A review of Gattaca
Last night I saw this movie with my wife, who had already seen it some years ago. It is about our society “in the not-too-distant future”—when we have gotten to the point of micromanaging genetics.
In this utopian future, babies are engineered, not conceived. All risks of heart disease, cystic fibrosis, cancer, and the like are genetically eliminated, and so everyone but the naturally born are just about genetically immaculate.
The naturally born, however, are called “invalids.” No one will hire them, no matter how good their character, because their genes are too risky. They are more likely to die young, develop debilitating handicaps, catch diseases, and so on, so nobody wants them. As the main character puts it, “it doesn’t matter what color you are now. We have discrimination down to a science.”
I thought this movie was an excellent look at where the human race is likely headed if we keep today’s “bigger, greater, faster, mightier” mindset. Without spoiling the plot of the movie, I will tell you that the plot of course illustrates an alternative.
One other thing: there is plenty of room for thinking as I do about this matter: we will never know anything. After all, when the human genome (meaning, all of our genes) was mapped out, we found large sections of DNA that seemed to do nothing. Scientists call this “junk DNA.”
But now, we are rethinking things: is “junk DNA” really so useless?
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