“Political Robin Hood: Robin Hood in the Presidential Campaign and Contemporary Protest Movementsâ€
Leah J. Larson
Our Lady of the Lake University
sudden darling of both sides
RH embodiment of both Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street
both liberal and conservative strains
def part of 99%, connected to nature, possibly as a summer or forest diety
maintains connection with forest
Stephen Knight “R lives… a natural monarch… free manâ€
15th C ballads = religious man, but thief
did not steal from rich to give to poor
RH told Little John not to rob the everyday folks
matches up with Tea Party focus on small government
RH does tell his squire to invite him to dinner and make him pay for it.
So similar to Occupy Wall Street
Wall St mgrs. = church, power behind the throne
3rd crusade figures in post-medieval RH
partnership of church and corporations = church and X in stories
blasphemy to question free market system
1381 Peasant Revolt
–one main cause was taxation to fund an unpopular war
RH may have been created
1651 RH riots in Scotland
government wanted to suppress the RH folks
so they gentrified him, because then he wouldn’t be a folk hero any more
political campaign
Aug 6, 2012
Obama called Romney’s tax plan Romney Hood
takes $ from middle classes and gives to rich
Aug 7, 2012
commentator John ? said Obama was Sheriff of Nottingham
stealing from the poor to feed the government
RH is ultimate symbol of the disenfranchised
whether Tea Party threatened by government
or Wall St Occupy threatened by big corporations