrived, though, if you know your history. Beingness an unemployed black homo was a law-breaking only slightly worse than being an employed blackness man in the Due south.
• Corrupt Hick: The insanely corrupt Big Dan Teague. Who is channeling the cyclops Polyphemus.
• Crush the Keepsake: Large Dan attacks Ulysses and Delmar to meet what information technology is they're carrying. When he sees information technology'southward just a toad (they idea Pete had been turned into one), he crushes information technology in front of them.
• Cult Soundtrack: The soundtrack anthology is regarded as 1 of the virtually important Land and Bluegrass albums of the decade and sold over 7 million copies. It also won the Grammy Honor for Anthology of the Year in 2002, making it one of only 3 soundtracks to ever win that award.
• Dawn of an Era: Everett's view of the edifice of a hydroelectric dam, which saves his and his friend'southward lives:

  Everett: No, the fact is, they're flooding this valley then they tin can hydroelectric up the whole durn land. Yes, sir, the South is gonna modify. Everything'south gonna be put on electricity and run on a paying basis. Out with the old spiritual mumbo jumbo, the superstitions, and the backward ways. Nosotros're gonna see a brave new world where they run everybody a wire and hook the states all upwards to a grid. Yes, sir, a veritable age of reason. Similar the 1 they had in France." *He sees the cow that the bullheaded soothsayer prophesized* "Non a moment as well soon..."

