David Kirby’s Film, Gattaca and Aldus Huxley’s, Book Brave New World

Dystopia’s Robotic Appearances

In Dystopias, appearances often dictate society rankings and values. By defining an “ideal” or perfect appearance in a dystopia, judgment is made. The perfect appearance is superior and so divisions are made between people who meet the ideal and who do not fit (Caste systems). In our society, a similar dystopia is created by the control media has over the ideal facial and body images. Creating a generic look leads to a world that does not value individuality and is oppressive, exactly what a dystopia proves to be. Dystopias promote the ideology of a single perfect appearance through which a beauty caste system is created, and the loss of individual identity occurs, similar to the media’s control of one exemplary body image in our society.

One way in which dystopias take imperfect appearances away is creating images of appearances that are identical...Examples of such dystopian societies are societies in Brave new world and Gattaca. In David Kirby’s film, Gattaca and Aldus Huxley’s, book Brave New World people are made through genetic engineering meaning there is little variety in the children being produced. Children produced through sexual union look like and will have all the imperfections of the parents and grandparents. According to a literary criticism writer of the film, Kirby “would be a first step toward Gattaca like future of made-to-order babies, scrubbed clean of diseases and endowed with sparkling blue eyes—a world in which eugenics is just another branch of science.” (Kirby) In Gattaca we see that dystopias take away individuality by making people look identical. Even though all people appear attractive and are disease free, people that look the same without any ...

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...o most it is an unattainable goal of perfection. People are no longer looking to themselves for identity; they are abiding by media’s demands and adopting a forced identity. In order for a dystopia to thrive there has to be a mechanical structure where a single outer appearance has the most valuein society. This superficiality ultimately leads to a world of misery, unhappiness and destruction. While reading dystopian literature and watching dystopian Tv shows and movies it is easy to see the depravity of human kind that comes from central control of ideas such as appearance and beauty. In our society media’s grip on audience and control of all the images available makes it possible to control the way people feel about their appearance and individuality.

Works Cited

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Print.