Subject: Retrospective: Gattaca (1997)

From: [email-masked] (Cheng-Jih Chen)
Date: 23 Mar 1999 06:01:22 GMT

The local video store is doing a rent-one-DVD-rent-second-free thing
this month, and I picked up Gattaca as the bonus movie last week,
having missed it when it was in theaters.

Intelligent science fiction films, where the focus is on the play of
ideas rather than wizbang special effects of aliens, is a rare thing.
Gattaca follows in the tradition of Blade Runner rather than
Independence Day.  True, Blade Runner has dazzling visuals, but the
core of the film is the philosophical question, what does it mean to be
human?

Gattaca's particular idea, that genetic information contains much
information which may be used destructively, has timeliness.  Witness,
for example, the recently hubbub over the New York Police Department's
proposal to begin DNA sampling of everyone arrested.  Privacy advocates
note that this goes far beyond fingerprinting as identification, as
genetic information may contain confidential medical information.  This
is perhaps how the filmmakers envision their dystopia coming about:
baby steps down a slippery slope.

The plot of the movie concerns the efforts of Vincent to pass himself
off as Jerome.  Vincent is freeborn, conceived without the benefit of
genetic tinkering to, say, remove a tendency for heart problems or
learning disorders.  Jerome is the result of such extensive
manipulation, gifted with the genes of high intelligence, physical
performance, and slicked back hair.  He, unfortunately, broke his back,
and is confined to a wheelchair.  He sells his identity to Vincent,
literally his body, as identity consists of blood and urine samples,
flakes of dandruff and loose hair, all carefully drawn and placed where
snoops may find it.

Vincent's ultimate goal is to travel in space.  All the effort to
disguise himself as Jerome goes towards getting into Gattaca, some sort
of future space agency in which only the genetically perfect are
selected.  The bulk of the film shows the plot starting to unravel, as
someone is murdered on Gattaca's premises and Vincent leaves an eyelash
in the wrong place.

This is a stylized, designed future, a vision of the world as decorated
by Hugo Boss.  The geneticall perfect were well-tailored suits, the
offices are quiet, sleek temples of efficiency.  Space travel here does
not involve the sensible application of duct tape in the right places,
but well-apportioned dabs of hair gel for that perfect look.  Yes, the
film goes out of the way to emphasize the dominance of style and look
in this world.

Actually, one nice style effect is the garb of the detectives
investigating the case.  The long gray coats and fedoras suggest the
1930s, when Fascism was at its high tide, and genetic discrimination
more acceptable.  This sort of style is also somewhat embodied in the
cars, and the look of the high end night clubs.

Well, there are some flaws.  The, uh, cosmetic flaws include the
unnoticed necessary condition of the main character looking like, say,
Ethan Hawke, instead of looking like, say, me.  Ethan Hawke can pass
himself off as a genetically scuplted uebermensch to Gattaca Human
Resources and Uma Thurman; I doubt I can.  While there may not be a
gene for the human spirit, Our Hero wouldn't have gotten far without
looking good in the thousand dollar suit.

There are nice touches to the film, touches that add credibility to
this world, a necessity for science fiction.  One is the Genetic
LoveTest, sort of like http://www.lovetest.com, but where you enter
hair or saliva samples instead of Zodiac signs.  Yes, genetic testing
trickling down to the advertisement-supported mass market.  True, the
filmmakers were trying to convey how twisted this society is by having
this sort of genetic assay be par for the course, but I just liked the
furtive, cyberpunk grungy seediness of the whole thing.

For the larger issues, I'm of two minds about the films portrayal of
genetic discrimination.  Many of the traits mentioned in the film,
especially the positive ones, may well have tendencies because of
genetics, but they are also strongly influenced by environment.  A
tendency for lung cancer may only be expressed if that person smoked.
Some gene for musical talent won't matter one jot if that person
mangled his hand in some childhood accident.  Contingencies of the
environment matter.  More strongly, genes are carriers of evolutionary
information, and nothing more.  We know very clearly that they do not
constitute the entire person.  I have doubts that any reasonable
society would ignore this.

I also don't have serious problems with using genetics to correct clear
biological problems, like diabetes or tendencies for breast cancer.
Genetic technology, like most technologies, can be used for both good
and evil.  It's up to the culture using it to determine that
congenitcal heart defects are something to be addressed, while hair
color is not.

Perhaps I have more faith in such matters than I should.  Culture cuts
both ways.  Even primitive assays can be used for what we would call
evil purposes.  Consider China's shortfall of baby girls, because the
culture places prominence on firstborn sons.  Simple miotic fluid
assays are sufficient to cause this deficit, to say nothing of
sophisiticated genetic tests.

Arguably, this is the practice of leaving babies on the mountaintop
made more precise.  Interestingly, the filmmakers, on one of the DVD
extras, seem to claim that once the Human Genome Project is complete,
we will begin to control our own evolution.  This is clearly wrong:
we've been controlling our own evolution since the beginnings of
civilization, as natural selection no longer really applies.  Culture
has a long shadow.

The film also trips lightly past the issue of remediation after birth.
It appears that all of medical technology has wilted away in favor of
genetic intervention during conception (for that matter, detective
works seems to have suffered a similiar wilting, but that's a plot
matter rather than a thematic one).  Treating, say, heart murmers with
surgery, or high cholesterol with diet and exercise  seems to have
slipped everyone's mind.  This blindness to what medical technology
should be able to do in this world is symptomatic of the pure focus on
genetic consequences.

The DVD, which, unfortunately, I only had for one night, has a
selection of "lost" scenes, which were cut for pacing or thematic
reasons.  In particular, the "Coda" sequence -- over a starry
background text noting that the Human Genome Project is nearing
completion, and that many of the Most Interesting People of the
Millennium had genetic defects -- was thankfully, tactfully cut.  The
filmmakers perhaps realized that they were approaching serious overkill
by whipping out the central theme and repeatedly slapping the audience
with it.