• Bargain with the Devil: Tommy Johnson traded his soul to the devil at the crossroads for his guitar skills.
• Death past Childbirth: Pappy mentions that Junior's mother died giving nativity to him.
• Deep South: Much of the film takes place in Grit Bowl-era Mississippi.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Of the sepia variety, see Real Is Dark-brown below.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The most notable being the scene where Pappy is considering using the Soggy Bottom Boys to help his campaign and snub Homer Stokes, his son points out that the band'due south integrated and they're a Deep South state. Later on a moment to lookout the cheering crowd, Pappy decides to go ahead with information technology by noting it seems the public doesn't intendance about the integration.
• Deus ex Machina: The flooding happens at exactly the right fourth dimension to salvage them all from being hanged. Perhaps a literal example, just information technology's foreshadowed enough that it doesn't suspension the plot even if the viewer doesn't interpret information technology as spiritual.
• Did Not Die That Way: He didn't die at all, Everett finds out his wife has told his daughters that he got hit by a train, rather than tell them he was sent to jail.
• Disney Decease: Pete was believed to have transformed into a Toad past the launderer sirens, so they take him in a box. The toad was so killed by Big Dan Teague past being crushed, and his friends were physically incapable of stopping his expiry considering they were browbeaten to bloody pulps. It was after revealed that the toad was actually not Pete, nor was he fifty-fifty transformed into a toad. Turns out those "launderer sirens" actually delivered him to Sheriff Cooley's men for the reward, and is at present a prisoner back at the subcontract.
• The Ditz: Delmar.
• Empty Piles of Clothing: This (and a toad) causes Delmar to assume Pete'due south been turned into a toad.
• Eyepatch of Power: Big Dan Teague.
• Expy: A number of characters serve as references to characters out of the Odyssey or Greek mythology more than generally: Ulysses Everett McGill is of course Odysseus (Ulysses being the Roman version of the name Odysseus) who is trying to get home to his wife Penelope (Penny), Pete and Delmar are the notoriously fractious and uncontrollable coiffure of Odysseus, the three women bathing and singing in the river are the Sirens, Large Dan Teague is the cyclops Polyphemous, and the blind man in the first is the blind prophet Tiresias. There'south even a man named Menelaus! Only he's not an expy (run into Historical Domain Character below).
• Fake Band: The Soggy Bottom Boys.
• Fan Disservice: The Sirens, in addition to being generally beautiful, all wear wet dresses so yous can see their lingerie. Withal, combined with the creepy song they keep singing, and the fact that one of them is forcing a drug downwards Everett's throat, you can't help just feel there's something off about the whole thing. That'southward considering they're seducing them to betray them to the Sheriff.
• Fatty, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit: Several. Well-nigh notably, Governor Pappy O'Daniel (for the mildly corrupt version) and Big Dan Teague (for the insanely corrupt version).
• Simulated Affably Evil: Big Dan Teague, who engages the boys in friendly conversation before chirapsia them up and robbing them. He'due south also a member of the KKK.
• Offset Begetter Wins: Everett's ex-wife has told his daughters he'south expressionless due to his lack of steady employment and criminal beliefs, and Everett must find his way and win them back before she marries a successful but stodgy political advisor.
• Flat "What": A silent 1 from Pete when Delmar tells him he idea he turned into a toad.
• Friend to All Living Things: Delmar, or butterflies at the least.
• Freudian Trio: Everett (Superego, uses logic and reason); Pete (Id, relies mostly on instinct and opposes Everett); Delmar (Ego, acts equally a peacekeeper between the two).
• Funny Background Issue:
  • Everett, Delmar, and Pete are all chained together, and try to escape by boarding a moving train. In the foreground we encounter Everett (on the train) introducing himself to some hobos. In the background, Pete trips before he tin can climb in...
  • As well, Pete's gloriously goofy dancing during Delmar's rendition of "In the Jailhouse At present."
  • Groundwork singing — in Homo of Constant Sorrow, Everett finishes singing a depressing stanza that ends in the line "perhaps I'll die upon this train..." and Delmar and Pete chime in with a cheery "Perhaps he'll die upon this train!"
• Genre-Busting: Information technology's a musical/one-act/social commentary/retelling of The Odyssey... that'southward set in The Great Low.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Vernon gives Ulysses a expert sometime-timey ass-whoopin' in the Woolworth's. Vernon evidently has some training in the pugilistic arts, whereas Ulysses... not so much.
• Historical Domain Graphic symbol: Several appear in the film, though the details of their lives are skewed for the sake of the story. They include depository financial institution robber George "Babyface" Nelson, Blues musician Tommy Johnson, and politician West. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel. The latter arguably undergoes the nigh changes, having his commencement name changed to Menelaus as a nod to The Odyssey and being governor of Mississippi rather than Texas, while the former died iii years before the film'south setting and was The Napoleon in real life ("George Nelson" was also an alias, for what it's worth).
• Historical In-Joke: A great deal of the humour in this film is derived from these.
• Hobos: "Whatsoever of y'all fellas smithies? Or, if non smithies per se, were you lot otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?"
• Hypocritical Sense of humor:
  • Everett, conspicuously touched by his encounter with the blind seer, goes on at length nigh how the blind are perhaps attuned to the future and hold the gift of prophecy, to account for their lack of vision. When Pete points out that the future he foretold was 1 where they wouldn't get the treasure they sought, Everett shoots back in frustration, "Well, what the hell does he know?! He's an ignorant old man!"
  • Just as he is about to exist executed, Everett prays to God to permit him encounter his daughters at to the lowest degree one more time. When the dam breaks and saves him, he starts going on virtually reason. The other ii immediately telephone call him out on information technology.
• Implacable Homo: The Sheriff. Nothing volition end him from bringing downwards the principal trio. Not even a pardon from the governor himself.
• Inspector Javert: The Sheriff characterizes himself this style at the very end, claiming that the boys have just been pardoned by the law of man.
• Informed Aspect: This applies to the Governor, while Homer Stokes runs on a reform platform, calling O'Daniel a tool of the interests. The audience, who doesn't see that much of the Governor, never sees him practice much beside swear at and assault his aides with his hat.
• Insane Troll Logic: Committed by Everett, called out by Pete.

  Pete: You stole from my kin!
  Everett: Who was fixin' to beguile us.
  Pete: You didn't know that at the time!
  Everett: Then I borrowed it 'til I did know!
  Pete: That don't brand no sense!
  Everett: Pete, it'south a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the man middle.

