From the movie entitled ‘Gattaca’, it shows a world that uses genetic information in order to produce genetically enhanced people, by selecting certain genes. Scientists ensure that individuals were born using reproductive technologies have desirable traits and prevent undesirable traits. This movie spread awareness about ethical issues that people may not be aware. The movie shows an imaginary place within the government, laws, and social conditions are perfect. The movie introduces uniformity and identifies people as valids and in-valids. This can be seen from the personal attires that they wear. In this movie peoples like doctors and employers are judge by a statistical probability, which they will be determined as in-valids if they are not genetically engineered. Instead of racism, they critics people based on their genetic material instead of the type of people they are individually. This gives us message that human spirit is a unique characteristic of a human, not only physical or any intellectual attributes.
From the start of the movie, there’re married people who have a baby born without genetic engineering. When Vincent Anton was born, his physical illnesses or any other problems and his lifespan are estimated in blood test. The result of this test affects his life. So, he is called as an in-valid. When Vincent’s parent wants to have a child, they used genetic engineering so that their child will have no undesirable traits compared to him. In this way, they can choose their baby’s physical appearance and remove the bad features of their child. When Vincent search for a job, to achieve his dream to travel space, but when they test him using blood and urine the result is in-valid and because of this he only gets a janitor job. He finds another way to get inside the Gattaca, a man helps him with genetically engineered gene which is Jerome Morrow and because he has a valid gene, he can get the job because in applying a job, they only take results from blood and urine test if they are valid or not. They don’t ask his own interests and other things. Jerome had perfect genes, he could achieve anything until his accident, paralyzing his legs and because of this he is discriminated. So, he used Vincent to pretend to be him. Even that he has a perfect gene, Jerome wants to end his life, because of a failure. However, he had an unsuccessful suicide attempt, so he lives his life in a wheelchair. The movie also shows a pianist who is successful because he has six fingers in each hand. If he is manmade, he would have natural hands and he could not be successful because the melody he played can be played only with twelve fingers. This means, genes don’t reflect our future and our lives cannot be chosen.
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Therefore, sometimes peoples lacks of something and failures are the reasons for our success in life. The society in this movie has begun to value individuals only on their genetic makeup, instead of personal worth.
I think the society in ‘Gattaca’ is obsessed in removing human flaws and aims for perfection, changing human genes to promote perfection. However, despite of the attempt to remove imperfection, even the in-valids have flawed characteristics. We can see this through Jerome’s alcoholism and his attempt to commit suicide. Because of this genetic engineering or manmade human, we don’t give the baby the chance to become what he/she really is because they control and make it the way that they want it. This genetic research can be helpful if were not abused. If society and the government abused genetic profiling, genetic criticism would arise and also this would lead to a eugenic process, refusing certain people the right to breed and pass on their genes. Other important thing is that our mindset is very important for us. When we look at Vincent and Anton, we see that Anton is much qualified than Vincent. However, in the movie, Anton as genetically engineered and has his own limits and he cannot go beyond his limit but Vincent does not undergo a genetic engineering and there is no encrypted limitation in his genes so he can take risk. He just believed that he can do it, and he did it. This tells us that we humans have the power to surpass our limits if we will only have the courage and perseverance.
Genetic engineering can give us problems and this can affect our life. Importantly we humans have unique characteristics and we are different individually, so we need to accept the things that we have and be satisfied of who we are and to learn to fight for the things that you love if this is the right thing to do.
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