Subjectivity and the digital cyborg body in José Padilha’s Robocop (2014)

Abstract

The article develops an analysis about the intertextual elements, mainly the architextuals, coming from the investigations by Gérard Genette in his book Palimpsestos, to the 2014 remake titled RoboCop directed by the Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha. The objective involves reconstructing some enunciations and forms of visibility of contemporary subjectivity, configured around digital technology. In contrast with the cyborg body proposed in the 1987 feature film also titled RoboCop by filmmaker Paul Verhoeben, in this article it will be argued that in Padilha’s work new possibilities of interaction between the human body and technology can be appreciated. The new cyborg is made up of digital objects and seems to have overcome the myth of robotic automation by the question of technology and algorithmic programming in the human body. The new posthuman figure is distinguished from the heaviness of the mechanical behavior of the version of the 80s, starting from this differentiation, it is intended to recompose a discourse about the implications of contemporary digital technologies, for the resignification of the human body and some new representations of subjectivity from his cyborg condition.