Stephen Harper as killer robot

Abstract

In popular culture and public discourse, especially on the Internet, the image of Canada’s former Prime Minister Stephen Harper is conspicuously characterized and caricatured as robotic [...] Amidst popular culture’s hordes of anthropomorphized robots, Harper attained a peculiarly converse characterization as a robotized anthropomorph. [...] The image of Stephen Harper as killer robot figures anxieties about the automation of governance and ensuing loss of democracy. The image of Harper as robot provides a suggestive case for analyzing Canadian popular culture and the spectre of an automated body politic. This essay documents and theorizes the pattern of critical representations of the Harper government of 2006 to 2015 in popular culture, especially in digital media.