1. I assigned Gattaca in my bioethics class & I don't regret it. One of the premises of the film is that everyone is miserable. The "invalids" are unhappy because they're oppressed, but the "valids" are also unhappy because they can never live up to the culture's eugenics ideal..
2. or even fulfil their supposed potential as "valids." Jude Law's character, a "valid," can't accept that he came in second in swimming competition in spite of his "superior genes." He becomes paralysed after trying to kill himself...
3. Uma Therman's character, another "valid," is unhappy because she has a cardiovascular disability in spite of being "enhanced" in vitro, and she's popping pills to deal with the stress. "Newgenics" has created a culture of fear, loneliness, and misery...
4. How far is this dystopian reality from our own ableist culture? ...
5. In a society that medicalises, oppresses, and devalues disability, a society in which eugenicists like Savulescu and Singer want to eliminate disability via reproductive technologies and infanticide, how happy are even the most able-bodied people?...
6. How secure are able-bodied people in their status and privilege, knowing that they will age and become disabled? ...
7. In "The Capacity Contract," Stacy Simplican says that we live in a culture of fear and insecurity created by a social contract that makes political enfranchisement and personhood status contingent on able-bodiedness...
8. As a result of this contract, no one feels "able" enough, everyone worries about losing status and power due to the real or perceived loss of "ability." So how far are we from Gattaca, really? ...
9. The film doesn't just raise questions about the future but shines a light on the role that ableist eugenics ALREADY plays in our culture, in our personal thoughts and feelings, in the structure of our social institutions.
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