Gattaca

Richard Parker

April 22, 2010

Movie assessment-Gattaca

Ordering of Inbreed Superhumans

The movie Gattaca written and directed by Andrew Niccol in 1997, bring about very controversial topics in today's world. It makes us step back and take a good look at where we are going with our science and technology. It shows gene manipulation, forms of cloning and technology that can only be seen in some distant future. Not to mention it is almost the ultimate form social control.

In Gattaca there is one main form of social control and that is their government. Genetics is what the society drives for, becoming the perfect human. They strive for perfection. People are constantly tracked through urine test, hair follicles, blood and even dead skin particles found lying around. Invalids (the people who were born naturally) were discriminated against for not having their genes chosen; invalids are not allowed in certain areas and are also not allowed jobs that are available. Some values that have also changed are the role of family life. Valids no longer need to have intercourse and are in fact trained to resist all sexually urges. Men and women chose their life mate based upon their partners genetic makeup. In this society there is a regular competition among the people because everyone is trying to prove that they are "the" super human and how they have the best genes.

The society is divided into Valids and Invalids. Valids are the people who have had their genes chosen and the Invalids are the "god child" who was created through intercourse. Valids are the people who run the civilization. They have the more important jobs and are in control of the space program. Invalids were the lower class; they are not good enough because their genetic make up was a role of the dice and not picked. People needed to have money in order to create the perfect human. Invalids held jobs like janitors and or anything that did not use brain power, very medial work.

Gattaca is the social institution. Most of the money was controlled by Valids and stayed with them because it was needed to create your child. Police or investigators were always patrolling searching for Invalids among the Valids; area sweeps, dusting for skin particles. No true form of privacy. Family life is not what it used to be, intercourse is basically gone because people are trying to create the perfect child. There is no form of sexual attraction Valids are a-sexual. The only form of family is "the family image". Education is only a brief part of kids' lives; it is more of training for their life job.

Gattaca was a form of utopia society with very few conflicts no war that is seen and the environment is not worried about. There seems to be a huge a huge paradigm shift in genetics; baby's genetics are chosen and no longer random because of intercourse. The population is divided up into two different cultures the Valids and In-valids. This society is very advanced; it seems that most of their research is based upon space travel.

Gattaca has a lot of technological advances in their world. To being with the whole birth process for Valids is new, babies are no longer born they are basically grown. Genes are chosen for them almost like going to a restaurant and ordering a meal is how Valids are chosen. The constant scans for Valids and In-valids are new technology also, all the finger print scans, finger pricks, DNA from dead skin and hair that has fallen off. Their whole genetics structure can be found out within minutes when in real life it takes about a month. Space seems the be