I would like to speak today about the movie; 'O Brother, where are thou?' But more specifically how it showed acceptance in a time of a lot of prejudice.
The three main characters run into a lot sticky situations, sometimes literally. They run into a man on the side of the road and decide to pick him up, well he just happens to be a black man. In their day (1930's) that was un-heard of. It wasn't really until the 1960's that people started to even think of them as equals, let alone let them sit in the same car as you. But they just rode in the car with him and spoke to him as an equal, just making regular small talk, they clearly didn't think anything of it.
Finally and most importantly towards the end of the film the three men are fighting over the fact that there was never any treasure, then they hear singing coming from below. It turns out to be a meeting of the KKK, where evidently the men's friend from earlier, Tommy, is the main event of the night. The KKK plans to hang him. When the men find this out they immediately rush to help him.
They do eventually get their friend out of this mess. Notice again I say friend, it's just astounding that this being the 1930's AND in Mississippi, and these men in no way find this man, Tommy, inferior to them, they find him to be completely equal, so much so that they don't even speak of him being a different race than them except once. My point being that this film showed a very different, very refreshing view on the black in that time period.
Now let's go back to one particular scene, the one I spoke of where the three men pick up Tommy. First we have the three in the car talking of their baptism, Delmar tells Everett to stop to, "give the colored boy a lift,". Then the camera zooms way out to a shot from above showing the car, Tommy and that's about it. I believe they did this to show how they truly were in the middle of nowhere. Tommy then asks if they are going to Tishomingo, again they show a shot from above. Everett (of course) begins the talking, with general small talk. Now what I notice here is while Everett is going on and on about prison food and such, Pete is looking at him with slight an evil vibe, almost as if he didn't want Tommy there, but then I realize he is the first to suggest helping Tommy out later in the movie, so I think that he didn't think it was a good idea to have anyone in the car as they are trying to escape the law.
Now the camera focuses on Delmar, smiling like a fool, as always, he contiunes the small talk with talk of how like I had said they isn't really anything out where they are. Tommy talks of selling his soul to the devil, now we go back to the front sit with Everett and Pete. So that we can now see Pete giving tommy another one of his 'looks', assuming this is because Pete is trying to rid his spirit of all evil. Everett still talking, gets yet another look from Pete like, 'Are you hearing yourself? This man sold his soul to the devil!'. Tommy then explains he gave his soul for the ability to play the guitar 'real good', Delmar being the sweet man he is, just shows him pity. The young man assures him that he wasn't using it. The rest of the scene is just them talking of Tommy's plan and they end up at a recording studio, and if you've seen the movie I'm sure you know the rest.
My overall view of the scene is that as the river scene, it is a very good interpretation of the men's personalities, but here it is adding Tommy into the mix. It shows Everett showing off his gift of gab, to the max. It then shows Pete's suspicion of everyone, it shows Delmar's true innocence and kind nature, and finally it shows Tommy's true youth and gullibleness.
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