Omni Consumer Products
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Omni Consumer Products (OCP) is the primary fictional corporation in the RoboCop series of movies, television series, video games, and comic books. OCP represents the quintessential dystopian megacorporation of the 1980s and the popular socio-economic concerns of the period.
A case of military capitalism taken to an inhumane extreme, OCP is run (and seems to be staffed primarily) by people with no concern for anything but power, profit and their own personal ambition. When their poorly designed consumer products hurt or kill people, their only concern is negative PR.
In Robocop 3, the phrase "Oppressive Capitalist Pigs" can be seen written on a wall.
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[edit] Operation
OCP is depicted in the movies as a megacorporation, a vast, giant corporation with too many divisions and products to list. With a stake in almost any field where there is money to be made, they produce everything from minor consumer products to military hardware. Their projects included the successful RoboCop, the poorly designed ED-209, and the insane RoboCop 2. Their influence is so vast that they can effectively operate multiple markets that are inherently competitive against each other: OCP owns and operates a structured, private police force but also an under-the-table criminal ring, thus ensuring that there is always a never-ending supply-and-demand for both security and crime.
In the first two movies, OCP seeks to fully privatize Detroit, Michigan into Delta City, with fully privatized services — such as police — and with residents exercising their representative citizenship through the purchase of shares of OCP stock. They also serve as part of the military-industrial complex; according to OCP executive Richard "Dick" Jones, "We practically are the military."
Their business strategy was summarized by Jones in RoboCop: "Take a close look at the track record of this company, and you'll see that we've gambled in markets traditionally regarded as non-profit: hospitals, prisons, space exploration. I say good business is where you find it."
OCP is broken up into various divisions that handle different sectors of its business, called "concepts"; most notably, Security Concepts created RoboCop, and contracts with the city of Detroit to provide the city with a police force. Exactly why the city decided to contract out to a private corporation its police instead of continuing to run its own police force was never explained in the movies. In the first RoboCop movie, as Murphy takes a look around his old house, an automated realtor states that his kitchen was built by Food Concepts, and in RoboCop 3 the sides of the rehab vans state that they are part of Rehabilitation Concepts. There are also other divisions that simply say OCP and then the division name. The only known division like this is in RoboCop 2, where there is a commercial that advertises OCP Communications: "OCP Communications: The Only Choice". Given OCP's great involvement in military ventures, it is also assumed that there is a Military Concepts, or an OCP Defense division.
[edit] Downfall
In Robocop 3, OCP is bought out by a Japanese Zaibatsu, the Kanemitsu corporation. As a subsidiary of Kanemitsu, OCP remains in charge of the destruction of old Detroit and the construction of Delta City. By the end of the movie, OCP's brutal policies concerning Delta City are brought to light, many of OCP's majority shareholders sell their stock, and OCP itself is forced into bankruptcy.
[edit] Trivia
- OCP's goal of privatizing Detroit is very similar to that of many corporations in the Shadowrun universe, in which many corporations legally become their own country. This theme is repeated throughout cyberpunk literature.
- In RoboCop 2, the banners and flags at the OCP building in the end of the film are similar to that of the German Nazi Party, as there is a red background with a white circle in the middle, and a black symbol in the middle of the circle.
- Omni Consumer Products is also a real San Francisco-based company named after the company in the film.[1] Not coincidentally, they specialize in licensing and marketing products inspired by fictional products from TV and movies, including the Brawndo drink from Idiocracy.
- OCP is an anagram of the word "COP".
[edit] References
- ^ Omni Consumer Products website
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