"Sardonic Sophomore Yells at 90's Movie"

This was written in...frustration for having to watch this movie that I already did not like. It comes off a bit more sharp than my writing today. Or at least I hope so. The topics are things we have talked about already but feel free to comment.

Gattaca would have sold more tickets at the world's fair of 1937 then in movies in 1997 or today for that matter. Why wouldn’t it? A world where everyone gets a job, where babies are born healthy, where minorities are openly oppressed by the government. Wait, what? Oppression? Uma Thurman is in this movie, there is urban modern architecture and DNA “science talk” is part of the central plot. How would this be better in the past? The answer is simple: Gattaca is a movie less about genetics and more about eugenics.

In the society where it is most beneficial to have been conserved in a lab and you are defined by it, it is not poverty, racisim or sexisim(supposedly) you leave behind but diversity and identity. Where women today are desensitized to sexual harassment to them personally and in general(I do not feel confident to speak on the other examples), the people in the world of Gattaca are completely fine with having everyone know the moment of their death and all the mishaps and confusion the genetic code can give along the way. In any case, I digress, what does this have to do with the 1930’s or World War 2? Why Eugenics or course! In both the United States and Germany during this decade, Eugenics is a theory used by people who were more fortunate for one reason or another, to keep the society with themselves in power. More directly it is the the theory that if the government wanted to get rid of undesirable populations(ie; italians, jews, the poor) or “help” them, they would sterilize those in the population so there would be no further lineage. No more children, no more population. This would be done regardless if the individuals consented to this. This was done on a public scale in the United States and in concentration camps in Germany. Today, this practice is unthinkable in both countries by the mainstream set of ideas. So how does the movie made in 1997 distance themselves from inhumane practices? Simple, it doesn’t.

In the movie, an undesirable or “invalid” and a genetic masterpiece or “valid”, prince and the pauper themselves because of a dream. Vincent, born the good ole fashion way wants to go to space despite his genetic predisposition for heart disease. Jerome wants to live up the the potential that he was built for, being good at something after being paralyzed from the waist down. They cheat the system through a complex surgery and spy like exploitation that would make both Frankenstein and 007 drool. After all of this, they nearly fail because of a last minute policy change of taking urine samples that Vincent can’t fake and are scientifically inaccurate as there is no sure way to find DNA in urine unless they are having more serious problems like blood in the urine. The policy means nothing however because the doctor doing the test says “Meh, my kid looks up to you.” and lets Vincent go to space anyways, I assume leading to Vincent dieing in space due to his weak heart. On a side note, is this actually a double blind test by the Gattaca company to see what would happen if we put healthy white men in a rocket with only a business suit? That would have been a better twist than the “happy ending” we got. Jerome meanwhile, kills himself after giving up his identity to Vincent completely as now his life has meaning in death. Because that is what we tell paraplegics, your meaning is only worth what others get from you. Yes, there would be social pressures involving being given potential and anger at your parents for not making you special but who’s to say we would go that far?

This is a warped look at ethics, not science. When it comes to genetics, we have the ability to test everyone for genetic markers for cancer. We do not test people at birth for these markers because holding that kind of weight over someone is not up to the government or science, it is up to the individual. We have a hard enough time deciding if it is ethical for relatives of those who have died of cancer to get tested for markers. Doctors give the option but since no cure works for everyone and preventive measures only do so much, many refuse. Genetic manipulation is also bound by ethics. In vitro fertilization is a long, expensive, and restricted process reserved for women with fertility issues and where the genetic role of the dice will end badly no matter what. Currently, there are many more issues when it comes to our political climate and the OBGYN office. As a society, we should stop trying to say that new technology will turn society utopia or dystopia. Why? Humans do not have the ability to let sleeping dogs lie. I watched a movie that inaccurately displays what genetic research will lead to. Gattaca needs to stop. It is allowed to be a movie but it is not an example of innovation, it is an example of misunderstood science being used to oppress people, even if they can not see it themselves.