Academic Blog Mk Six: Determination vs Pre-determination

In the late 90's massive advances in genetic manipulation lead to the first sucsessful cloning experiment, Dolly the sheep. Oddly enough "Gattaca" also came out in the late 90's. huh. "Gattaca" perhaps presents the most terrifying outcome of gene manipulation seen in science fiction. Sure we all expect an army of genetic supermen to be used in some evil way to conquer the world, what we don't expect is that world would become more "perfect". However in the perfect world of the film there are no people who strive to reach their destiny, just those who have been pre-coded to become that. Those who are not genetically enhanced are pushed down as a sub-class to do menial work.

In the world of "Gattaca" free choice has been practically eliminated in the sense that those who are genetically enhanced are predetermined to become something someone else wants them to be. Control over a life is taken away from the individual and given basically to the parents. While those who are on the other side of the coin can do little to alter the circumstances before their birth that lead them to be considered inferior. Steven K. George puts it like this, "The only future available to them is unskilled labour, reguardless of their skills and intelligence".

Though while free will is almost eliminated in those enhanced members of society, we see in the protagonist "Vincent" that what one could call the human spirit can overcome the genetic inferiorities. The film perscribes to us that vision and determination to achieve are what make us human and that technology and science can perhapse take that away from us. Meaning that the flaws of what we are can make us stronger. This is exhibited in the scene where by "Vincent" races his brother in the sea, overcoming him even though he is weaker. "Vincent" opens up a new future for himself and shows that not all are doomed to be but into a hopeless future. The human spirit triumphs in the end.

While this is only very little on the subject that "Gattaca" deals with, it is an absolutely massive topic that can't be dealt with in one post. However one thing seems to be quite striking with both "Blade Runner" and "Gattaca", both lead to a society where technology has created a raceless and genderless sub-class. Next post I will be looking at "Gamer" to see if this is always the case.