Assignment:
This Film Response Journal is based on your readings from
SECTION I: NATURAL IMPERFECTION AND HUMAN LONGING
Chapter: The Search for Perfection
Andrew M. Niccol, Gattaca
Watch the film Gattaca
1. Throughout their lives, Vincent and Irene were told they were sick and incapable. Vincent seems never to have yielded to this, while Irene did. Why do they respond so differently to the same influence? Does the importance Vincent attaches to the value of risk ring true?
2. Does his willingness to take risks make Vincent more or less perfect?
3. Does the way we live with our particular capacities and attributes depend on how we acquired them?
4. Who would be responsible for the actions or products of an altered human, the alterer or the altered? Whom might you consider more perfect?
5. When the film Gattaca was first released, as part of a marketing campaign there were adverts for people to call and have their children genetically engineered. Thousands of people called, wanting to have their offspring genetically engineered. Does this surprise you? Why or why not?
6. Does the story come across better in the textbook or in the film? Of the more successful medium, why do you think that that is?