RoboCop and Corporate America

When I was a kid one of my favorite movies was RoboCop.  What more could a boy want in a movie.  Lots of guns and violence, a half man/ half machine super hero, a giant robot that looked very cool for the time, etc…  Well, a few weeks back RoboCop was on one of the movie channels and I watched it for the first time in many years, probably the first time since I was a kid.  Well, the violence and action were as I remembered.  The characters were all true to memory.  The effects now appeared quite outdated, yet the movie was still thoroughly entertaining.  However, as an adult I picked up on a much more serious message in RoboCop that obviously went over my head as a child.  I realized for the first time that RoboCop was about more than cool robots fighting bad guys; it is also, more importantly, about the dangers of privatizing police and military forces.

 

RoboCop is one of the many goofy sci fi movies that do indeed have a not-so-hidden message.  This particular movie predicts a future in which the police force of Detroit is turned over to a private corporation.  Needless to say, this experiment turns out to be a disaster.  It does appear that a movie which came out in the 1980s warns against privatizing police and military, and now we hear many debates raging over the utilization of private contractors in the war on terror. 

 

In the movie a corporation called OCP is building developments in Detroit and somehow becomes involved in managing the Detroit police force.  The writers/producers of RoboCop are obviously no fans or large corporations.  Throughout the movie the hero, RoboCop, a mutilated police officer who is turned into a robot by OCP, fights crime in a most entertaining way.  He becomes aware of his past and he goes after the drug lords who took his previous life from him.  However, the movie makes it very clear that the drug dealers that RoboCop brings to justice are only the little fish, far eclipsed by the evils of OCP.  RoboCop finds out about the corruption in the company that created him and in one of Hollywood’s finest moments (in my opinion) kills the corrupt OCP vice president at the grand final of the movie. 

 

Ironically, RoboCop says a lot about Americans.  It reinforces the sad fact that we like violent entertainment.  It confirms once again that we like to see the underdog take down “The Man.”  And, finally, it declares that we do not trust big corporations!

 

Here is a link to a CNN article discussing the use of private contractors in Iraq.  I have not seen anything about them using robots though!

 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/12/iraq.contractors/index.html

Comments

[Dianne Foster]

I think the Biden plan for Afghanistan calls for more use of drones. To me there is something unholy about this type of warfare, which is justified by the excuse, "It saves American lives."

I spent the weekend watching the Godfather which I had not seen before. Also Miller's Crossing, which I had seen twice before, being a Coen Brothers Aficionada. Because the characters take one step at a time, and each step appears to make sense from the protagonist's standpoint, it is hard condemn either Michael Corleone or Tom Reagan, even though a jury would probably give both of them the death sentence.

[Lindsey Bestebreurtje]

The movie "State of Play" which came out last year staring Ben Affleck and Russel Crowe also dealt with the corruption associated with allowing private contractors to take over on the war on terror. Despite Ben Affleck playing one of the lead roles, (anyone else singing the "Pearl Harbor" song from "Team America: World Police" right now?) the movie was really quite good. A great deal of attention should be paid to this privatization because I do think that it will lead to corruption and I just don't know if we'll have a Robo Cop there to save the day.