From: "eric walker" <eric.walker@channel1.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: robocop
Date: 13 Sep 92 12:48:21 EST
Reply-To: "eric walker" <eric.walker@channel1.com>
Distribution: rec
Organization: Channel 1 Communications

     I took a close look at Paul Verhoeven's "Robocop" yesterday.  I
was bowled over by this movie when it first came out in the theatres in
1987 - it has great action and many hilariously funny scenes.  ED-209's
line, "Please put down your weapon, YOU HAVE TWENTY SECONDS!" is
unforgettable.  "Robocop" was a terrific movie.

     Yesterday, however, I realized just how much this movie is a satire
on corporate politics.  Underneath the comic-book action and the blood
and guts, the movie actually makes a statement about you and me, and the
way giant mega-corporations try to control our lives.

     (SPOILER WARNING!  If you haven't seen "Robocop" yet, then
      be warned.  I am about to give away important plot points.)

     Consider:  In most movies, We are meant to identify with the hero -
that way we can root for him and cheer when he beats the bad guys.  The
hero actually represents US, so that in effect we can say that it's
really you and me up there on the screen.  This is why we cheer when
Murphy takes care of Dick Jones.  ("Dick - you're FIRED!")
     Now, the REAL villain here is OCP, Omni Consumer Products.  They
are the mega-corporation trying to control everything - even Robocop.
     In fact, Robocop can represent your average, everyday office
worker, just like you and me.  The way he is more machine than man is a
metaphor for the way corporations want US to act like machines at our
jobs.  We have to do what they tell us, without complaining.  We have to
act just like machines.  When Robocop does exactly what OCP tells him to
- arrest criminals - then he gets lots of praise and media exposure -
but does he get any other benefits?  No.  He is simply doing his job.
In fact, the way he sits on that command chair of his, surrounded by a
fence, is a way of saying that the corporate worker is trapped in a
"cage."
     But then, what happens?  Robocop has a dream, and this causes him
to emerge from his machine-like state.  In real life, the corporations
don't want US to dream.  We're not supposed to think of improving our
lives, of striving for something more than the machine-like day-to-day
tasks assigned to us.  Murphy's dream tells us that it is possible for
us to strive for something more, for a better life.
     And as soon as Robocop begins acting on his own, doing things that
OCP does not want him to do, the corporation takes steps to shut him
down.  After all, heaven forbid that a worker actually gets independent
thoughts of his own!  No, the Corporation prefers its workers without
any original thoughts.  Workers are supposed to work, not to think.
Even Dick Jones states this, when he tells Robocop that he's not a man -
"you're our PRODUCT!"
     But in the end, Robocop triumphs.  This tells us that it's okay for
us to dream, to think our own thoughts - no matter how much the
Corporations try to control us, we must think for ourselves.
     The Corporation cares nothing for the lives of its workers.  It
transferred Murphy to his new district simply so that he can get killed
- never mind his wife and his kid, they just want a body to shape and
mold into a machine to perform tasks for them.  By acting without caring
for human life, Bob Morton (the yuppie who founded the Robocop project)
rises through the corporate ranks and becomes a force to be reckoned
with - until his ego gets the best of him and he pushes Dick Jones too
far.
     Note also the way video is used in this movie as the tool of the
Corporation to keep the public properly subdued.  "Mediabreak," the three-
minute news program, feeds the people scraps of information that say almost
nothing at all, with cheerful announcers who turn homogenize the news and
turn it into garbage.  "Nukem," the nuclear war game, trivializes politics
and world affairs and makes it into a game - I.E. it is not to be taken
seriously.  And the "6000-SUX" car is the Corporation's idea of a luxury
car: it gets "really shitty gas mileage" and cares nothing about the
environment.  These commercials, of course, are designed by the
Corporations to keep people from THINKING.  And then there's that stupid
comedy - "I'd buy that for a dollar!" - that keeps the people nice and
happy when the world is crumbling around them. The general-store couple
being robbed watch the show, and the bad guys watch it.  They're so
entranced by video that one bad guy smashes a store window just so that he
can turn up the TV playing in there.
     Video is even used to keep Robocop himself under control.  The
Corporation turns his own mind into a video screen, flashing the
appropriate rules and regulations for him to follow like a good worker.  A
sign of his rebellion is when he removes his glass visor and looks at the
world through his own eyes - NOT through a video screen.  So when he
returns to his own house and finds its contents empty - as empty as his own
life, and he has the Corporation to thank for it - he rebels against the
Corporation by punching out a video screen.  And finally, during the final
confrontation, he uses the Corporation's own weapon against it by
broadcasting Dick Jones' damning words over a video screen!

     And so, finally, it is the corporate worker - Robocop - who wins.

     This is the true "theme" of the movie "Robocop:"

     THINK FOR YOURSELF!
---
  SLMR 2.1a  Dave.  Stop.  Stop, Dave.  I'm afraid.
--
Channel 1 (R)   Cambridge, MA

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