‘RoboCop’: The Horror of Losing Your Identity
By Harper Smith
It’s difficult to lose yourself and your identity. The way you can look at yourself in the mirror and not recognize the image staring back, the way people closest to you don’t recognize the person in front of them, are all scary and terrifying parts of life.
When touching on Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 classic, RoboCop, these fears and realities in life aren’t mentioned as much as the film’s viewpoints on corporations and satire. Instead, the conversation tends to focus on the cynicism found within the film’s message. What’s missing from many conversations is how perfectly the film captures the moment in our lives in which we do not know who we are anymore. A splatter-filled ride of action and gore, RoboCop goes for the jugular and never lets up, offering its viewers a chance to examine what it is to lose oneself and, despite the terror and horror found within that realization, the opportunity for redemption and rebirth.
Taking the film’s protagonist, Alex Murphy, and using that character as a stand-in for a Christ metaphor, RoboCop gives its viewers a man who, despite the chaos found within his recent transfer to a futuristic hellscape of beaten-down Detroit, wants to be a voice of change. Murphy’s naive mentality assumes this transfer won’t affect his life and quest to stay alive because he considers himself “one of the good guys,” while the reality is a corrupt system that allows the worst villains free reign.
The film’s villains are a group of criminals who strive to create chaos and live to destroy. They possess a bloodlust so angrily reserved mostly for police officers, their vicious approach shows how desensitized they are to their own violence. Kurtwood Smith’s Clarence Boddicker and his gang relish the “anything goes” mentality, knowing that their actions won’t be punished while they possess the backing of the film’s true villain: OCP Senior President Dick Jones (Ronny Cox). Jones calls the shots in the city; this means Boddicker and Co. can run through police officers and innocent bystanders with their violent rage and unstoppable mission…except when it comes to the fervor found within Officer Alex Murphy. Partnered with Anne Lewis, a police officer equally as devoted to her job as Murphy, they find the gang in an abandoned mill, leading to the film’s first example of destroying an entire identity.
Cornered by Boddicker and his gang, Murphy isn’t just killed — he is eviscerated. The gang toys with Murphy by belittling the officer as a way to break his spirit. Their goal isn’t just to murder, it’s also to ruin everything about their victims. Boddicker shoots the cop’s hand off before the gang empties enough ammunition into Murphy to kill an entire army. A single bullet to the brain completes their destruction and brings an end to the one character who simply wanted to do what was right. Their overkill speaks volumes on the cynicism found within the film’s message. It’s one of destroying all and then rebuilding under cooperation ownership.
When Murphy is resurrected by OCP, removing almost all of the man known as Murphy and replacing him with mostly machine, it is assumed that the man inside is no more; the machine remains, but the soul is gone. That false assumption backfires when Murphy’s memories begin to infiltrate the machine. Murphy isn’t ready to let go of who he was, despite being more machine now. There’s a lot of soul searching in RoboCop, a desire to ask questions. What makes us human? Is it our shell of a body, our heart and soul, or our emotions? Through violence and satire, the film asks us whether we are truly alive or not. When the OCP corporation makes the statement that “RoboCop” is nothing more than a product now, Murphy takes his human quest to do right and amplifies it as a machine, giving the film’s villains somewhat of a taste of their own terror-filled madness. When Murphy realizes that he is no longer who he once was, his anger is heartbreaking because his fading humanity has been taken away not only by Boddicker and his gang but by the cooperation who decided to take a man and turn him into a machine with the purpose of it becoming a product.
The villains of RoboCop live to destroy people the same way they destroy their city with smiles from ear to ear. The way they put their fingers into rival’s wine glasses, their actions are calculated as they live to make their opponents small and remove their passion found within them. Boddicker enjoys being a bad guy, and Murphy, knowing he isn’t who he once was, seeks revenge and justice, something that comes with bloodshed on both sides. This makes for a compelling film of redemption and rebirth. The violence portrays an over-the-top look at the fragility of life and how little human life means, particularly to evil. From the board room death of Mr. Kinney to the film’s gore-soaked finale, the violence is supposed to leave viewers shaken; it’s designed to grab you by your collar and say, “This is the world we live in, and this is what life means…it means nothing, so NOW WHAT DO WE DO?” It’s only after Murphy the man is killed that Murphy the machine becomes more than what he once was: he becomes greater, a savior to those in need that he assumed he was capable of when he was just a mere man.
The rebirth of Murphy is a profound one. When he’s at his worst and most defeated, he finds himself able to truly make a difference. This theme is prevalent throughout RoboCop.
While most tend to believe they can make a difference with pure power, it’s those who live with that mindset that becomes casualties of their own power. Miguel Ferrer’s Bob Morton cares only about ladders to climb, and his own cutthroat approach is what kills him. Dick Jones assumes that getting into the proverbial bed with criminals will be what he needs to take over the company, but those same criminals’ actions come back to ruin Jones in the form of RoboCop’s justice. Boddicker and his gang think destruction and chaos will be their rise to power, but it’s the destruction of Murphy that becomes their downfall in its gory-gruesome glory. One by one, the villains meet their ends such as a vat of acid falling on Emil and turning him into a walking/melting version of who he once was just before exploding all over a windshield. For Boddicker, when he attacks Murphy with a metal pole assuming that’s how to win, he is met with a metal spike to the throat. It’s their own choices of destroying that end up destroying them, while at the same time, Murphy’s destruction leads to a rebirth of his own spirit. While he will never be the man he once was, Murphy is now left to do what he wanted to do: save people.
In life, we think we know what it’s like to be human, what it’s like to survive, but with blinders on, we have led astray until we are faced with the question of “at what cost am I holding onto these parts of myself?” RoboCop asks: “What does being alive mean?”
A sci-fi/horror hybrid, RoboCop is a great look at the destruction of oneself and one’s rebirth in the next evolution of humanity by detaching yourself from the mortal coil and having a stronger impact on those around you. We’re only able to do so much, but the desire to help others will forever be stronger than the desire to help ourselves. 🩸
About
Harper Smith is a film journalist and composer, hailing from the Central Valley of California. For over a decade now, they have annoyed readers of many sites and magazines with an overabundance of Halloween 4 love and personal essays. Follow them on X @HarperisjustOK and visit their website Rainydaysforghosts.bandcamp.com.
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