Gattaca Presents A World Destroyed By The Pursuit Of Perfection Essay

Gattaca presents a world destroyed by the pursuit of perfection. Do you agree?

“The word perfection cannot be defined into one person or one thing. Perfection can only be told or seen in a first person view. No one will genuinely think something or someone is as perfect as another person, it’s impossible to see eye to eye with something that is as powerful and subjective as perfection.” - Jordan van der neut, 2014

Gattaca, a film set in the ‘not too distant future’ presents a world destroyed by the pursuit of perfection. The film, written and directed by New Zealand screenwriter Andrew M. Niccol, raises many issues entailing identity, discrimination, genetic engineering and free will. The plot involves the practice of genetically modifying

A problem that could arise is a repeat of history. Inequality. Our society would be divided into two groups, the “valids” or “perfect humans” and the “in-valids” or “non perfect humans.” This is just another form of discrimination, whereby people are judged because of the circumstances of they were born, something that they have no control over. "I belong to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the colour of your skin. We now have discrimination down to a science." -Vincent. In the film “in-valids were granted less rights than the “valids.” Sounds familiar? In the 1960’s many protests occurred because of the inequality and brutality against African-Americans, who had their rights taken away from them based on the colour of their skin. Introducing the practice of genetically modifying humans to live up to the ideology of perfection could cause protests, violence, chaos and possibly a repeat of the Civil Rights Movement. For many years our society has been attempting to eliminate inequality, but this practice could just as easily re-create

Nothing a tiger does is immoral because it has no moral sense. Our moral sense curses us with the ability to choose evil, a trait completely unique to humanity. Scientists trying to achieve the pursuit of perfection could be seen as a form of evil. Taking away a human’s rights to individuality and expression is not fair. Our individuality is the basis of who we are as human beings, without individuality, how would anyone have opinions, likes and dislikes and hobbies, that differentiate from the next person? Even if Scientists do somehow achieve the ideology of perfection they will continue to make improvements to technology, meaning eventually human beings could potentially become robots, nothing but a mob of identical brains and bodies. Looking at the film and Vincent’s journey from being a Janitor to an employee of Gattaca, you can see examples of similarity. While working as a Janitor, Vincent wears the stereotypical Boiler Suits which refer to the genetically inferior. When gaining his job at Gattaca he is wearing dark suits like everyone else, representing the genetically superior. Throughout the film we see other characters wearing stereotypical clothing such as the Doctor (wearing a white lab coat,) and the Detective (wearing a big trench coat and hat.) The use of stereotypical characters expresses a world of uniformity which contains no creativity