The Laser Age: 'RoboCop' with Donna Bowman
In 1987 director Paul Verhoeven offered his gleaming, blood-drenched vision of the future of law enforcement, and the future of America. Donna Bowman joins the show to discuss its political prescience and religious subtext.
RoboCop: Who is he? What is he? Scholar, pop culture writer, and longtime Paul Verhoeven fan Donna Bowman joins The Laser Age to discuss RoboCop, Verhoeven's ultraviolent 1987 sci-fi satire about a police officer’s second life as a cyborg law enforcer. Did it offer a vision of things to come? Is it a vessel for Verhoeven's particular notions of what an American Jesus might look like? Why not both?
And this marks the end of the first run of Laser Age episodes. We're going to take a short break before releasing a new batch of episodes. You might even call it a new season. You might even say this season will have a theme. We'll return soon to kick off a five-episode run focusing on films about giant animals from apes to lizards to rabbits. (Yes, rabbits.) If you want to watch ahead, we'll be starting things off with Them!, the quintessential 1950s giant bug movie. Look for it soon.
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