1987’s classic flick RoboCop, which I rewatched recently, is a rare example of a great action movie from the 1980s that makes a very overt political statement. I’m not here to discuss whether that political stance is right or wrong. I leave that to each viewer, but it’s impossible to ignore that it's clear where director Paul Verhoeven stands. What makes it interesting is that you could totally see someone today making the exact same argument: corporations are out of control and taking over society. Let’s tread carefully here…
1980s Politics Played A Big Part In RoboCop
In the mid-’80s, the decline of Rust Belt cities was a big narrative in many movies. None were quite as over the top as RoboCop, set in the ‘80s poster-child for crime and decay, Detroit. Crime was seen as out of control in that decade, in Detroit and elsewhere, with politicians of all stripes promising to clean up the streets of America. In Reagan’s America, corporate deregulation was also a watchword of the day, with an increased reliance on private corporations doing the work that many people believed the government had failed to do.
These two things come together in RoboCop in a dystopian version of Motor City. Facing insane crime rates and roving gangs of criminals wrecking the city and terrifying the citizens, the city turns to a private mega-corporation, Omni Consumer Products, to help them police the city. The answer Omni Consumer Products comes up with is the titular RoboCop, a part-man, part-machine police officer played by Peter Weller, who found new appreciation for it later, just as I have.
Paul Verhoeven Is A Master Of Satire
Paul Verhoeven is a polarizing director. His satire is often lost on people, or, at least, some people don’t like the satire. I personally appreciate it. I don’t love all of Verhoeven’s films, but RoboCop and Starship Troopers, his two most darkly satirical films, are among my favorites. Verhoeven is clear in RoboCop where his politics are in the satire. The villain of the movie is ultimately not the roving gangs of criminals, but the suits atop a company you’d never want to work for, Omni Consumer Products. It's led by rogue executive Dick Jones, played by the great Ronny Cox.
While Weller’s RoboCop is the hero, and he was created by the corporation, the rest of what the company has done is, as portrayed, terrible. That’s clearly the political statement that Verhoeven and the film’s writers, Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, were going after. Corporations are evil, and giving them too much power guarantees corruption. It’s an argument that you see all the time today, almost 40 years after RoboCop was released. Say what you want about Verhoeven’s vision, he was spot on when he tapped into this sentiment.
Most action movies in the ‘80s avoided politics, or if they did make a statement, it was something safe. Take, for example, Rocky IV from a couple of years earlier. It does take a political stance, but it’s that America is great and the USSR is bad. It's not exactly a risky choice at the height of the Cold War. RoboCop’s stance is much riskier, yet far more prescient. Maybe we’ll get a new sequel one day, as Weller has said he’d be interested in doing.
