Science in "Gattaca"

Author(s): Angela Flury and Eric S. Rabkin

Source: PMLA, Vol. 119, No. 5 (Oct., 2004), pp. 1356-1357
Published by: Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25486131
Accessed: 13-08-2014 16:47 UTC

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1356

Forum

PMLA

Glasser
and

to time

and bring

"Muck"?

scholars

dip

to our

also

into
attention

from

neglected
for crap.

gems."

spa

mud bath. Philip Roth, for example, is publishing an

a new Roth

When
tion

subgeneric

I say:

ism,

in science

there

is only

one

textist

critics:

enough

with

already
Enough

already

fic

em
text

dullness,

model

may

Glasser's

to turn her phaser

want

or at least

5. Barr

I emphasize

Marleen

that a recent
Committee

as an ex

in works

that

suggests

is alive
are

circles.

fictional

on Earth;

the force was

it killed

a science

with

and well

still

fiction

critical

she

on Mars.

here

is a pacifist

who,

She

declined.

remaining

anthol

says

that
to

Underwater

Branch

Reply:
I appreciate

the

comments

by Perry

Glasser

the

Carl Freedman
Baton

Rouge

in Gattaca

end

of Eric

S. Rabkin's

"paraplegic's

in a serious

ideological

with

in the end
receives

attempt
For

grain.

the kind

that

of

leaves

the

self-serving
in

everything

subversive

but gives

characters)

help

in

in re

nothing

the film

of his

at the
offs himself
conveniently
once he has served his pur

his

on earth.

place

for him

ically

handicapped

to use

clouded

phys

that ge

Jay Gould's
annihilated

of the individual that in the 1950s

any widespread

as a depressing
it's secret,

constitutes

hands,

Stephen

to

of science

distrust

effectively

phrasing?is

longer

is the really

suggesting

in the wrong

of man,

by the mythos

The

stipulates?in

predisposition,

and

yet he

character.

the narrative

is no

hero?there
And

identity

superior

genetically

inferior

the genetically

argument

planet
dream.

(American)

because

pose?providing

that

to a faraway

dystopia
own

eugenicist

the paraplegic
of

fiction,
argument

am

personal

The

only

sly,

science

the achievement

here,

To the Editor:
broader

of

into generalized

whose

protagonist

the earthly

ittown

The

the film's

supporting

already

Science

manifestation

an astronaut.

as heroism

read

a mismeasure

State University,

bolsters

turn, so thatwe may celebrate his final escape from

netic

and by Julia Douthwaite.

Louisiana

its protagonist,

University

Equatorial

Crater

of

aligns

And

Shulamyth Squidsky
Mars

be

other

as

fight fire with fire by speaking truth to textism.

Gusev

to

it continues
it also

but

fighting an unjust system (from the paraplegic and

wishes

She

unphased,

out of distrust

struggle to climb the double helix," as Rabkin sees

tact:

com

in part

"a distrust

[s] to turn us

"threaten

individualism

science

the MLA

earlier,

pulp" (465), Gattaca puts its trust (and ours) in the

movie

ogy dead. I told Barr that I could get her a phaser

wholesale

the machine

to go against

Publications

textism

academic

already

a decade

a distrust in science. Unlike Chaplin's film, inwhich

it, can

reported

born

is a (genuine)

that Gattaca

is to become

Phasers

in some

set

Times,
had

faith" (472).My point of contention lies in this prop

efforts

the MLA

was

like Gattaca,

heroic

Barr

the communist,

Depression,

Rabkin,

bition

Convention,
with

writes

and

setting

implicate

Modern

worker-man

fiction

are right on target.

of the Interplanetary Feminist

experience

mittee?and

to stun,

chooses

Scholars

Fiction

Science

kill

that the phaser

S. Barr

At the last meeting

S. Barr

direction":

onto

Chaplin's

of the American

the mechanical

osition

that "Marleen
from

essay

exaggerated?through

projected

other. Charlie

"Science

State University

down

it in the right

point

traterrestrial,
direction

remark

as
and

helpful

in his

culture

fiction?and

manifest

PS. Regarding

system?is

photographs

its popular

that

science

of science,"

Montclair

in, as well

partakes

thereby participating, as Rabkin rightly suggests, "in

the cultural system of science fiction" (465).

elitism.
Marleen

fiction

cultural

theUnited States of the 1950s in the same industrial

satirized

oy!

the antiquated

The

in the years

collec

with

activates,

"mindless"

America.

against

is ensconced

for elitist,

on genre.
and

novel

muck-crap,

tive exclamation

phasis

The Plot

novel,

alternative-history

a larger

persuasive.

in the

an elite

science

457-73)?that

time

But,

connotes

muck

market,

serious

hope

the muck

is a synonym

Muck
fiction

present

can

"We

states,

readers

ant

voiceless,

too, warrants

farm.
an

a certain

If there's

insider
distrust,

"Sci

ence Fiction and the Future of Criticism" (119 [2004]:

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of Lev

recognition

distrust

joke. Science
I think.

Angela Flury
DePauw

University

Forum

exertion

Reply:
I am
the overall
prised
Gattaca

that Angela

pleased

in my

arguments

that

she

a distrust

of

analysis

one

of

character's

I am

but

essay,

with

disagrees

displays

with

agrees

Flury

comment

my

science.

that

While
in

escape

sur

the

her
film

rightly suggests that society's technologically

bolstered system of control is not foolproof, the
extraordinary
suggest
those

that
efforts

efforts
the

necessary

control

at evasion

and the likelihood

is all
constitute

to evade

control

total.

most

of

great

That

suspense.

characters

in this

beauty
raw

power

of

to stillness.

struggle
less happy
our

for

a residual

almost
We

promi

the

society

leave

the protagonist

always
the

of

image

in a world

struggle

science

leave

the

the society remains un

the viewer

leaves
of human

of

most

who

evasion

by flight or death while

changed

most

luck generates

good

those

cooperate

nently

about
but

and

the

chokes

that

theater,

than we

the

where

I think,

are worried

future.

Indeed,

Eric 5. Rabkin

the film,

of their failure absent heroic

University

of Michigan,

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Ann

Arbor

1357