• Ironic Nursery Melody: The siren-seduction scene, to "Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby" Also a rare case of erotic horror.
• Jerkass: Pappy O'Daniel, oh and so much. Even though he's the ane who pardons our main characters, pregnant they no longer have to be outlaws, it's solely for his own reelection entrada.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Everett. He'southward greedy, deceitful, sneaky, and arrogant simply truly does care for his friends and loves his daughters dearly. When all hope seems lost and he starts praying; Everett prays for anybody else's safety and happiness, only asking that his ain life be spared so that his daughters can accept a male parent to look after them.
• Boot the Dog: Big Dan beats up Everett and Delmar, steals their money, and crushes their frog whom Delmar thinks is Pete in forepart of them.
• Kids Driving Cars: Everett, Pete, and Delmar manage to escape from a called-for barn when Boy Hogwallop bursts through the barn door in his dad's car and offers them a lift. Since Boy is quite small, he uses a brick to counterbalance down the accelerator. Later, Everett steals the motorcar, leaving Boy to curse him, Pete and Delmar as he walks back to his dad's farm.
• The Klan: Appears as enemies well-nigh the end of the movie, as Everett, Pete, and Delmar must rescue their friend Tommy from the Klan.
• The Lancer: Pete.
• Big and in Charge: Governor Pappy O'Daniel. "We're mass communicatin'!"
• Large Ham:
  • Homer Stokes. Information technology's specially noticeable in the scene where he leads a KKK rally. Of course, information technology makes sense, given that he's running for governor and a talent for public oratory would aid him a lot.
  • George "Babyface" Nelson. "I'1000 FEELING Ten FEET Tall!"
• Louis Cypher: The Sheriff who is chasing afterward them is unsaid, and fifty-fifty theorized to exist by the characters, to be this. His Scary Shiny Spectacles reflect burn down a lot.
• Lyrical Dissonance: The Soggy Bottom Boys' extremely cheerful, upbeat rendition of "Man of Constant Sorrow".
• Magic Realism: There are more than than a few downright mystical occurrences in the film, such as the prophet, the sirens, the strong implication that the Warden is Satan, and God saving the protagonists at the climax.
• Meaningful Name: In a story based off The Odyssey, the master character'southward proper noun is Ulysses.
  • Likewise the Governor, whose name is Menalaus, although that's a footling more than The Iliad.
• Misspelling Out Loud: "Mrs. Hogwallop upward and R-U-Due north-N-O-F-T."
• Mistaken for Transformed: Played for Laughs when the escaped convicts wake up after drinking with some foreign women past the river, discover Pete gone and a toad in his abandoned clothes, and jump to the conclusion that he was Baleful Polymorphed. They keep the toad for a while before finding out that the women really sold Pete to the police.

  Delmar: Them si-reens did this to Pete! They loved him up and turned him into a h-horny toad!

