Bob Roberts: Political Populism, Christian Right-wing and Folk Music.

Abstract

The mock documentary Bob Roberts (Tim Robbins, 1992) tells the story of an American folk singer and his vertiginous political rise until he reaches a place in the Senate. Roberts’ vacuous speech, wrapped up in a friendly and apolitical profile hides a reactionary ideology close to the postulates of the Christian right-wing and in opposition to civil liberties and public politics. In his campaign, Roberts uses his songs as a tool for ideological formation, offering a clearer message than in his conventional speech. We observe a contradictory strategy: the political candidate that whose discourse is apparently apolitical and who is also a folk singer, and in theory detached from politics, but whose songs display an explicit and aggressive political ideology. The article will analyse Robert’s main ideological postulates, in the context of the conservative revolution of the 80’s; his populist and emotional rhetoric directed at the voters, and the use of music as an ideological mechanism.