Between one-liners, there is ideology : Robocop and neoliberalism in the Reagan Era (1981-1989)

Abstract

Drawing on authors such as Douglas Kellner and Mark Fisher, this article argues that the film Robocop (1987) was not aligned with the zeitgeist of the 1980s in the United States, which at the time emphasised the cultural, economic and social optimism of the Republican government of Ronald Reagan (1981-1989). In this article, we seek to understand how the 1987 film establishes a critical dialogue with Reaganism. In agreement with historians such as Gary Gerstle and Douglas C. Rossinow, we point out that the Reagan administration attacked the Welfare State, heir to the New Deal (1933-1937) and the Great Society (1964-1968), and the social programmes of previous administrations, inaugurating a neoliberal model of government. The industrial sector, located in the Midwest, was replaced by technology centres on the East Coast and the labour movement suffered significant losses. In this article, the use of the concepts ‘deindustrialisation’ and ‘neoliberalism’ proposes a debate with the works of David Harvey, Kim Moody and Vladimir Safatle. We suggest looking at how the film, through the lens of science fiction, criticised these aspects of the Reagan administration, observing certain scenes and sequences that dialogue with the American working class’s loss of identity. In addition, we defend the following hypothesis: Robocop satirises Reaganomics in the script by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner and in the style of Paul Verhoeven’s direction.