Don’t bother with the Robocop remake. The original–campy, sensationalized, mildly intolerable–still succeeds in one key element: examining class warfare.
You’d think that in an era of post-2008, the 1% being called out as contemptuous greed-mongerers and the Occupy Movement, that a Robocop remake would examine in a contemporary frame, the class divide that reflected Detroit in the future, as told by the 1987 dystopic lens.
But no. My friends, I have seen the new Robocop so that you don’t have to.
The new one skips these things:
Detroit actually having gone bankrupt.
Huge wealth bifurcation.
Massive class conflict.
Garish pop culture.
Depraved consumerism.
Elysium, on the other hand, happily embraces massive class conflict on a gritty and human level. It succeeds where the Robocopy fails.
So you should do this: re-watch the original Robocop, watch Elysium, and skip the Robocopy. Ultimately, the remake, which is free of class analysis, is simply designed to fluff us into greater obedience.
We can’t really blame just the Red Wings. We have to blame the Tigers and the Lions too, but really the 1% who own them.
Detroit is bankrupt. Services will be privatized to privateer leeches. Human beings will lose pension supports, jobs, wages and benefits. The 2008 crash could have been a catalyst for a manufacturing transition to a post-carbon energy infrastructure, but that was squandered.
But amidst all this, we have: stadia! Glorious stadia!
And who put up hundreds of millions for these glorious stadia? Governments, including one called Detroit, that is now bankrupt. And the citizens will be paying for these circuses instead of libraries, schools, water infrastructure and a host of other necessities in 21st century cities.
All I know is that if I’m in a fiscal crisis at home and I am having trouble paying for food, clothing and shelter, the last thing I should be doing is going out and buying a mid-life crisis Corvette convertible.
But that’s just me. What do I know about stadia.
What I do know is that the 1% who control governments around the world, big and small, will continue socializing the losses and privatizing the parasitic gains. And if this suddenly frustrates you, it’s called neoliberal capitalism. Find your nearest Occupy cell and begin building a post-capitalist/post-parasitical future…hopefully one that does not include Robocop.
NOOR: And, Frank, we just got some breaking news that the Michigan Strategic Fund has decided to issue $450 million in bonds for a new stadium for the Detroit Red Wings, 44 percent of which will be financed publicly. Do you think this decision is emblematic of the development model that led Detroit on this path for years, if you can give us a brief comment?
HAMMER: Well, you know, I mean, I think that Detroit built a new baseball stadium, it built a new football stadium, and lo and behold, here we are a few years later and Detroit is still going into bankruptcy. So apparently building stadiums doesn’t quite do the trick. And I think that a manufacturing model, a resurrection of manufacturing with green technology would be a much more permanent and sustainable solution.