Diana Florez
Dr. Vasileiou
Essay # 1
10/15/12
Not
Utopia at all
A place where there is
discrimination because of one’s genes would not be considered a utopia. Utopia
will be a place where everything would be perfect no discrimination would exist
and nothing will go wrong and for me this is not Gattaca. The essay “The man on
the moon” by George J. Annas has different pieces of writing that can be
compared to the dystopia place I considered Gattaca to be. Would you expect a
murder to be committed in utopia? Throughout the movie technology plays a big
role in the movie Gattaca, and each character on it is affected in some way because
of it.
As the essay by George J. Annas says, in
the article about the Unholy wars “The Nazi experiments involved murder
torture, systematic and barbarous acts with death as the planned endpoint. The
subject of these experiments, which included lethal freezing and high-altitude
experiments, were concentration camp prisoners, mostly Jews, gypsies and Slavs
people the Nazi viewed as subhuman.” This is very similar of what is going on
in the movie Gattaca. Vincent’s mom “put her faith in God's hands, rather than her local geneticist” when she conceived him. This
affected Vincent’s life drastically because he was considered an invalid person
in his society. This discrimination makes me think of Gattaca as a dystopia
place, where you are discriminated because of your genes. In Gattaca children were born the “natural
way” when the eggs of the mother were
fertilize and you could be able to pick the best candidate to be born. One
could also chose the color of the hair, eyes and even gender of their
child. A child born by genetic
engineering could be benefit from it because by having the chance to pick the
best candidate, parents would pick a child with less illnesses, but they would
not be perfect at all. Irene was considered a valid person in Gattaca but she
wasn’t perfect, she had an unacceptable risk of heart failure. Also, in Gattaca
your genes will determined the kind of carrier you would be able to have. Valid
persons would have higher jobs while the invalid people like Vincent would have
also be considered but eventually became part of an underclass and once his job
was to clean toilets. Would utopia discriminate others by not giving them the
chance to prove themselves just because they were not born the “natural way”?
A place where murder is attempted to
commit will immediately be considered a dystopia. In a perfect place nobody
would have to kill others because you do not accept the decisions they make at
work. And this is what happens in Gattaca a mission director is killed because
he was trying to cancel a mission. Would you expect this in utopia place?. “The
enemy was the nonbeliever, the infidel; killing the infidel became a holy act.
The ability to label an enemy as “other” and subhuman, and to justify killing
the “other” in the name of God …” so it
will be a holy act committing a murder because simply the “other” does not believe what you do or want what you
desire? . Utopia does not consist of this; there is no trust between your
co-workers.
Technology and science have helped human
being create a better place that cannot be perfect at all but can offer us a
better quality life. There are many technological advances in the movie Gattaca.
It is almost incredible how Vincent is able to get away with his plan, and is
able to achieve his dream. Gattaca is also very advanced in
science and they have frequent space travels. Many people now days would
benefit from these advantages if this was their dream like it were for Vincent.
As mentioned in the essay about the voyage of Apollo 11 it was the most spectacular
exploration, and more of these voyages would be something incredible in our
society. But if you look at the world we live in, and the past years,
technology and science have advanced tremendously. There are a lot of
technological devices that help us have a better life, science is so advanced
that we might be born with certain illnesses but the scientist also have come
up with a lot of cures for this illnesses. There are so many things that in the
future there will be that we don’t even think of them now or expect.
I strongly believe Gattaca was just an
attempt of utopia. There could be much eradication of illnesses, the
environmental safe mans of transportation and even the frequent space travels
and advances in science but our planet has also change drastically over the
years. We live in a world that day by day also attempts to be perfect, but I
think no one and nothing would ever be perfect in earth. There will always be
differences and obstacles that one has to overcome in order to succeed and from
this thinks is the way one learns. If we would live in utopia we would of have
being born with a lot of knowledge and would not have to learn anything.
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