Tenzin Chodak
ENG 101-0768
Dr. Vasileiou
Essay #1
10/09/2012
The Land Of Dystopia
Utopia is an ideally perfect place. In the utopian world, everyone must have same opinion in order to obey each other and form one leader or government which is agreed by everyone to have a peaceful surroundings. The world shown in Gattaca is highly equipped with solar powers, advanced in the science and technology, but this does not indicate people in Gattaca are enjoying the utopian world. Beside these merits, people living in that world were discriminated in order to get into Gattaca space mission, it created hatred between Vincent from his own brother Anton. It also oppressed Vincent from the death of his mission director who was killed in his cabin.
Discriminations should not be held in utopian world. When Vincent was born with major down syndromes, even his very own parents were humiliated to keep his name as Anton. Instead, his brother, who was two years younger than him, was named Anton. Anton turned out to be better in any fields and sports than his brother. Vincent was always dreaming to get in the Gattaca space mission, but there was not much of a chance for him to get in it because of the birth defects he had. He always wanted to prove himself as better in activities than Anton. Therefore, to get selected in the space mission, he was genetically engineered to Jerome Morrow, who stood the second position. If the world presented in Gattaca a utopia, then there should never be such discrimination which occurred in Vincent’s life.
Physically and mentally, Vince was not as good as his brother and he was helpless because his parents care much more about Anton. Vincent had a high motivation and therefore, there were hatreds between him and his brother. They always challenged each other, especially in a game called chicken game. In this game, whoever turns back sooner from swimming towards the depth of ocean, considered as “loser”. In our everyday life, we often hear unpleasant and shocking murder cases amongst families due to hatreds, feuds and other problems. For instance, “Luisa-Marie Brown, a 7-year-old latina girl, was killed by her stepfather for eating his yogurt. She was tied with duct tape to a chair and beaten to death, with fists, slaps and a blunt object by her step-father who was sentenced for murder in court. The little girl's mother did nothing about the torture and even assisted her boyfriend in beating her to death”, according to the liveleak.com. That is why anger and hatred should never occur in utopian world, so that there will not be jaw dropping murder cases such as Luisa-Marie Brown’s.
In the movie Gattaca, when the mission director had been killed in his cabin, the investigators
highly suspected Vincent as the murderer because they found a piece of his eye lash at the victim’s cabin during the crime scene. Apparently, Vincent was genetically engineered to Jerome Morrow and his status in the mission was not valid as Vincent, he had to hide just incase if he was accused in guilty of charge. Or else, they would terminate him from the mission and most probably other charges on him as well.
Some people may say that Gattaca is a perfect place for people to live, just because of the facilities and the technologies provided by the scientists. But Gattaca is definitely not a utopia because of all the disadvantages. Requiring specific type of gene to get into the
space mission program, murdering of the mission director, and suicidal of Jerome Morrow. Do these such incidents happen in utopian world?
After all, I believe that for those who were qualified for the Gattaca space mission were living similar to the utopian world, but overall, Gattaca is dystopia because of the discrimination, murder and suicidal occurs there as our world.
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