The Dire Prophecy and Subversive Genius of Gattaca

Elon and I were not 'together' despite the claims circulating. Elon and I used IVF with PGT-M & CRISPR to ensure our baby had the best traits.
Elon managed the process and assured me everything would be alright. Our little one's DNA now includes enhancements from other organisms for superior intelligence & health and we couldn't be happier.

The above quote is from a fake tweet purported to be from a third-rate fascist influencer who shall go unnamed here. While the tweet is fake, the technologies mentioned are real. Well, the bit about using DNA from other organisms is still science fiction, as far as I know. Regardless, the thought that America's most hated edgelord would try to genetically enhance his children sounded plausible to make the fake tweet go viral.

This, of course, means next to nothing. However it does give me an excuse to talk about one of my favorite movies, so I'll pretend it is significant anyway. The point is, if billionaires were to start using such tech to give their brood a biological edge over their peers, I imagine the result would look something like the 1997 science fiction masterpiece Gattaca.

Mama, where do babies come from? Well you see honey, when two people love each other very much they hire a genetic engineering company to make a baby for them. A geneticist then selects the best genes from each person and tosses them in a tumbler with some tomato juice and vodka. This is, more or less, the world presented in Gattaca. Minus the tomato juice part. I have no idea how gene editing actually works.

This is a movie that shit the bed at the box office but still managed to become part of our cultural lexicon. Like a lot of great science fiction it wrestles with the societal fears of the time. All new technology comes with new ethical concerns, and in the 90s the field of genomics was blowing up. Gattaca was released the same year scientists managed to clone a mammal for the first time. These advances made ethical dilemmas that were once only academic exercises become much more real to average people. Gattaca became cultural shorthand for the moral hazards posed by genetic manipulation.

The film tells the story of Vincent Freeman, played by Ethan Hawke, who was conceived without any genetic tampering. His parents' decision to procreate "the old-fashioned way" condemns Vincent to a life of struggle inside a de facto caste system based on genetics. He is presumed to be weak and fragile from the moment he is born. He can't get into a good elementary school as a toddler because the school's insurance policy won't cover him. When he gets older he dreams of being an astronaut but no matter how hard he studies he is automatically disqualified based on his genetic profile. The closest he can get to his dream is cleaning toilets at the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. As he puts it:

I belonged to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we now have discrimination down to a science.

-Vincent Freeman in Gattaca

In a way, Gattaca is a fairly straightforward tale of perseverance in the face of oppression. Vincent makes an arrangement with the genetically gifted Jerome Morrow, played by Jude Law, who became a paraplegic after throwing himself into traffic one day. He borrows Jerome's genetic identity in exchange for sharing his income. This lets Vincent land his dream job without so much as an interview. Meanwhile Vincent's younger brother Anton, played by Loren Dean, grows up to become a detective who finds himself on the hunt for his sibling. Vincent manages to evade Anton through most of the movie, all while flirting with his coworker Irene Cassini, played by Uma Thurman.

If you watch Gattaca in the background while you're cooking dinner or something, you might even get a Horatio Alger, rags-to-riches vibe from the story. But I think most common interpretations of the movie view it as a cautionary tale about the dangers of eugenics, a vision of a possible future we should strive to avoid. That is what I took away from it when I first saw it many years ago. While true, that isn't all the movie is trying to say. Writer and director Andrew Niccol's other work reveals his interest in critiquing our capitalist society. Where his 2011 film In Time, which he has referred to as "the bastard child of Gattaca", dissects capitalism with all the subtlety of a rusty chainsaw, Gattaca does so like a skilled surgeon wielding a laser scalpel.

Consider Vincent's education. It is unclear whether he receives any formal education at all after being turned away from the elementary school. My guess is that he simply had to attend a less desirable school. It is implied that he teaches himself about space flight. He clearly has an aptitude for the subject, so it is not genetics holding him back but rather the societal belief in genetic determinism. Education is the first mechanism employed to maintain the social hierarchy.

If this sounds familiar to you I'm not surprised. Education in America plays a very similar role. "We want to give your child the best possible start," the geneticist tells Vincent's parents. One might hear something similar spoken to a parent enrolling their child in an expensive private school. Our public schools are not used to educate students but to prepare them for the workforce. For 12 years we are indoctrinated with America's founding mythology, taught to obey authority figures, follow rules, and live by a schedule that is mostly determined by others.

In Gattaca the most desirable jobs are reserved for those with the most suitable genetic makeup. This provides society with a thin veneer of meritocracy. Why wouldn't we want the most genetically qualified people for a given task? But just like in real life it is always those with power who determine what constitutes merit. In Gattaca those with power believe it is genetics that determine who has merit.

In real life determining merit is not nearly so clear-cut, but the dynamic is the same. It is ultimately the powerful who set the standards by which the rest of us are measured. Gattaca has instant DNA checkpoints while America has Ivy League schools and credit ratings to serve as socioeconomic gatekeepers.

Then there is Anton, who is a "valid", aka someone who is genetically engineered, aka a crime against nature. Vincent grows up to become a criminal in order to fulfill his dream of getting off this damned rock, while Anton grows up to become a cop. Anton's function is to preserve the status quo, as has ever been the purpose of law enforcement. This puts him in direct opposition to his brother, who is trying to claim a position in society that the status quo forbids.

As part of law enforcement Anton, operates in a realm between the upper and lower classes. The police show deference to the powerful and disdain for the powerless. For instance, when detective Hugo, played by Alan Arkin, questions the real Jerome he gets verbally berated. "How dare you question me?" Jerome asks the detective after calling him a moron. Hugo walks away to avoid further confrontation as Jerome continues spewing vitriol at him. When they begin their murder investigation the police automatically assume the perpetrator is an "in-valid", aka not crime against nature. One need not wait for a future dystopia to see such prejudices at play; they need only look at the racism that festers within police departments all over America today.

Gattaca is as finely crafted as a Stradivarius, with all the parts working together to pack a hell of a lot of meaning into the 112-minute runtime. The characters all maintain a sort of rigid politeness toward each other. That and the retrofuturistic aesthetic both evoke the quite oppression of the 50s. We also see a near pathological state of cleanliness throughout the film. Even the fenced-in detention area where the police question suspects is spartan. The people of this world have sterilized their utopia in their relentless drive for perfection. But as different as all this seems compared to our reality, in my estimation Gattaca is still more about the dystopian present than the dystopian future.