Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Robocop Director: Robocop Was an ‘American Jesus’ Because he Kills People
  Progressivism piece by Warner Todd Huston

Andrew Breitbart appeared(1) at an awards ceremony in Chicago on Friday the 16th and one of his remarks was that Hollywood is “40 years into the left injecting bad into America.“ To counter the bad, Breitbart urged us all to remind each other what is good in our great nation. As an illustration of Breitbart’s warning I give you Paul Verhoeven, the director of the 1987 film Robocop(2).

Verhoeven recently spoke to MTVs Josh Horowitz about the underlying symbolism of Robocop and his main conception was that the Robocop character was an “American Jesus” because his method of righting wrongs was to shoot and kill all evil doers. Robocop was judge, jury and executioner all in one and that apparently makes him an “American Jesus.“

It was Verhoeven’s contention that America is little else but a violent nation that has no interest in peace, law, and order, or diplomacy but is the quintessentially violent cowboy, self-interested, and mostly a lawless place.

In his own words, Verhoeven told MTV the following:

“The point of Robocop is of course that it is a Christ story. It is about a guy that gets crucified after fifty minutes then is resurrected in the next fifty minutes and then is like the supercop of the world. But is also a Jesus figure as he walks over water at the end. he could walk over the water and say this wonderful line, which is basically, em, to Clarence Boddicker ‘I am not arresting you any more.‘ Meaning I’m going to shoot you. And that is , of course, the American Jesus.“

Verhoeven has what he describes as a life-long fascination with the historical Jesus and even wrote a book on the Savior’s life entitled, Jesus of Nazareth.

One of Verhoeven’s more infamous claims through his “research” into the life of Jesus is that the Christ indeed was the son of Mary but was actually fathered by a Roman rapist.

But his feelings about the historical Jesus aside, Verhoeven’s chief profession is remains with the film industry and in his work he presents America through a left-wing agenda. The main purpose of much of his film work is to show this country in the worst light possible. Verhoeven personifies Breitbart’s claim that Hollywood’s most common goal is to “inject bad” into this country.

Now Robocop certainly is an enjoyable film. It is fun to see the steel cowboy steadily righting wrongs and eliminating the bad guys. But we cannot forget that the main theme of Robocop is that the U.S. is a bad, destructive place that is rotten to the core. And that main message is Hollywood’s most cherished message, one played over and over again in film after film.

Warner Todd Huston

(Originally posted at BigHollywood.com)

1) appeared

2) Robocop

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on 4/27/10

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