LAMBRIGHT: A Statue of Limitations
When Grand Rapids realized its economy was stumbling it took bold steps to create one of the world’s largest celebrations of art and human spirit— ArtPrize.
Seeing that Detroit is facing some of the most difficult economic challenges in the country, a few, perhaps well-meaning, individuals have taken it upon themselves to look into Detroit’s cinematic past to inspire Detroit businesses and residents to claw their way back into the 21st century — by building a statue of RoboCop.
The popular argument in favor of immortalizing Peter Weller’s 1987 tour de force performance is, “Hey, Philadelphia’s got a statue of Rocky. Why not put one up in the 'D?'”
"Rocky" won three Oscars. Sylvester Stallone ran through the streets of Philly followed by crowds of real Philadelphians cheering his character on in one of the most vaunted sports movies of all time.
The most memorable scene in "RoboCop?" It’s a tossup between a police officer being shot in the groin and a top-heavy, stop-action, heavily-armed, metallic kangaroo named Ed blowing a stereotypical corporate bad guy out of a sky scraper window.
The kicker is that the scenario that the "RoboCop" films present is this: Detroit has gotten so terrible that it needs a cybernetic super-cop to pull it out of the sewers.
So the good people behind the statue have decided Detroit has gotten so terrible that it needs a statute of a cybernetic super-cop to pull it out of the sewers. Is that really the message that anyone could want to send to the rest of the country?
At the time this column was being written, over $50,000 had been raised in the name of constructing a full scale Robo-statue.
One of the largest donors of this money is San Francisco-based company Omni Consumer Products (they take their name from the first "RoboCop" film) who have brought about such brilliant economic stimuli as TruBlood (a fruity beverage mimicking the similarly named HBO show) and Sex Panther cologne (as seen in "Anchorman," with Will Farrell).
Omni Consumer Products has built its brand on novelty and jokes — which is just what it will make out of Detroit if these plans go through.
If Detroiters want to send a message about where the city is headed in coming years, they’d do better to send Omni back its money and donate the rest to one or more of the dozens of charities working every day to restore self-respect to a city in crisis.
