Obama & Bob the Builder:
Subliminal Sourcing?
From Volume 18, Number 1, January 2009 issue of The
“Quote ... Unquote” Newsletter
In this neck of the woods, it is especially good news that the next President of the United States is someone who has already proved his quotability and indeed his way with words both written and spoken. While we look forward to Barack Obama’s inaugural speech with an anticipation not experienced since hearing John F. Kennedy’s classic of 1961, we can reflect on an aspect of his victory speech in Chicago, round about midnight on 5 November 2008. Towards its end, Obama repeated, like Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’, the phrase ‘Yes we can’, culminating in his penultimate paragraph:
This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids – to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.
There was nothing new about his phrase, except in the way it was used and, of course, the voice that spoke it. In The Guardian (November 8, 2008) Allegra Stratton marshaled some previous instances. Ironically, the Scottish National Party, which had just lost the Glenrothes by-election, had apparently been using the slogan since 1997 – ‘a rejoinder to all those who say Scottish independence could never be achieved.’ Stratton went on: ‘Obama is also on the record as loving the Pointer Sisters. And in 1973 they sang Yes We Can Can, with its suitably uplifting sentiment: ‘Now’s the time for all good men to get together with one another.’’
Glyn Garside of Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, added: ‘I had always thought Obama was adopting an English translation of the slogan ‘Sí, se puede!’ made famous by the late Céasar Chavez, leader of the United Farm Workers. On the other hand, my 10-year-old daughter remarked the other week that if Obama is Bob [the Builder], then McCain is Lofty, with the less convincing catchphrase ‘Er, I think so!’’
Indeed, Bob the Builder, the British TV stop-motion animated character, but also well-known in the U.S. and thirty other countries, is chosen by most people as the source of Obama’s inspiration. Keith Chapman, Bob’s inventor commented: ‘He must have picked up
‘Can we fix it? Yes we can!’ subliminally. I think it’s really amazing. It all came from a little idea that became a show that became a global success and now the President of the United States is using the phrase in his speech. It’s a bit unreal.’
The show’s theme song ‘Can We Fix It?’ became a British No. 1 hit record (in 2000) but has also been included in a list of the 100 worst No.1s of all time. Celia Walden affirms that ‘Yes We Can’ is also a mantra of self-help groups ‘They sit in a circle, hold hands and say it,’ she avers. Anyway, that’s enough of earlier sources, for the moment.
© 2009 by Nigel Rees
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