• Musical World Hypotheses: Diegetic all the fashion through, making its classification as a musical to begin with dubious to some.
• Mythical Motifs: While the flick doesn't follow The Odyssey to the letter, it does borrow some notable plot elements from it, such every bit the Cyclops, the sirens, and ane of the main characters trying to get home to his married woman and then she won't ally someone else.
• Mythology Gag: Big Dan the cyclops looks similar he's going to lose his eye to a flung Amalgamated flag spear, much like Polyphemus, merely he manages to catch it between his hands at the last moment. Then the gang cuts downwardly the peppery cross, which falls on superlative of him, almost certainly burning his eye out and preserving a piece of the narrative.
• Never Trust a Title: No, the three main characters are not brothers, nor are they trying to find their long-lost blood brother. The title is actually a reference to an former film.
• No Animals Were Harmed: The cow that was run over by the cops in pursuit of Infant Face Nelson was CGI, which resulted in the rare addendum to the alarm, "No animals were harmed in the making of this film. Any scenes showing animals in jeopardy were false."
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: There really was a Depression-era Governor named Pappy O'Daniel, but his given name was Wilbert Lee O'Daniel; in the movie the governor's real starting time name is Menelaus (another Homer reference). Also the existent O'Daniel was governor of Texas, not Mississippi.
• Not His Sled: The expected fate of John Goodman's "cyclops" is deliberately referenced then avoided. So happens slightly differently anyway.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Teague'south reaction when he realizes that the fiery cross was coming down directly at him.
  • Homer Stokes' reaction when he realizes that the boondocks, subsequently his endeavor at getting the Soggy Lesser Boys arrested failed, is now going to run him out of boondocks on a rail as revenge for interrupting the performance.
  • Finally, the slow, dawning realization in the climax that the Warden fully intends to lynch them on the spot, despite the fact that they were given a pardon, and, besides, murder Tommy, merely for being at that place.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Toward the stop of the movie, the fugitive "Soggy Bottom Boys" perform "In the Jailhouse Now" and "Man of Abiding Sorrow" while bearded with false beards. Lampshaded afterwards, when their performance wins over the crowd and Everett deliberately yanks his beard off for a moment to bear witness Penny who he is.
• The Pardon: Granted but ignored.
• Pedal-to-the-Metal Shot: Parodied. The boy who helps our heroes escape a burning barn in a Ford Model A has fruit crates strapped to his shoes. What's more than, the car tin can't go very fast anyway, and and then breaks down shortly after their escape.
• Politically Correct History: Zig-zagged. The white heroes refer to Tommy every bit a "boy," but otherwise treat him as an equal. The radio station manager insists that he won't play "colored songs," but once the "Soggy Bottom Boys" become popular he'due south ecstatic about them and signs them. Pappy O'Daniel doesn't seem to care that "they's integrated" subsequently seeing how a crowd adores them and boots out his gubernatorial opponent for interrupting them. The KKK is shown in all its theatrically racist celebrity, just is too portrayed as a fringe system that is not looked upon favorably by the mutual townsfolk. This portrayal has some basis in reality, every bit by the 1930s the second Klan's membership had dwindled compared to its heyday in the mid-1920s ^note Specifically, the murder of Madge Oberholtzer in 1925 acquired members to leave in droves; membership continued to decline until the Civil Rights Move started gaining momentum in the 1950s, but they have never come shut to the level seen in the twenties. It should exist noted, all the same, that Homer Stokes feels perfectly comfy announcing to a roomful of people that he belongs to an organization, wink-wink-nudge-nudge, that engages in cross-burning and lynching, and expects the audience to sympathise with him when he attacks people for stopping a lynching. Information technology's not difficult to guess that the only reason he's booed is because the people he's accusing happen to be a very popular music ring, not considering of general principle.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Homer Stokes, candidate for governor by day, Klansman by night.
• Popculture Osmosis: The Coens have claimed that they've never really read The Odyssey, but know the story through its various adaptations.
• Produce Rain: What the audience does when Homer Stokes ends upwards interrupting the Soggy Bottom Boys performance to become them arrested, that besides every bit ride him out of town on a rail.
• Existent Is Chocolate-brown: Pursued with a vengeance, given that a substantial portion of the picture's post-production budget went into extensive color-correction. The Coens wanted every frame of the film to reflect the muddy, withered dustbowl look, and in some cases took entire fields of dark-green flora and turned them yellow.
• Reduced to Ratburgers: Pete and Delmar cook a gopher and offer it to Everett. He doesn't seem very enticed by the notion — non because of their choice of food, but because splitting such a small brute three means wouldn't be much of a meal. Delmar heads him off with news that they actually caught and cooked quite a few gophers, and then Everett can have the whole thing.
• Retirony: Of a sort. Pete was two weeks from beingness released from prison house anyway. Now that he'southward escaped, he'll accept to serve some other 50 years and won't go out until 1987.
• Road Trip Plot: The convicts are trying to go from their escape from the concatenation gang to Everett's secret stash, encountering many obstacles and interesting characters along the manner.
• Stone Me, Asmodeus!: "And I have it from the highest 'thority, that that negra... sold his soul to the Devil!!!" ^note The townsfolk don't purchase into information technology, though.
• Running Gag:

  "Damn, we're in a tight spot!"

