Cinematic Dystopia: RoboCop
The film that captured the dehumanization of capitalism and law enforcement remains a classic
CINEMATIC DYSTOPIA is a look at the most prescient, most thoughtful, and most sobering films about societies gone mad, brought to you by writer and humorist Dave Schilling. Every week, he’ll examine movies not about the end of the world, but the worlds that carry on after everything’s gone to shit. You know, like right now.
The poster for 1987’s RoboCop proclaimed its hero the “Future of Law Enforcement.” Alex Murphy sternly steps out of his police cruiser into a pitch-dark evening of cracking criminal skulls, with the words “Part Man, Part Machine, All Cop” floating above his head. The film that poster promotes was a cautionary tale from the tail end of the Reagan 80s, but we refused to heed the warnings and instead, it became prophecy. The future of law enforcement has arrived, and it’s worse than we imagined.
What does RoboCop mean in 2020? With each passing day, it becomes clearer and clearer that society is at a turning point when it comes to how we interpret what the words “law enforcement” mean. Protest marches with tens of thousands of people demanding to “defund the police” would be unthinkable just a few weeks ago. Movies and TV shows that depict the police as heroes are coming under fire. Cops, a worthless and pornographic shitshow of sadistic voyeurism that’s been on the air almost as long as I’ve been alive, was finally cancelled. Every time a police officer in riot gear clubs another protestor or sprays an unarmed citizen with pepper spray for no reason, the tide of public opinion shifts further from the side of our current conception of law enforcement. So, where does that leave RoboCop, a film its own producer, Jon Davison, called “fascism for liberals”?
At its core, RoboCop is a story about the loss of humanity in the face of American corruption. Its social critique remains relevant decades later. The sinister Omni Consumer Products recently acquired a contract to operate the Detroit police department and has outfitted them in the kinds of riot gear we’ve been seeing on real American streets every day for the last few weeks. OCP has no real concern for public safety. Instead, their aim is merely to protect their investment in the ultimate gentrification project: Delta City, a garish glass-and-steel playground for the wealthy. The city that now goes by the dismissive name “Old Detroit” has become a haven for violent street gangs and drug dealers funded by OCP Vice President Dick Jones, meaning the conglomerate is directly profiting from both sides of the equation. The more crime in Detroit, the more taxpayer dollars are funneled to OCP to arm cops and create weapons of war like RoboCop.
Alex Murphy’s transformation from man to machine is the natural endgame for that system. Detroit PD’s union has been crushed by OCP, but they’re still planning to go on strike as more and more of their ranks are gunned down in the streets. Concurrently, OCP’s attempts to roll out the ED-209 police droids fail when the robot’s faulty programming causes it to comically murder an OCP executive during a demonstration. In order for OCP to fully dominate Detroit, they need a cop both rigidly programmed, but capable of a small measure of humanity. In the end, Murphy’s humanity wins out over his programming. As is often the case in American storytelling, the individual triumphs over the collective insanity of the system while the masses of downtrodden and abused citizens are mere window-dressing. The people who suffer the most from OCP’s tyranny — lower class people of color — are invisible.
Our real-life RoboCops, the men and women committing acts of violence in the name of the social order, don’t seem to have the same capacity for morality that exists in movies. We’ve given them all the tools from our favorite dystopian sci-fi movies, but neglected to instill the most basic codes of conduct that would prevent what we’ve seen the last month. In RoboCop, the police are the good guys and the victims of malignant authority rather than complicit foot soldiers, because that’s the message the entertainment industry has been pushing for decades.
So many sci-fi films are about the police: Blade Runner, Minority Report, Timecop, I Robot, Demolition Man, Predator 2, and even Mad Max. It’s easy to forget that the original Mad Max is about a highway patrolman out for revenge on a vicious gang. These stories often start with the premise that crime is out of control, that there are dangers around every corner, and cops need time travel, cybernetic suits, or psychic powers to stop it. In most of these stories, the cops are noble and wise.
The urtext of this brand of sci-fi is the British comic book character Judge Dredd. Dredd, who has been adapted into a movie twice in the last 30 years (that we will cover in this column soon), is a story about an American future where police officers are granted the power of judge, jury, and executioner all in one. Jury trials are no more, and cops can sentence criminals on the streets. The protagonist of these stories isn’t a robot, but he is just as mechanical in his thinking as RoboCop. One only needs to look at side-by-side images of the two characters to see the obvious inspiration for RoboCop creators Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner. Dredd never caught on in the United States, presumably because RoboCop stole his thunder, but also because the image of the police in his stories is much grimmer.
