In the 1987 the Dutch auteur film maker Paul Verhoeven created a movie unlike any other. He called it Robocop and I’m old enough to remember watching this dark comedy sci-fi masterpiece when it was brand spanking new.

 

This film and its sequel  (humbly titled: Robocop 2) continue to resonate and influence today’s art and culture. Sometime this year or perhaps next, in the real-world city of Detroit a ten-foot tall Officer Murphy (aka Robocop himself) statue will be unveiled- 26 years after Verhoeven chose Detroit as the setting for a near future city on the brink of disaster due to the privatization of that city’s police force and its resulting corporate mismanagement.

It seems OCP, Detroit’s police force, have no choice but to create a half-man half-machine cyborg in hopes of not only a public relations coup but with an eye on a bright future of profitable policing. Enter the complicated messages stitched into Robocop.

 

Film like all media, has been used as a political statement before but perhaps Robocop did this unintentionally.  It’s a sci-fi movie first and foremost but the personal message  exists too:  THIS MIGHT HAPPEN.  “Dead or alive….you’re coming with me.”  CP

 

Supplemental- The Rocky Balboa statue in Philadelphia http://www.pophistorydig.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/1982-rocky-rear-90.jpg

“Oh what the hell, frieda chicken”