O'Brother and A Return to a Reaganite-type 30s

[Juan Cires Martinez]

I wouldn't take O Brother so seriously.  It depicts a very innocent 30s
Mississippi, where being black was not such a big deal, but I don't
think it is naive or nostalgic.  It uses nostalgia as an expressive
element: the subtle coloring of the image, the way it looks as a faded
out color picture, or a hand colored black and white image is my
favorite bit.  But, to my taste, the ironic tone throughout the film
prevents its being taken seriously as a return to anything; it is
rendering a past we can no longer return to, and that we, postmodern
ironic spectators chuckling at the Homer references, wouldn't want to.  
It could as well have been set in Troy.

By the way, I thought that the based on the Odyssey, by Homer, bit at the
beginning was the joke, I didn't take it seriously.

Greetings, Juan.

PS: Is there a prize for most use of the word "seriously"?