Art always exists in a difficult balance between authorial intent and audience interpretation.
This has been a highlight of recent online discourses over the issue of “media literacy.” Consider the anti-fascist themes of “Starship Troopers” or “Helldivers II” that can be appreciated by a casual audience that merely finds the material entertaining and doesn’t engage with the satire (or actively rejects those thematic readings).
Art does not always need to be interpreted as it is intended.
The dynamics and themes within a film can take on new meanings over time. Whether you defend auteur theory or “death of the author,” a creator’s ability to communicate ideas to their audience is always in tension with audiences themselves.
At some point, the strongest proponents of authorial intent have to cede that audiences will interact with the art as they see fit and that it can take on new meanings.
And this was something I reflected on this past weekend rewatching “Gattaca” for the first time in a decade. As I enjoyed this classic 1997 work of science fiction, it began to dawn on me that the premise of its film spoke to one of the more difficult issues facing this election cycle—In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).
“Gattaca’s” themes are not hard to discern.
Director Andrew Niccol has built an impressive career writing and directing high-concept, socially conscious science fiction films like “The Truman Show,” “In Time” and “Anon,” in addition to the excellent anti-war drama “Lord of War.”
“Gattaca” specifically tackles the topics of racism and discrimination, showing a dystopian society where genetic engineering prevents disease and breeds near-perfect humans perfectly suited to society’s needs.
Set in the near future, “Gattaca” reveals incredible scientific progress. Rockets explore the solar system, genetic engineering has become prophetic and science allows for miracles. Unfortunately, the world of Gattaca has become hostile to “faith births” or other non-engineered human reproduction.
While the law prevents discrimination, it goes unenforced.
Natural-born humans are forced into unsatisfying labor jobs while their genetically pure brethren become elite athletes and scientists. This is unless “invalids” can buy a “valid” person’s identity and live in their place, which our protagonist Vincent (Ethan Hawke) does to achieve his goal of becoming an astronaut.
The film’s premise is innately anti-eugenic, and its murder mystery trappings highlight the logistical challenges of a world where the undesirable castes are screened out through frequent blood draws and DNA sequencing.
The film’s premise also speaks to the problems of genetic engineering in general. The process of engineering humans from their conception sidelines Christians as second-class citizens. It also devalues human life in its attempt to improve it by eliminating chronic illness and disease.
These medicines only become tools for corporate ladder climbing and profit while the undesirable classes suffer for reasons outside their control.
How far would you go to make your dreams a reality?
Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Jude Law star in Gattaca. Now on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/MhprfTmzNL
— Netflix (@netflix) March 31, 2022
In the film’s lengthy prologue, we learn that Vincent was born to a Catholic family on a passionate night between young lovers, as evidenced by a rosary hanging from their car’s mirror. The couple sees the pregnancy out to completion, where doctors genetically screen the baby and learn he will likely only live to 30.2 years due to genetic defects.
This disturbs them enough to seek genetic screening for their second child, with four designer embryos being successfully fertilized for the couple to implant at their leisure. Three of them are discarded and the fourth becomes Vincent’s younger brother Anton (Loren Dean) — who doesn’t have to suffer the indignity of living as a “faith birth” with limited opportunities in the genetic economy.
“Gattaca’s” horror is rooted in a progressive’s desire to combat dehumanization and discrimination, but the biological realities of In-Vitro Fertilization echo those of the processes we see in the film. The callousness of doctors casually throwing away fertilized embryos or reading off death statistics to a newborn’s mother speaks to IVF’s antiseptic and antihuman challenges.
On February 16, the state of Alabama stirred a national debate on IVF when its state supreme court ruled in favor of a family suing a fertility clinic after it accidentally destroyed several embryos because they qualify as human beings under the law.
The decision sent the IVF industry into apoplectic fear. Supporters worried the ruling could result in practitioners being sued, due to the process regularly resulting in embryos being destroyed in the process.
The issue, coming in the aftermath of Roe vs. Wade being struck down by the Supreme Court, became hotly debated. Pro-choice advocates pointed out the strange, seeming contradiction of pro-lifers pushing back against a medical procedure that helps families conceive children despite fertility issues.
However, IVF critics regard the process as an affront to the sanctity of life by commodifying childbirth and discarding healthy fertilized embryos, fueling a conditional attitude towards the value of human life. The two largest religious denominations in the U.S., the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, have formally condemned the practice.
The Catholic Church released its official stance in its 1987 document Donum Vitae, warning that “the practice of keeping alive human embryos in vivo or in vitro for experimental or commercial purposes is totally opposed to human dignity.”
However, 74 percent of Americans support IVF, which makes it a challenging issue for pro-life activists to rally around. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties have rushed to affirm their approval of IVF as a pro-family policy.
On August 29, President Donald Trump announced that his administration would even make IVF treatments free through government or private means and drawing the ire of his pro-life supporters for attempting to mandate the practice on the taxpayer dime.
IVF is a tricky subject for all of the reasons listed above.
Secular conservatives have been quick to jettison the criticism, with commentators like Richard Hanania pointing out that “They keep using ‘eugenic’ as an anti-health slur. No one on earth who doesn’t already accept your religious views will agree with you.”
Post-Christian America isn’t interested in having this debate, especially when Republicans are otherwise pushing pro-natal policies. The implications of IVF are irrelevant. Many religious people even hold utilitarian but otherwise understandable views, disagreeing with their churches, on the subject because IVF helps them live out the family values they believe in.
Ironically though, this is something “Gattaca” does well by accident. The antiseptic world of the near future shows you the banal horrors of a world where human life is easy to throw away from the outset. The problem doesn’t stay in the womb.
It grows until you’ve got secret police hunting down invalids in the streets. The same doctors who help conceive you become the same people who tell you where you’re allowed to live and work. Your value as a human becomes reducible to the blood in your veins. The fruit of these borderline eugenic policies is an antihuman world of casual discrimination and sterility.
Niccol almost certainly never imagined his film could speak to an issue like this, given his progressive credentials. His films deal with racism, income inequality, existentialism and the horrors of technology and the media.
He’s probably mortified by the current dialog on reproductive issues. That said, his films don’t exist in a vacuum. Unintentionally, “Gattaca’s” fear of dehumanization echoes the same fear that IVF critics do in their activism.
If nothing else, it’s a valuable warning to those who defend IVF otherwise to beware of possible negative outcomes.
Tyler Hummel is a Wisconsin-based freelance critic and journalist, a member of the Music City Film Critics Association and the 2021 College Fix Fellow at Main Street Nashville.
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