Media backing for US Tea Party fuels fear and hatred, says Tim Robbins

Published: 24 September, 2010
EXCLUSIVE by RÓISÍN GADELRAB

HOLLYWOOD superstar Tim Robbins has told the Tribune how the US media are “duping” his fellow Americans into believing the right-wing Tea Party movement is good for them.

In a telephone interview from a Hawaii airport lounge this week, the actor and director – who plays Islington’s Union Chapel on Thursday and Kentish Town’s Forum in October along with his Rogues Gallery Band – launched into an attack on the “unrelenting propaganda we hear in the US media”.

Mr Robbins, famous for roles in such films as The Shawshank Redemption and Mystic River, said: “It created an entire movement out of a couple of rich people. 

“They call it the Tea Party movement but from the very start it’s a very well-funded right-wing extremist group. The media treated it as if it’s a serious political party and gave it undue attention so much so that ordinary people are being duped into this line of thinking which is good for billionaires but not good for them.”

The actor, who recently split from actress Susan Sarandon after 23 years together, added: “Once again we’re facing a ridiculous [mid-term] election and all this is fuelled by fear and hatred and distrust and so the right-wing sends it right all over the media, you know how stupid people can get, but it’s so shocking to me. It’s always disappointed me but never surprising. It’s clear in my mind and has been for 25 years and no one seems to want to get to the root of the problem. 

“Free press has been corrupted.”

Mr Robbins, who went to Catholic school but describes himself as “lapsed” also took the opportunity to question organised religion in the wake of the Pope’s visit. He said: 

“I’m not a Catholic now... I don’t follow any deified religious leader, whatever religion it is... Religion makes people do foolish things and usually the bastardisation of faith leads to terrible behaviour.”

He recalled his experiences as a schoolboy, saying: “I would be the one that would stand up if everyone was complaining in the school yard of excessive homework or unfair grading. 

“I would be the one that would stand up for them. In Catholic school the nuns would then say “does anybody else feel this?” And most of the time my classmates would just throw you under the bus.”