​​​​​​​Analysis of Gattaca Movie

Perfection is not possible and even though it sounds appealing, I don't believe we want a perfect society. The movie Gattaca shows this perfectly, the world is a seemingly perfect place where people can be the best of themselves and live a longer, stronger, happier life. And it seems like it would be true, with the ability to choose your unborn child's DNA, which gets rid of disease or any “imperfections'' that might occur if the baby was born biologically. The problem with this is the fact that not every child is born from genetic engineering, which means they're people who don't have the superior genes that are praised in this society. Also the pressure to be perfect in this world is incredibly strong since every person is supposed to be the perfect version of themselves. 

Examples of these situations are Vincent, an in-valid who was born the natural way and does not have genetically advanced traits, and Jerome who is a valid that is basically genetically perfect. Throughout the movie we see how Vincent has to live his life looking through a window staring at the perfect people in their perfect life on the other side of the glass. A relationship that is heavily expressed with this in mind is the one he has with his brother, Anton. Anton is Vincent's younger brother who was genetically engineered just like most of the population, so naturally he was better at a lot of things than Vincent, even things he couldn't help such as height. This caused the two brothers to become very competitive of each other, for Vincent he wanted to prove his worth as a person who is looked upon as less than in this society, and it also didn't help the fact that his parents held him down from his dreams; but for Anton it was about proving he was better than the genetically weaker person, just as he was designed to be. With the lack of support in his family and from the people around him Vincent runs away to pursue his new life as a perfect person in the perfect world, but it makes you think if the world is such a perfect place if people have to change who they are to be happy. 

On the opposite end of this spectrum we have Jerome, who is the person giving up his identity so Vincent can live out his life in this genoist society. He is a genetically modified “valid” person that, as found out by Irine, has a high DNA rating, he's the kind of person you think of when thinking of a model for this futuristic society. We find out that Jerome was a competitive swimmer and the thing he holds onto throughout the movie is his second place medal, a second place medal for a person that was built to be first place. We don't get to see much of his internal dialog but what we do know is that after a drunken confession it comes to light that Jerome's accident of getting hit by a car was no accident and actually a suicide attempt. He lied about being drunk and even claimed it was the most sober he's been in his entire life. This just shows no matter how “perfect” a person is they will always have problems facing them,and for Jerome all of the stress of being the perfect swimmer and having his career end up meaning nothing at the end just led to the attempt he made on his life and then eventually the final act of burning himself alive. In this act we see a close up of the second place medal, showing how the story for Jerome had come full circle. 

With the evidence that these two people in this story can't be happy with themselves unless they change who they are or they are the best of the best than it goes to show how you can't have a perfect society without having a group to deflect and not fit into the norms of the society, and have the people this perfect place was meant for still not be happy. No matter how hard we try, perfection is never guaranteed in anything we do and forcing it will just end in a bigger predicament than if we let people be imperfect but happy with themselves and accepted by the world.