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Tom Dougherty On Frank Miller Slamming The Occupy Movement
posted November 15, 2011
 

I don't understand how the author of Robocop 2 could dislike OWS....

Robocop hated OCP, although they were his creator. Sure, Robocop hated drugs and drug addicts, too, but the main villian was always the untouchable corporation: OCP. The company wanted to forclose on the city of Detroit in order to rebuild it as a utopia with astronomical rents. OCP's ambition resulted in the cancellation of the Detroit Police's pension plan and led to reduced salaries for police officers, which directly leads to a police strike... the very premise of Robocop 2 is how corporations fuck the little guy and replace public servants with automatons that follow OCP's rules!

Could it be that the author of this modern masterpiece of cinematic social commentary wasn't earnest in his critique of corporate injustice?

Wait! The Dark Knight Returns is about an old rich man that turns vigilante so he can beat up on some punks and in the process turn those punks into more vigilantes. Then the government sends Superman to deal with Batman and stop his meddlesome street-justice. Batman kicks the shit out of Superman while faking his own death and in the process makes Superman secretly wish Batman could win the fight. And by ignoring Batman's heartbeat, Superman lets him win! Another conversion! It's all coming together now:

Batman = the Koch brothers. The converted punks = the teaparty. Superman = Obama. The leftover unconverted punks = OWS protesters.

Frank Miller has the power of precognition, and he chose to support the wealthy over popular sentiment 25 years ago! Why couldn't we see this before??? We're doomed! A cartoonist near retirement age who beat the odds and made a career of writing power fantasies for impressionable adolescents doesn't understand, nor like the OWS movement!

Don't you see? The Dark Knight Returns is happening right now, Robocop 2 will happen next! Whatever shall we do?

TL;DR -- Frank Miller got wealthy generating content for the corporate pop culture industry. Other cartoonists fought for the rights of creator ownership he currently enjoys and whatever battles he had to fight to improve his own lot are long over. Miller is and has been a Libertarian. Since the OWS movement is trying to pressure government into acting in accordance with the will of the people, he dislikes it on principle. What's shocking aren't the sentiments he expressed in his blog, it's the reactions its generated.