RoboCop offers an out for an audience who doesn’t want to think the police are bad, that makes the fascist imagery palatable. Dredd, on the other hand, took decades for its hero to question the system. I love both characters, but Dredd is a more perfect satire because of how unflinching the character was for years. Each Dredd story is a sour joke about what’s wrong with America from the perspective of British outsiders. RoboCop, on the other hand, offers the comfort of the happy ending for Murphy.
Murphy kills Dick Jones and gang leader Clarence Boddicker, but the movie ends with OCP unchallenged and the Reagan-esque, mildly clueless CEO free to continue his plan to create Delta City. RoboCop’s ending is a victory for one man, in service of the righteous police department, rather than a blow against persistent injustice. Murphy has no ideological stance or political conviction, because this is an American movie. The term “fascism for liberals” can be leveled at RoboCop because the movie implies that Murphy is actually a necessary corrective who can and should wield enormous power over the citizens of Detroit. Murphy is a blessed, beatific, Christ-like figure who would go on to become a generic superhero in the numerous sequels, spinoffs, and remakes in years to come. The only time when Murphy takes any true moral stand is the risible third film, where he leaves the police force and joins up with a band of poor citizens being forcibly removed from their homes to make way for Delta City. RoboCop 3 was an absolute mess, but at least it tried to address those issues.
RoboCop, then, has to be recontextualized for where we are now. When the film came out, the militarization of police was just picking up steam thanks to the War on Drugs. Today, that project is complete, and activists are working to undo the damage caused by cops being given grenade launchers and tanks. One of Murphy’s directives in his programming is to “serve the public trust,” which is suitably vague, in the same way that the LAPD’s motto “To Protect and Serve” has lost any sort of meaning beyond propaganda. It’s worth noting that Murphy’s first directive is that one about the public trust. It’s number one, before even upholding the law, and yet it’s the one that’s the least quantifiable and most open to interpretation. How does a machine make sense of that? How does it know how to uphold that imperative? How does an actual human being know how to do that in real life?
As viewers, we accept that Murphy gets it, because he’s pure and incorruptible, like every good American hero. He reinforces that cops are inherently good, that they have our best interests in mind, and the rest of the world is evil. It implies that cops are innocents, pawns, and products, rather than individuals with moral choices to make every single day. Looked at that way, RoboCop is aspirational in that it asks police officers to question the system, to make the right decision when pressured to conform. In practice, our police don’t do that. Their unions pressure local politicians to inflate their budgets and imbue them with nearly unchecked authority. The idea of “serving the public trust” not only isn’t the first directive, it’s no longer even on the list.
RoboCop, then, is a dystopia for cops first and foremost. The Detroit PD threatens to go on strike because they are understaffed and underarmed due to dwindling budgets. The worst case scenario for the American police establishment is the first act of RoboCop — the bottomless trough of taxpayer dollars shut off and corporations automating their jobs like everyone else’s have been for decades.
But, the actual future involves skyrocketing budgets and a Hometown Buffet of weapons to choose from. Instead of that wild west version of dystopia we see in films like RoboCop, we all live in our own versions of Delta City where militarized police patrol expensive mega-developments that all have identical clusters of Whole Foods Markets, Starbucks, and Crunch gyms. Crime stats are trotted out to show how wonderful the police is while incarceration levels remain sky high. The police might not be owned by a private business, but they are very much instruments of capitalism. All you have to do is look at the images of cops protecting private property over preserving human life to see that relationship come to life.
RoboCop is not a masterpiece because its political and social message is pristine. If it was, it would be didactic, preachy, and dull. We wouldn’t be talking about it right now except to smile and nod about how “correct” it was. Instead, it does what every masterpiece should do. It demands we engage with it repeatedly, to see what it has to say to us as we age and society evolves. Calling RoboCop “fascism for liberals” should not be seen as a pejorative. Instead, it should be considered the highest compliment, because it shows liberals how deeply rooted fascism can be and where it comes from in America. The redemption of Alex Murphy offers hope on a small scale, but that’s where change starts. It’s especially American to be greedy, to be selfish, and to be irresponsibly individualistic in all the ways the characters in RoboCop can be. But it’s also American to want things to get better.
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Every week, we’ll wrap this thing up with my version of online neighborhood rankings, but for the miserable cityscapes imagined in dystopian cinema. These rankings are out of 10, with one being a horrendous nightmare and 10 being STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION.
Old Detroit in RoboCop
Walkability: 1 — Walking? In the automobile capital of the world? Ha. Get in your 6000 SUX and enjoy the open road.
Good for Families: 7 — Murphy’s home life seemed pretty nice, considering how terrible the rest of Detroit looked.
Arts and Culture: 3 — I’m not sure I would buy that for a dollar.
Neighborly Spirit: 3 — Everyone in this movie is an asshole.
Best for: Corporate raiders, Republicans, developers, drug dealers.
Next Week: Hotel Artemis indicts an American health care system that makes everyone a criminal.