The movie Gattaca follows a “genetically inferior” man named Vincent Freeman in his pursuit to live the life of a “genetically superior” man named Jerome Morrow, so that he can achieve his dream to go to space. Gattaca has a very interesting premise, it is set in a world that cares more about your genes than how hard you work or what your religion or race is. Although it had some cheesy dialogue and some plot holes, it was still a much better movie than I was expecting it to be. In addition to that, the society that this movie is rooted in was very interesting to watch considering the material that is being discussed in class.
In this movie, normal births are no longer normal. In Vincent’s case, he was born normally without any genetic editing. Upon being born, the nurse takes a blood sample from him and is able to tell when he will die, his propensity for disorders, and that he has a heart condition. This is funny to see, because the free fetal DNA testing that is used in real life today requires much more time to process in order to find much less information about the infant. In the movie, scientists prepare viable zygotes and allow the parents to choose what they would want their child to be like. When Vincent’s parents went to go “design” Vincent’s brother, the scientist had already removed the risk of alcoholism, obesity, and other bad traits, which was a shock to the parents. If this was the case, there would be less need for blood tests like the ones that look for cancer, because people could be designed to be at a lower risk of cancer. In today's world, parents take the random genetic variety of their children for granted. In the pursuit of attaining children without disease, parents lost the randomness of what their child would be like.
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