Amy Guan
ENGL 101-0768
Dr.Vasileiou
Essay #1 (Rough Draft)
October 08, 2012
Underneath
the Utopian Mask of Gattaca
In
1997 Andrew Niccol directed a movie called Gattaca.
Gattaca is a futuristic society highly populated with genetically engineered people
known as the Valids. With the increasing population of genetically engineered
people helped built Gattaca under a utopian mask supplied with great
advancements in sciences and terminated many illnesses. When Gattaca is compared
with societies in the past which are characterized with global warming,
diseases and deaths; Gattaca seems to fit even more tightly with its utopian mask.
But under this mask lays the solid and naked truth. Gattaca is no utopia. There
is a small population of the naturally-born people who are called the
In-Valids. The In-Valids are genetically discriminated not
just by society alone, but as well as by their parents.
The
improvements of quality of life in the society of Gattaca gave it a utopian
image. Imagine a world where humans are engineered to be perfectly built; tall
enough, slim enough, highly intelligent, and free of diseases. Welcome to
Gattaca. Most newborns in Gattaca are genetically engineered to be the best
possible combination of their parents’ genes. The success of genetic
engineering was to bring humans to a utopia. The generation of Valids are
engineered to live long lives and to be highly intelligent to form a more efficient
and successful society. The Valids were able to developed environmental-friendly
technologies and terminated many diseases.
If
we were to compare societies in the past to the society of Gattaca, Gattaca may
seem to be more ideal. The reason why is because societies of the past are
characterized by many world issues such
as global warming problems in which societies are unable to come together to
successfully prevent or slow down global warming from happening. Other reasons
would be deaths from wars and diseases. With a future like Gattaca, many people
in the societies of the past may not see that Gattaca is an illusion of a
utopia and overlook the tiny flaws of Gattaca with its small populations genetic
discrimination of In-Valids. Genetically engineered beings were able to advance
sciences to such a level that it provided society with environmental-friendly
technologies and transportations. The lives of the population in general
increases and diseases are terminated. Therefore, this is how Gattaca society received
its utopian mask by being able to solve many big problems that previous long
lines of naturally-born generations could not.
Instead
of a utopia, Gattaca is actually a dystopia. What makes Gattaca a dystopia is
that a small population of Gattaca society known as the In-Valids, are genetically
discriminated. The first few seconds of a newborn’s life, the doctors would
have his DNA tested to determine the newborn’s social status in the society. No
matter how hard In-Valids such as the main character Vincent Anton Freeman works
for, his identity will only get him so far as menial jobs like being a janitor
because his DNA test say he will live up to only 30.2 years and have 99 percent
probability of have a mal-heart condition. When he was agreed to receive an
interview at the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation, he did not receive an actual
interview, but a blood test to determine his genetic quality which was labeled
as an In-Valid. The discrimination of the In-Valids is one of the main reason
why Gattaca is not a utopia. A utopia has to be an ideal and perfect place for
all people within a society. In-Valids are part of society of Gattaca, but it
was not an ideal nor perfect place for Vincent that he was willing to fraud his
identity by becoming a “borrowed-ladder” to escape Earth to the moon of Saturn.
Even for Valids such as Jerome Eugene Morrow, Gattaca was neither an ideal nor
a perfect place for him. Jerome was born with such “gifted” genes that he was
expected to always win first place in national swimming races, not second
place.
Vincent has
a younger brother Anton who is genetically engineered. The parents only felt
the younger brother Anton was most fit for the father’s name because the
younger brother was more superior since he was genetically engineered. During
the last “Chicken” race Vincent had with Anton; Anton asked how Vincent managed
to win the last two races. Vincent told him that the only reason why he managed
to win was because he “never saved anything for the swim-back.” Vincent became suicidal
even before and after he successfully becomes the most elite in the Gattaca
Aerospace Corporation because he didn’t plan to head back to Earth after the
traveling to Saturn’s moon. On the other hand, Jerome was also suicidal; he
threw himself in front of a car becoming paralyzed from waist-down and later suicide
by burning himself after Vincent left to space travel to the moon. Gattaca
society made both an In-Valid and Valid suicide. Therefore, this indicates that
Gattaca is not a utopia for In-Valids or Valids since both Vincent and Jerome
had become suicidal due to the genetic discrimination Gattaca society created.
Gattaca may
seem like a utopia compared with societies in the past. But it is not utopia
because it does not live up with the definition that utopia is an ideal and perfect
place. Both main character Vincent and Jerome attempted several times of
suicide due to genetic discrimination in Gattaca. The past have been symbolized
with wars as George J. Annas sees it in his essay, The Man on the Moon. The Cold War was the transition from Holy Wars
to Unholy Wars in which people began to “worship science as society’s new
religion (229).” The Cold War was a race to the Moon just like Gattaca
Aerospace Corporation was a race to Titan, Saturn’s moon. But for Vincent and
Jerome, the race to Saturn’s moon was a race out of a dystopia, Gattaca.
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