Robo-Dancing and the Soul

In 1987, I was in sixth grade and two movies were all the rage in my school: Dirty Dancing and Robocop. In fact, 1987 was an amazing year for movies. To name but a few we have; Fatal Attraction, Good Morning Vietnam, The Untouchables, Lethal Weapon, Predator, Throw Mama from the train, La Bamba, The Living Daylights, Full Metal Jacket, Wall Street, Spaceballs etc. etc.

But for this bit of armchair psychology we'll stick to dirty Dancing and Robocop. I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone that there was a clear divide between the genders as to who watched which film.

All the girls were swooning over Patrick Swayze, and the movie in general. It's not difficult to see why. The tall good looking older guy who desires the young woman enough to stand up to her domineering father with, Nobody puts Baby in the corner. Of course, dancing has been used as a metaphor, and indeed substitute, for sex for ages. So it's no wonder that the girls were going gaga over this film.

Just as it's no wonder that all the boys were supremely uninterested in it. For us it was all about the opposite, the action. If you look deeper into Robocop, you find a pretty complex movie about corporate control over the civilian sector in the absence of a functional government. Drugs and crime gone rampant in a city both financially and morally bankrupt. And at its core, the question of what it means to be human. After all, Robocop is more machine than man, so it really becomes a question about transhumanism and the soul.

But let's not kid ourselves. We were all going, and then he shot the guy. Did you see how he punched through the wall and grabbed the dude? And that guy was all melted, it was so cool.

We didn't even know the word transhumanism. It's not why we loved the movie.

Even though it's been thirty years, I can still remember how the girls would roll their eyes at us boys and sigh, so immature, because we preferred Robocop over Dirty Dancing. And they were right, we were immature, we were twelve years old. But so were they.

I don't know what they were expecting from us. It's not as if any of us could have suddenly morphed into Patrick Swayze and whisked them away to a cornerless land of dance. My brain was at least not ready to start processing the concept of romance. However, it's not like we hadn't noticed girls at that age. The Italian singer Sabrina had popped onto the scene (and almost out of her bikini) with her hit Boys (Summertime Love), and I promise we had noticed her...

It's a well known fact that girls mature faster than boys, at least sexually. I wonder if boys don't mature earlier when it comes to accepting the concept of violence. Not just that they play War and Cowboys and Indians, but that boys naturally accept their role in an inescapably violent world much earlier than girls. If we go back to the Stone Age we see the same pattern that still holds true today, even with gender diversity and trans-sexuality.

I actually don't really know where I'm going with this. The idea popped up in my head when I woke up this morning, long before I had any coffee. Maybe there is no point, maybe the point is that we shouldn't try to change too quickly and too soon. AI is around the corner so it's possible that transhumanism is on the agenda again, and it's those who don't change who will like Baby, sit in the corner.

Alright, that's enough of that. Until next time, watch one of the great movies from 1987 and have yourself a great week!