Can Technology Move to Fast?

With the great advancements in technology also may bring a form of paranoia to those in our society. Many films in the 1980’s have showed this fear of evil cyborgs taking over the world and destroying humanity. The idea of humans being replaced by a superior being was a fear that was felt by many in our society. One such film that demonstrated this fear was the film Robocop(Paul Verhoeven, 1987, USA) where a man was reconstructed into a cyborg. Robocop’s armor is the special effect I will focus on in this essay and I will be attempting to come up with the conclusion of how the ‘human’ interacts with this technology and how it changes our understanding of the human.

The armor is representation of the technophobia people had about advancements in technology. This film showed how technology could get out of control especially after the so called law enforcement droid (ED-209) went haywire killing a junior executive during a presentation. Not only did this show the shear destruction one of these cyborgs could be capable of but it also showed that these cyborgs could take over the world. Many science fiction films show the audience the major technological advancements that are predicted to happen in the future. With these new advancements happening at a rapid pace there was the fear in which Wolfgang Schivelbusch called a ‘panoramic perception’ which was a popular belief during the machine age (2). Many science fiction films worked to alleviate these fears by the “replacement of horse-drawn coach by speeding train transformed travelers into spectators” (2) which was an attempt to get the audience used to seeing these advancements so it wouldn’t be such a shock to them later on.



Robocop was designed because of the idea that “human body wasn’t designed for the stresses and shocks of a mechanical world” (1) in which the body had to be armored in order to withstand the impacts bullets as well as the stresses of everyday life. The armor in this film showed that the human body is fragile and cannot withstand physical or violent impacts but this cyborg could. The idea behind Robocop was that he was ‘perfect’ and ‘indestructible’ because of his high tech body armor. This film among others like in the 1980’s fueled the fear of alienation and the fear that cyborgs would ultimately take over the world leaving it ‘lifeless’ and ‘dull’ planet.

Robocop warns us of the possible problems technology could have but also shows how this cyborg ‘Murphy’ goes against the societal definition of a cyborg. One such definition that stands out is from one Baukatman’s articles when he states that “humans simply have feelings while non-humans simply do not” (1) which means that ‘Murphy’ in reality it should have no feelings at all because he was not human. Just by looking at him he was reconstructed into a indestructible machine. But Murphy was different than most cyborgs in that he overcame the alienation of his body advanced technology and was able to regain his memory. As the film progressed he began to regain his identity and was able to seek revenge on those who ended his life.



These memories proved that this particular cyborg could fit the description of the ‘human’ because this cyborg had dreams and memories something the ‘typical’ cyborg did not have. This film gives the audience a better understanding of the ‘human’ because we truly see what the differences are between the human and non-human. When ‘Murphy’ had these visions he was able to sympathize with humanity because he remembers his past life. This film also shows us that we should not be too dependent on technology to take care of us because if technology fails we won’t know how to react to it until it is too late.

Film:
Robocop, dir, Paul Verhoeven, per. Peter Weller, Ronny Cox, and Kurtwood Smith,
1987, DVD, 1987

Citations:
(1) Bukatman, Scott. “Replicants and Alien Life.” Blade Runner. BFI Modern Classics Series. Ed. Rob White. London: British Film Institute, 1997. 64-91. (CR 53-66)
(2) Bukatman, Scott. “Zooming Out: The End of Offscreen Space.” The New American Cinema. Ed. Jon Lewis. Durham and London: Duke University Press. 248- 272. (CR 233-245)