Paul Verhoeven’s Sci-Fi Trilogy: Understanding the Media Influence on Capitalism, Individualism, and Patriotism in the United States

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2017-08-31
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en
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To examine such components of American culture as capitalism, individualism, and patriotism, I will analyze how these three themes are depicted in the three movies Paul Verhoeven directed in Hollywood: RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), and Starship Troopers (1997). Then, I will examine how the Dutch director remediates the above-mentioned pillars of American identity and transforms them into consumerism, conformism, and hegemony to criticize the national self-delusion forged by media. I will demonstrate how Verhoeven engages in a dialectic dialogue with media via media. In other words, I will investigate how the Dutch director uses filmic techniques and genre conventions to satirize the vices of American culture and society of the 1980s and 1990s. To do that, I will scrutinize the combination of such genres as science fiction, western, and action relying on Barry Keith Grant, Steve Neale, and Rick Altman’s theories on genre. Then, I will conduct a shot-by-shot analysis, a practice forged by such scholars as Michael Ryan, Melissa Lenos, and Ed Sikov. Finally, relying on the theory of Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, I will explain how the director draws our attention to the media manipulation using such concepts as immediacy and hypermediacy.
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Faculteit der Letteren