BLOG #5 FINAL ESSAY #1

Hugo Avila

Dr. Luke Vasileiou

ENG 101/0768

FINAL ESSAY #1

Gattaca Imperfection under Perfection

Is it Gattaca the perfect place where everybody dream to live or is it just an imperfect nightmare place of living? According to the Film “Gattaca” by Andrew Niccol, in this not-too-distant future, the mechanisms and the technological advantages are improvements supposed to make a perfect world with happiness and joy. A place where exists genetic engineered, no diseases or illness, environmental advantages and no distinctions nor discrimination because of race, gender, nationality. A place where everybody would like to live, It’s still the most awful place of living, because there is not matter of effort or attainment, it’s just a matter of genes. The film is about Vincent, the main character that was born as a natural or traditional birth, which means no genetic engineered. At the time that he was born, the doctors diagnosed him several sickness just because he was born naturally. He always dreamed to fly out-space but his genes were the principal obstacle to reach his goals. There was no possibilities for him to achieve his dreams, just because his blood. So with this said, can we really talk about Gattaca as a Utopia place? I would say definitively NO. Gattaca is not the place that the society dreams to live. I would not like a place like this because though there is not discrimination for external factors, there is discrimination because of genes. Therefore, I believe that Gattaca is the imperfect place under this umbrella of perfection, convincingly a Dystopia.

The genetic engineered was always the problem with Gattaca, there were people with this kind of technology and at the same time there were people with no genetic engineered at all. So this means that within Gattaca there was a lot of discrimination because of genes. People with this technology were called “the Valids” for the society; people without it were called “the Invalids”, so this is telling us that there was inequity in Gattaca. Genes were all the matter if you wanted to grow up in a perfect world, or if you just had it to live the imperfection with the “valids” scraps. So that’s why I think that Gattaca is a Dystopia. For example, the film tells us specifically about “Gattaca the space agency” that only the people with a higher DNA would be able to work within it, but for the rest of the people (the “invalids”) they just could work inside Gattaca as cleaners as the movie is telling us “My father was right.   It didn't matter how much I lied on my résumé, my real C.V. was in my cells.   Why should anybody invest all that money to train me, when there are a thousand other applicants with a far cleaner profile?   Of course, it's illegal to discriminate –“Genoism" it's called - but no one takes the laws seriously.” development in technology made easy identification “If you refuse to disclose, they can always take a sample from a doorhandle... or a handshake… even the saliva of your application form. But for the most part we know who we are. And if all else fails, a legal drug test can just as easily become an illegal peek at your future in the company.” Thus it’s very unfair that genes would speak for your physical and intellectual capacities. I believe that what matters like in our actual society is the effort and sacrifice that you do every day to reach your dreams and I believe that is the way how it has to be.

So everybody would love to be in a Utopia society, with no discriminations, the technologies to have perfect humans, nor crime, equality, perfect laws and environmental advantages which happened in Gattaca but not for everybody. We can see that when the Director of the space agency, murdered brutally a man with a keyboard; his DNA profile indicates that violence is not in his nature. So at the time that the coops find the body they would not have to argue with the director because of his genes, which means that actually this guy believed and had the intentions to kill an innocent man, just because of his interests. In a Utopia place this will never happen, because it is supposed to be perfect and equal for the whole population. Crimes would not exist, no robberies, no murders, and no lies. But this happened in Gattaca which was supposed to be the perfect place, but it wasn’t.

Also the movie tells about Irene that was genetic engineer but she still had heart problems, which means that this technology wasn’t perfect at all. It was supposed to eradicate diseases or illness the genetic engineered and this doesn’t occur with Irene. She has the dream, like Vincent, to fly out-space. But they were unable to do it because of his physicals and mentally conditions. I believe that in a Utopia, everybody would have the same rights and opportunities to do whatever they want with no matter of race, gender, nationality or genes. Also If Gattaca was perfect, Jerome, a genetic engineered swimmer guy who had a high DNA, and Vincent, the guy who wasn’t genetic engineered, why did they try to commit a suicide because of their problems? The answer may be that Gattaca was a miserable place where the people were totally unhappy.

Throughout Gattaca we can see a lot of dysfunctions and imperfections that lead us to think in the actual world that we live but with more technologies and less people suffering, still not a Utopia because it doesn’t work for the totality. Overall I believe that perfection doesn’t exist in reality, just in science fiction. Still science fiction would have to make struggling lives, just to make it more interest. Utopia places will not exist in this world and that’s how life is so fascinating. No society and nobody are perfect, and that’s really cool because we can enjoy the variety of our world. I can imagine a place that is perfect in its totality; it will be a horrible place to live, without the knowledge of imperfection and the effort while you get problems in your life.

In conclusion I can say that Gattaca is a Dystopia because if it were a Utopia, it will be equally the same for the hole. All the situations created a Dystopia place, no a Utopia. I believe that in the struggle of our lives we will find imperfection under perfection, still the most amazing place to live, because it gives you hope and ambition to set your goals and reach them. Like Vincent did on the movie Gattaca, where he fought for overcoming all his obstacles to obtained his dreams, no matter what. That has showed and helped me to understand that life is really hard, perfection is impossible but still the Dystopia place where I live today it’s the most perfect place while it is imperfect.