  • Everett's obsession with his Dapper Dan pomade also counts, also every bit his reflexive worrying about his hair whenever something wakes him in the eye of his sleep.
  • The constant reference to Everett supposedly being striking by a train once he reunited with some of his daughters.
• Satanic Archetype: Sheriff Cooley fits Tommy Johnson's description of the Devil exactly: "He'due south white, as white as you folks, with empty eyes and a big hollow voice. He likes to travel around with a mean former hound." However, upon seeing him at the end of the pic, Tommy doesn't seem to discover.
• Saved by the Coffin: After the valley floods, the protagonists cling to one of the coffins the sheriff was planning to coffin them in.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: The Sheriff/Warden/Devil wears these.
• Seinfeldian Conversation:
  • This charming example:

    "He'southward gonna paddle our little backside."
    "Ain't gonna paddle it — gonna kicking it. Real difficult."
    "No, I believe he's gonna paddle it."
    "I don't believe that's a proper description."
    "Well, that's how I'd characterize it."
    "I believe it'south more of a kickin' sitchiation."

  • The discussion of a "grease spot on the L&Northward" and a "bona-fide" suitor ranks right up there too.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness:
  • Everett. For example, from the Funny Background Result described above:

    Everett: Say, any of you fellas happen to exist smithies? If non smithies per se, perchance you trained in the metallurgical arts before straitened circumstances led y'all to a life of aimless wandering?

  • Too Big Dan Teague:

    Big Dan Teague: And thank you for that conversational hiatus. I generally refrain from spoken language while engaged in gustation. In that location are those who attempt both at the same time; I notice information technology coarse and vulgar.

• Shout-Out:
  • The motion-picture show'south championship is itself a Shout-Out to Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels.
  • The entire plot contains diverse shout outs to the Greek epic poem The Odyssey past Homer. The main protagonist is named Ulysses in both stories, has to go domicile to forestall his wife from marrying someone else, and they come across singing women who seduce them (the Sirens) and a one-eyed behemothic man (the cyclops). The reform candidate is named Homer Stokes, referencing the author Homer. The blind railroad man predicting events references Tiresias, while the blind radio station manager references Homer again, who was also said to be bullheaded.
  • Tommy's Bargain with the Devil is a reference to a similar deal supposedly made past real-life bluesman Robert Johnson. (Or possibly Tommy Johnson, depending on whom you enquire.) And the song that Chris Thomas Male monarch performs during the campfire scene is "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues," originally by Johnson'southward contemporary Skip James.
  • Non to mention that a man named Ulysses meets a guitarist at a Crossroads.
  • The KKK scene is based off of the scene in The Wizard of Oz where the Scarecrow, King of beasts and Tin can Man effort to sneak into the witch's castle. The guards are chanting the way the KKK does and even doing a similar trip the light fantastic toe, and the three heroes steal disguises from the guards/KKK.
  • The Soggy Lesser Boys are a reference to the Light Crust Doughboys, who were featured on the real-life Pappy O'Daniel's radio show, and/or the Foggy Mountain Boys (founded by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs).
  • At that place'southward a bury floating on a flooded river at the end, which is most certainly a Shout-Out to William Faulkner'southward As I Lay Dying. And they use it as a raft.
  • Sheriff Cooley looks and dresses very similarly to Boss Godfrey in Cool Hand Luke, right down to his Scary Shiny Glasses.
  • George Clooney's functioning equally Everett owes more than than a footling to Clark Gable.
  • A throwaway gag may be a shout-out to Porky Sus scrofa:

    Everett: Well, we are negroes, sir. All except for our air-conditioning-c-c-c... our air conditioning-c-c-c... uh, the human who plays the guitar.

