Editing RoboCop 2 (section)

=== Humanity and masculinity ===
''RoboCop 2'' also elaborates on [[RoboCop#Humanity and death|Officer Murphy's remaining humanity]] and the tech's impact on it,<ref name = "Psychreg">{{cite web|last=Guttman|first=Maxwell|date=11 December 2019|url=https://www.psychreg.org/robocop-2/|title=How Robocop 2 Overlooks the Psychological Canon of Modern Cinema|website=Psychreg|access-date=February 12, 2021|archive-date=January 23, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123135241/https://www.psychreg.org/robocop-2/|url-status=live}}</ref> another reason Kershner wanted to direct; he found the conflict a symbol on real-life society becoming programmed and "roboticized" by outside forces unconsciously.{{Sfn|Persons|1990|p=22}} Kershner's intention with ''RoboCop 2'' was to focus more on human depth and emotions and less on violence than the first film: "It's really the violence of the soul, the violence of human interaction that counts, and that's all there."{{Sfn|Johnson|1990b|pp=45, 63}}

Weller summarized that the character, after "finding out" in the predecessor, is now "reaching out for ways to return to who he was."{{Sfn|Persons|1990|p=18}} A scene depicts RoboCop spying on his former wife's home that brings back memories of his previous life; the [[Point-of-view shot|camera presents from his point-of-view]] in these set of memories, which end with Murphy seeing his human face in a bathroom, changing his expression from a smile to frown, and [[match cut]]ting back to the helmeted face of RoboCop in the police car.{{Sfn|Roche|Schmitt-Pitiot|2014|pp=125–126}} [[Fordham University]] social professor Maxwell Guttman suggests that while having memories doesn't make RoboCop more human than any other regular cyborg, the addition of unnecessary, lengthy and conflicting directives by Dr. Juliette Faxx symbolizes how complicated human behavioral science is.<ref name = "Psychreg"/>

David Roche and Isabelle Schmitt-Pitiot interpreted mirror sequences in ''RoboCop 2'' and its predecessor as showing identity problems in the [[hypermasculine]] figure,{{Sfn|Roche|Schmitt-Pitiot|2014|p=125}} mourning the loss of a "natural" masculine identity;{{Sfn|Roche|Schmitt-Pitiot|2014|p=127}} while the first film's sequence showcased a mixture of a fake human face and electronic parts on his head as him having a fragmented identity, the second film's memory scene showcases two separate identities, where the real human one is no longer a part of him.{{Sfn|Roche|Schmitt-Pitiot|2014|p=126}} The re-programming of RoboCop's code and use of it for a different RoboCop also presents masculinity as changing, taking various forms, and revealing hypermasculinity to not be a good form in comparison to others.{{Sfn|Roche|Schmitt-Pitiot|2014|p=127}}