The film Bob Roberts is a story about a Pennsylvania senatorial race between the democratic senator, Brickley Paiste, and a folk singer, Bob Roberts. In terms of genre, it is a comedic satire criticizing the problems that the American electoral system has and how exploitable it can be by candidates, such as Bob Roberts. It heavy-handedly tackles the drama and deception that a less favorable candidate can utilize to their advantage and spin the election in their favor. To add to this, the film sends a very clear message that charisma can be a more than adequate stand in for ability in regard to an election, but the effectiveness of the satire comes from the procedural attitude that the Bob Roberts campaign takes to their extremely apparent
…show more content…
What makes the satire hard hitting rather than a light comedy is the fact that towards the end of the movie, Bugs Raplin is deemed a threat to the Bob Roberts campaign and labeled as the attempted killer and is shortly after killed by a radical republican. The movie does a fantastic job of building up to the shooting by disarming the audience by making it seem that Bob Roberts is simply a demagogue traveling around singing about the ills of American culture, but the steep drop from pandering to deception is what makes the satire of the American political process successful, illustrating that candidates become juggernauts for their own purposes. The perceived harmlessness of the candidate’s songs only helps to show how appealing to hot button topics and adhering to party lines religiously will get a candidate elected, which is a scary thought that is paralleled especially by recent elections. The point made in this movie is arguably best made through the medium it is presented in, a story. The film allows for development of the story much more rapidly than a regular documentary which in turn allows the filmmakers to tackle the exploits made by politicians much more blatantly. In summary, the film Bob Roberts is meant to not only to make its point, but to also make its
What makes the satire hard hitting rather than a light comedy is the fact that towards the end of the movie, Bugs Raplin is deemed a threat to the Bob Roberts campaign and labeled as the attempted killer and is shortly after killed by a radical republican. The movie does a fantastic job of building up to the shooting by disarming the audience by making it seem that Bob Roberts is simply a demagogue traveling around singing about the ills of American culture, but the steep drop from pandering to deception is what makes the satire of the American political process successful, illustrating that candidates become juggernauts for their own purposes. The perceived harmlessness of the candidate’s songs only helps to show how appealing to hot button topics and adhering to party lines religiously will get a candidate elected, which is a scary thought that is paralleled especially by recent elections. The point made in this movie is arguably best made through the medium it is presented in, a story. The film allows for development of the story much more rapidly than a regular documentary which in turn allows the filmmakers to tackle the exploits made by politicians much more blatantly. In summary, the film Bob Roberts is meant to not only to make its point, but to also make its