Penny(lope)
After
watching Oh Brother Where Art Thou (I’m
gonna call it OBWAT because that is a
long title to have to spell out every time), I was thinking about the parallels
between characters in the movie versus The
Odyssey. We have spent a pretty sizable chunk of time discussing Penelope –
her character, her likeability, her faithfulness, and so on – so I was thinking
about how Penny compares.
They
fill incredibly different roles in OBWAT
and The Odyssey. In The Odyssey, Penelope has an interesting
mix of passivity and agency – on one hand, all she really does is sit around all
day, weep, and occasionally get ordered around by Telemachus, but on the other,
she is Wise Penelope, and she does come up with a lot of clever tricks to deter
the suitors. Thus, she becomes largely the object of Odysseus’ desires – she embodies
and symbolizes home, for which Odysseus yearns. In OBWAT, Penny only comes into the plot around 2/3 of the way into
the movie. For the majority of the time, the audience thinks the triad is
looking for treasure, we don’t even know Penny exists. In the narrative, Penny
functions to humanize and ground Ulysses, to give him a slightly deeper meaning
to his travels than just “find money”, but by the time she comes in, most of Ulysses
wanderings are over.
Penny
is almost the anti-Penelope. Where Penelope is deferential, Penny is loud and
demanding. Where Penelope waits for Odysseus day and night, Penny rejects
Ulysses when he returns home. And of course, where Penelope is completely faithful
for 20 years, Penny is ready to go off and marry another man after around a
year, and in fact, Ulysses has to convince her not to.
But
the starkest contrast between Penny and Penelope is that Penelope seems to
fundamentally just love her husband, whereas Penny does not. As the movie progressed
and I as an audience member was cued into more of Penny and Ulysses’ dynamic, I
began resenting their relationship a little. Ulysses seems to be trying to
force something on Penny despite the fact that she clearly tells him that she’s
moved on and that she wants stability. The two never have the spark that
Penelope and Odysseus do, and they never really talk about loving each other. By
the end of the movie, the moment that I think is supposed to be funny and sweet,
when Penny tells Ulysses to get the ring from the bottom of the lake, it feels
like maybe she has a point and Ulysses should leave her alone. It’s almost as
if Ulysses is a suitor, and she is (cleverly?) avoiding marrying him…
I found Penny's final request unsettlingly similar to the "wait until I finish this woven burial cloth" trick that Penelope plays on the suitors. Both of them have an aspect of buying time that is concerning to me. It feels like Penny doesn't want to marry Everett, and she's making it seem like she will so he won't keep prodding her, but she's also giving him an impossible (or at least very challenging) task so that she won't actually have to marry him any time soon.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, Penelope is making it seem like she'll marry a suitor so they'll shut up about the ticking timer of social acceptability, but she's unraveling the cloth at night so that she never has to go through with it. Overall, I think Everett is portrayed as much more of a terrible person than Odysseus, and it shows in how he relates with his wife.
Yeahhhhhhhhh ooooh good stuff. I think the idea of Penny being Penelope's antithesis is really true. Then the next question becomes, how does this change the gender narrative of OBWAT? Penny pretty much functions as the prize to be won in it, while Penelope has a slightly more active role in her husband's homecoming. However, Penelope has much less agency in the process and is treated crappily by everyone involved. Still, the fact that the Coen Bros gift Penny with sense, agency, assertiveness, etc. the fact that she still ends up with Ulysses in the end is almost more devastating to me as a gender narrative because it seems like that didn't have to happen. Idk. Weird stuff.
ReplyDeleteNice post. I totally agree with you with disliking Penny, I just felt like she spent the entire movie being angry. Sometimes I felt like it didn't make sense, and that it was overdone how extra she was at times. Of course in an Odyssey parody some sort of Penelope had to be portrayed but at the same time Penny just never clicked for me I guess. She just doesn't do anything other than snipe at Everett.
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