INTL-3111-001

R. Arnold
Anu Barbara Jolkkonen Jurgens
12/7/2016

Essay about Politics and Culture in Gattaca

I will analyze how individuals hold power and can influence a
technologically perfect system which is used to increase efficiency and make
the world perfect. Gattaca is a film that tells the story of a normal boy born
in to the dystopian world of Gattaca with the dream to travel to space and
how he reaches this goal. The society consists of normal human beings and a
superior class of perfect humans without genetical risks. I compare this film
with the book The Circle which is about an all transparent society with all
knowledge over everything, everybody is ever social media. To see how the
different approaches, change the outcome and what remains similar and
why. The Circle is used as tool box to inquire into Gattaca. This tool box
helps me find out how individuals have the power to change the outcome
within the perfect system and how this affect humanity. This analysis will
take you on a journey through the story line by stripping down parts and
their effects on the culture, system of society, and population.
The film starts with Vincent Anton being born as a God-child, that
means the woman got pregnant from sex. The fetus DNA combination is the
choice of God, not of a doctor. However, at his birth his parents were not

happy about their choice, because they got to hear that Vincent Anton had
many high predispositions for diseases. The specialists predicted that he
would die after having lived 30.2 years of a heart disease. His parents
experience discrimination in the society and they treat Vincent Anton
differently because of his predispositions for diseases almost as if he is
already being sick (0:09:00-0:11:00). This shows how the knowledge about
the high possibility of getting a disease changes the behavior of people in an
irrational way. It is discrimination based uniquely on DNA and those who do
not meet the standards are called defective (Clarke, 190). It is taken as
fact rather than as a possibility almost like in The Circle. It was assumed
May would like Portugal just because of a couple posts about her trip to
Portugal. So, just because of a possibility that May would like Portugal from
her post. It had become taken that she likes Portugal, which obviously wasnt
the case (Eggers, 111). So, in both stories we see a high possibility is taken
as a fact which leaves out the possibility of error.
Later the brother of Vincent Anton, called Anton, was born as a perfect
doctor designed baby the situation got worse for Vincent. Their parents
spend a lot of time trying to convince Vincent, that he would never be as
good as his perfect brother. His brother got the DNA of a winner and he had
DNA with a lot of handicaps and nobody would ever risk giving him a chance
because of the predicted failure given by his DNA (0:12:37-0:16:45). Vincent
would try to defeat his brother in swimming far out in the ocean and back.
However, most of the times he lost which was not a surprise. But one day he

did defeat his brother, this gave him the proof that he could achieve his
goals. So, he left the unsupportive family to live alone with the hope and
faith in himself (0:16:45-0:19:00). However, in the Circle hope and faith is
suppressed by enforcing total transparency which eliminates the possibilities
to work on ones own dreams without sharing them with the world.
Everything about everybody is recorded and published. This way nobody can
escape the facts about themselves. The results are suicide like the case of
Mercer or the mental breakdown in the case of Annie (Eggers, 466). This
shows clearly how the lack of hope and faith in the change of ones own life
impacts the wellbeing of people in a very profound way. So, out of both
stories it can be concluded that it is existentially important to have hope and
faith to change ones own destiny of life.
The major turning point in the movie Gattaca is when Vincent
eventually gets to be part of the Space station by tricking the system with
the help of a DNA perfect man named Jerome. Jerome has perfect DNA but
he ended up in a wheelchair because of an accident. This accident was
unpredicted, which shows that not everything in life is predictable. Moreover,
Jerome never had any dreams or strong desires to achieve anything even if
he had the perfect predisposition for it (0:22:30-0:30:00). It is the perfect
example of someone who has everything but cant appreciate it because of a
lack of goals and now he lost his ability to achieve anything because of his
disability. This ties perfectly into the claim made in the film review that in
Gattaca it would be proclaimed that a gene for human spirit would not exist

(Kevin). So, Jerome needs Vincent who has a goal and is spirit but lack of the
perfect DNA to achieve his goal. Together both have everything needed to
trick the system of Gattaca with some help of an insider (0:22:30-0:30:00).
This resembles the role of Ty alias Kalden in The Circle he knows
everything and would have the total control to trick or manipulate the Circle
in any way, if he would like to. He has access to all the physical data which is
the main source of the power over the cultural values and beliefs of The
Circle. However, he never takes the chance to manipulate anything directly
even if he sees the devastating results of the missing privacy. He tries to use
Mae to break up The Circle for him by announcing how important the right
of privacy would be (Eggers, 490). Unfortunately, the book ends without
telling whether Mae would ever do so but the last pages indicate that she is
not motivated to do so, therefore it can be assumed that it will never
happen. In Gattaca, an insider helps Vincent and Jerome trick the system of
Gattaca (0:22:30-0:30:00). The success of this was only possible because the
doctor who controls the employees never reports his doubts about Vincent
being Jerome, which he always had, as he eventually reveals at the end of
the film. Vincent must provide a urine sample before boarding the space
shuttle and he cannot provide Jeromes urine therefore he does not pass the
test. Vincent, thinks that is it. He wont fly into space when the doctor says
that he knew it all the time because no right-handed man would hold it in his
left hand while providing a urine sample except Vincent (1:38:00-1:40:00).
This shows how human intuition sometimes is better than scientific samples.

The power over the success or failure of the system is in hands of the
judgement and actions of individuals and their decisions.
Over all The Circle is an example of a system successfully controlling
the destiny of the individuals of its society because of the lack on
intervention of some individual which would have the power to change or
sabotage the system to give people the power to change their life. On the
other hand, Gattaca shows us a system which tries to achieve perfection by
taking predictions as facts but which is undermined by individuals allowing
others to trick the system to live up to their dreams. This shows how
important it is to not take 99 % possibility as being absolute fact. We need to
allow the 1 % to have a chance to be the truth. We need to allow the fact
that even science might be wrong and human faith and intuition might be
right. This goes along with the thoughts of moral criticism on the
technologized social future which happens beyond our influence. We need
those Trojan horses to stop our American capitalistic drive for a white middleclass future (Kirk, 634-635). A Trojan horse is someone who sneak in the
system to sabotage it. Finally, it is important to have hope and faith in
influencing ones own destiny. This right is granted by other individuals who
are in power within the system. So, a perfect system is only as perfect as the
individuals who are part of the system. This means there is hope for a
perfectly imperfect world, in which God is perfect and all-knowing and
humanity is a working progress of human beings dreaming about the selfrealization of perfection allowing the chance of error.

Works cited

Clarke, Julie. "Human by Design: Gattaca." Screen Education. 2007.46

(2007). Print.
Davies, Kevin. "Discrimination Down to a Science." Nature. 390.6655 (1997).
Print.
Eggers, Dave. The Circle. Waterville, ME: Thorndike, 2014. Print.
Gattaca, Directed by Andrew Niccol, Written by Andrew Niccol, Performance
by Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, Jude Law, Columbia
Pictures, 1998. Movie.
Junker, Kirk W. "Gattaca: Defacing the Future." Futures. 31.6 (1999): 631-635.
Print.