  • "Is yous is, or is yous own't, my constituency?" ^notation ...my baby
• Sold His Soul for a Donut: The main characters come across a young musician who claims to accept sold his soul to be able to play the guitar actually well. Delmar, who recently had a religious experience, is disappointed by the idea of selling a soul for and then trivial.
• Something We Forgot: The trio arrive at the cabin in the valley to recollect Penny's ring, forgetting that Sheriff Cooley had before learned of the location by torturing Pete and is now lying in wait for them.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Many of the characters in a patchily educated style, only mostly Everett. "I'yard the goddamn paterfamilias!"
• Source Music: All the music in the film is diegetic.
• Stout Strength: Big Dan Teague.
• Stern Chase: The Warden's search for the three convicts.
• The Stool Pigeon: Pete ends up becoming a Lacerated Larry afterward the "Sireens" basically turned him over to the sheriff's men for a bounty (which initially led them to believe that Pete was actually turned into a frog due to it being in his clothes).
• Surrounded past Idiots: Pappy O'Daniel's cronies and son are sycophantic yep-men who are a bit ho-hum on the uptake, and Pappy is painfully aware of this. This is most probable the reason he tries to convince Vernon T. Waldrip to leave Stokes' campaign and bring together his.
• Suspiciously Specific Deprival: "Who is that man?" "Not my husband." Also doubles as a Shout-Out to the source cloth.
• Symbolic Baptism: Played for Laughs when the escaped convicts Pete and Delmar stumble onto a group baptism in a river and jump at the take a chance to start over with a make clean slate... which mostly means doing exactly what they were before. They're also a bit dislocated to hear that information technology doesn't actually do anything for their criminal records.

  Delmar: Simply they was witnesses that seen the states redeemed.
  Everett: Even if it did put you square with the Lord, the state of Mississippi's a little more hard-nosed.

  • Everett is then even more than symbolically baptized when he gives his Not-So-Final Confession, on his knees praying for salvation... when the damming of the river floods the valley and sweeps away not but sins, but sinners, and houses.
• Those Two Guys: Pappy's ii advisors, run across the Seinfeldian Chat above.
• Trail of Bread Crumbs: How the sheriff keeps finding Everett. Everett'south a Dapper Dan man, going through obscene amounts of the stuff whenever he can become a hold of information technology. The sheriff's bloodhound can rail him hands.
• Travel Montage: We go a series of scenes showing the trio making their way across Mississippi, stealing a car, stealing a pie (Delmar pays for it), telling scary stories around the bivouac (hook-handed man)...
• True Companions: Everett, Pete, Delmar, and Tommy.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
  • The banking company customers at the robbery seem to be rather non-plussed past all the shooting.
  • Everett himself is rather non-plussed by Large Dan beating the hell out of Delmar with a tree co-operative until Big Dan starts attacking him.
• Upper-Class Twit: Pappy O'Daniel'southward son.
• The Vamp: The three sirens.
• Villainous Glutton: Big Dan Teague, as befits his correspondence with the cyclops Polyphemus.
• Villainous Breakdown: "Babyface" Nelson and Homer Stokes.
  • Nelson gets better...sort of.
  • "MY Name IS GEORGE NELSON, AND I'One thousand FEELIN' X Feet TALL!"
• Villain with Good Publicity: Homer Stokes, oh so much.
• Wardens Are Evil: The Sheriff. While at the showtime he is in the right to hunt down Everett, Pete, and Delmar (considering of them beingness fugitives), he goes for overkill tactics like burning downwards a befouled with them inside. He insists that he answers to a college law than homo's (so he will only keep coming no affair what), and the moment he makes it articulate that he will encounter them all hang even if they are now pardoned (and he volition kill Tommy for no reason other than him being there with the fugitives), he crosses the Moral Issue Horizon hard. That he is a Satanic Classic doesn't assistance whatever.
• Warm Place, Warm Lighting: The film uses an extreme yellowish filter throughout that makes what were green fields wait yellow. While it gives the movie a nostalgic sepia feel, information technology also accentuates the fact that the story takes place in sweltering rural Mississippi in the middle of summer.
• Wedding ceremony Ring Removal: As the guys meet the singing sirens, Everett, in the background, pulls his hymeneals ring off right before the girls come over and offset getting cozy with them.
• Whole Plot Reference: Loosely, to The Odyssey.
• Working on the Concatenation Gang: The story begins with Everett, Pete, and Delmar escaping from this while chained to each other. Pete, at one indicate, is recaptured and put back to work on the chain gang and has to be broken out of prison once more.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/OBrotherWhereArtThou

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