Monday, February 27, 2012

GATTACA reflection

1. I believe that we would not be able to exclude all the misfits from society. Even in a seemingly perfect human being, doctors would be able to find a flaw connected to their health. However, if by some strange way, perfectly healthy human beings were born, and all the other were excluded, the society would go into anarchy. Most companies would want to start hiring the perfect human  beings, and many people would be left jobless, hungry and barely surviving. In my opinion, this would be absurd, because just because some people do not have perfect physical predispositions to be successful in their professions, doesn't mean that their hard work and dedication wont pay off, and aid them to become as good as the "perfect" human beings.

3. I believe that Gerome and Vincent are two quite different human beings, and their looks on life differ a great deal. Vincent is very driven, and has a great wish to succeed. His dream is all that matters to him, and he wants to become the best that he can be, despite having a serious heart condition. Gerome, on the other hand, belongs to the human kind that is "perfect". He, however, doesn't appreciate this fact. Even the smallest loss seemed like a huge deal to him. It takes a lot of disappointment and unhappiness to attempt to kill yourself twice. This also shows that Gerome simply gave up, and had no ambition to get somewhere in life. It might sound strange, but, in my opinion, Vincent and Gerome do not represent mirror images of each other, at all.

4. I do believe that Gerome was mentally ill. He obviously dealt with severe depression, was suicidal, and was unnaturally harsh towards himself. Gerome saw the negative side of everything, and he seemed like a very gloomy and depressed character. His depression reached to those levels that even after he won a medal he decided to hurt himself because he wasn't the "top" one. Honestly, the fact that no one tried to help him with his depression is really sad, and the fact that Gerome was so easily forgotten by his friends and family after he gave his DNA to Vincent is quite puzzling to me.

18. I do not believe that human cloning should be permitted. Everybody in this world is a unique, different, person, and creating clones would severely disturb the balance that exists in our society. It would be completely wrong to keep re-creating one person, when there are so many other beings that deserve a chance at life.  It is morally and ethically wrong to clone someone. Cloning would mean that another person could keep living your life, without going through some of the pain, the disappointments and the experiences you have been through. I don't quite grasp the concept of why someone would want to duplicate themselves. There is no point of there being another, exact same copy of yourself. Cloning would also waste the precious resources that are slowly dwindling on our planet. The Earth is over-populated even today, and I cannot imagine how serious the situation could become if people started cloning themselves.

I believe that GATTACA was a good movie, and that it held a powerful and important message. Some of the scientific approaches to this movie are quite complex, and, at times, it was difficult for me to understand what was going on. However, I caught up quickly. This movie has a more serious note to it, and I really like it, mostly for that reason. In a very harsh way, it represents the reality of human nature, and what the values in our society could become in the near future. 
This movie was similar to Cracking the Code of Life, but there were some differences. I believe that Cracking the Code of Life explained the basics of our DNA, and it introduced us to what scientists have found out so far. However, in GATTACA, the approach to genetics was taken a step further. GATTACA explored the idea of perfect humans and cloning others' DNA. I also believe that GATTACA explored the social, moral and ethical issues more than Cracking the Code of Life. This is why the relationships VIncent has with Gerome, his colleagues, his brother and his girlfriend made up quite a  great part of the movie's plot.