Moral Issues in Film

Humanities 330 Values and Ethics – Moral Issues in Film

Robert Judd

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

“Consider the work of God; for whom can make straight that which He hath made crooked?”

Ecclesiastes 7:13

Gattaca (Niccol, 1997) is a fantastic science fiction film that attacks the notions of human superiority, control, and societal progression through genetic engineering. In a not too distant future a society has decided to genetically modify all human embryos in efforts to selectively engineer and remove all non-desirable physical obstructions. The parents of our hero have two children. One of these children, the hero, is born through natural means of conception in a moment of passion. The other child, his brother, is conceived with the help of a geneticist that presumably ‘weeds out’ or selects only the most perfect specimens of the father’s sperm and the mother’s eggs, and then goes beyond to make sure any negative genes/ predispositions are removed. The geneticist explains, “…this child is still you. Simply the best of you. You could conceive naturally a thousand times and never get such a result.”

Thus the hero goes throughout life growing up and knowing of his physical inferiorities to his peers, schoolmates, and younger brother. He becomes ill when others don’t, his vision requires correction (glasses), and he has a high percentage of developing a fatal heart condition. His own father even shows obvious favoritism towards his younger, more superior, brother and ultimately the hero runs away to pursue life on his own and his dreams of space exploration.

As an invalid, born naturally, the hero experiences the immediate and severe limitations this society confronts him with at all turns. He states, “I belonged to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we now have...