Power is used by people with authority as a mean to achieve their goals. In the film, Pappy O’Daniel, the current governor used his power to control over the mass communication at that time; radio. He used “You Are My Sunshine” song as his trademark song to promote himself and his flour’s company. Pappy likes the old-timey material which indicates his optimism to keep the old, in other words, to maintain his position as an incumbent candidate for another four years. He took advantage of Soggy Bottom Boys’ performance who sings old-timey material which apparently becomes famous and used his power to pardon them.
Similarly, Homer Stokes also used popular music for his political marketing of the upcoming election in the Mississippi state. He…show more content… The song has blues genre which is usually associated with the music genre of African-American. Tommy was playing the guitar while singing the song in the film when four of them; Tommy, Everett, Pete and Delmar, were chilling around a campfire. The exact same music was also played at the early scene of the film where the trio met a black guy who tells them about their future and the treasure. “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” is culturally coded to African-American’s style. When Soggy Bottom Boys first recorded “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow”, the blind radio station manager cinematically coded the song to a group of color people since they introduced themselves as Negroes. During their first appearance to the public, Pappy’s group called them ‘disintegrated band’ because of the multiracial members and creates stereotyping view of black people by white people. However, the racial issue was resolved by this song since the audience does not care about who the members of their favorite band are, the fact that only matter that they are there for them to perform their favorite
