Genetic Engineering Depicted In The Film 'Gattaca'

To start, nearly everyone in the film Gattaca has been genetically engineered from birth. The main character, Vincent, is one of the few people that was born without the enhancement which means he has defects such as bad eyesight and a heart condition. He had always wanted to go into space, but because of his lack of genetic engineering, he isn’t considered suitable for the job. As a way to make his dream possible, Vincent takes on a new identity that belonged to an athlete who had become crippled in a car accident. Vincent, now with the new identity Jerome, is scheduled to go into space, and also finds a love interest, all while making sure to avoid detection when it comes to giving DNA samples. As Vincent struggles to work around his unaltered genetics, the audience can’t help to think about the morality involved in tampering with another person’s make up. Vincent says “we now have discrimination down to a science.” Throughout his life, he knew that he was considered lesser than those around him who were genetically engineered. Even his parents acted like he was lesser compared to Anton, his brother. Vincent does not believe that genetic engineering makes a person superior to those who
I found it to be enlightening as the plot showed both the positive effects and the negative effects. On one hand, genetically altering a child could be beneficial so that child would not have to worry about bad genes. Vincent was not genetically altered and, because of his heart condition, was not expected to live past thirty. His brother was altered and doesn’t have to worry about genetic flaws killing him or making life difficult. On the other hand, problems such as discrimination or lack of career choices may ensue. Vincent struggled with these things before he became Jerome. Once he became Jerome, he still struggled to keep these things from continuing to plague his