It's interesting that Tim Robbins picked Pennsylvania of all places for his satirical film Bob Roberts. Written, directed, and starring Tim Robbins, it's the story of a rightwing folksinger entertainer who rises to be United States Senator from that state with a big hint of further ambition. For in 1994 one Rick Santorum was elected in that Republican year in that state against a comfortable liberal named Harris Wofford in much the same manner as Robbins's Bob Roberts defeats Senator Brickley Paiste.
Santorum was Bob Roberts without the singing. Once again life does imitate art.
For satire to be successful it must be both humorous and have the touch of chiffon. This is the reason that Dr. Strangelove as a film succeeds so brilliantly and why Bob Roberts fails. Robbins's film has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
He did satirize one thing in Bob Roberts quite brilliantly, but without even knowing it I'm sure. Gore Vidal's character of Senator Brickley Paiste is nothing short of brilliant for the wrong reasons. He plays the part of a comfortable old, fashionably liberal Senator who has lost contact with the grassroots brilliantly. And I do so love that Dickensian name.
Once upon a time the Democratic was confident and assured in its way of being the majority party with its alliance with big labor and big city political machines to turn out the vote. It's dirty little secret was that it relied on generations old resentments from the children and grandchildren of immigrant arrivals who were treated really bad by the Republican party and its WASP base. Where I grew up in Brooklyn, people were taught to vote the Column on the voting machine with the star which is the Democratic symbol in New York State. Just go down the row even if Caligula's horse is there.
A man like Brickley Paiste came on the scene in 1960 as he says in his whiny valedictory with John F. Kennedy and that was around the height of the Democrat's confident majority. Times and issues do change and I won't do a history of what happened in those thirty years. One thing was that workers went from over 50% unionized to about half of that.
Another was the rise of Political Action Committees, Republicans did it first and still do it best. A third was sadly the religious right with no real effort to counter it from the other end of the spectrum. All this and more combined to make the Democratic majority ripe for the taking in 1994 in which the Santorum-Wofford race was a small part.
But if life does imitate art we are pleased with the fact in 2006 Rick Santorum became an ex-Senator probably more to do with the fact he was just too conservative ultimately for a place like Pennsylvania than anything else. So the real life Bob Roberts does go down, Brickley Paiste is vindicated.
Even in the days of television and the internet you still can't fool all the people all the time.
Santorum was Bob Roberts without the singing. Once again life does imitate art.
For satire to be successful it must be both humorous and have the touch of chiffon. This is the reason that Dr. Strangelove as a film succeeds so brilliantly and why Bob Roberts fails. Robbins's film has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
He did satirize one thing in Bob Roberts quite brilliantly, but without even knowing it I'm sure. Gore Vidal's character of Senator Brickley Paiste is nothing short of brilliant for the wrong reasons. He plays the part of a comfortable old, fashionably liberal Senator who has lost contact with the grassroots brilliantly. And I do so love that Dickensian name.
Once upon a time the Democratic was confident and assured in its way of being the majority party with its alliance with big labor and big city political machines to turn out the vote. It's dirty little secret was that it relied on generations old resentments from the children and grandchildren of immigrant arrivals who were treated really bad by the Republican party and its WASP base. Where I grew up in Brooklyn, people were taught to vote the Column on the voting machine with the star which is the Democratic symbol in New York State. Just go down the row even if Caligula's horse is there.
A man like Brickley Paiste came on the scene in 1960 as he says in his whiny valedictory with John F. Kennedy and that was around the height of the Democrat's confident majority. Times and issues do change and I won't do a history of what happened in those thirty years. One thing was that workers went from over 50% unionized to about half of that.
Another was the rise of Political Action Committees, Republicans did it first and still do it best. A third was sadly the religious right with no real effort to counter it from the other end of the spectrum. All this and more combined to make the Democratic majority ripe for the taking in 1994 in which the Santorum-Wofford race was a small part.
But if life does imitate art we are pleased with the fact in 2006 Rick Santorum became an ex-Senator probably more to do with the fact he was just too conservative ultimately for a place like Pennsylvania than anything else. So the real life Bob Roberts does go down, Brickley Paiste is vindicated.
Even in the days of television and the internet you still can't fool all the people all the time.