Robocop

Classic action thriller set in a near-future world where the Detroit’s streets are patrolled by cyborg police. When officer Murphy is killed on duty, tech corporation Omni Consumer Products uses his body to construct a prototype ‘RoboCop’. Engineered to be invincible and keep costs down, Murphy’s resurrection takes its own path as his memories resurface. Verhoeven’s fast-paced thriller balances high octane action and violence with subversive critiques of American culture. Followed by a talk on Technology and Augmented Bodies organised by the University of Leeds.

In the cultural representation of cyborg bodies and prostheticised selves, there is often a stress on the hyperreal and […] the hypermasculine. Extraordinary exceptionalism abounds. From the rebuilt police officer Murphy (Peter Weller) in Paul Verhoeven’s seminal 1987 film Robocop, a text rightly considered foundational to contemporary visual narrative representations of cyborgs, to the multiple narratives surrounding Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) in the X-Men franchise, fictional cyborgs frequently combine depictions of masculine strength, violence and a moralising humanism as they wrestle (some sort of struggle is nearly always involved) with the consequences of man meeting machine.

Professor Stuart Murray, School of English at University of Leeds