Ableism in Gattaca

I don’t quite know how to start this.

I pride myself on being eloquent, in my own (subjective) opinion. I shake every time I speak up in class or in a situation that doesn’t feel fully comfortable, but I have learned to trust that my voice will be there for me, that I can start speaking and will come off as articulate.

Not today.

I don’t like watching movies in school--not all movies, not all the time, but in general--and yesterday and today one of my classes was watching Gattaca. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether I’m shaky and rattled because of the suspense of an action movie, because of general anxiety, because of a low blood sugar, etcetera. But after the first half of Gattaca yesterday, I left the class knowing I did not like this movie and I did not want to see the rest. I couldn’t even tell why for a while, but it struck me last night: besides flunking the Bechdel test, it’s ableist, despite seeming like it might have the potential to be the opposite.

The premise of the movie is that in a not-too-distant future society, everything is explicitly determined by your genetics, which can be engineered to make you perfect, or you can be naturally-born, with all the unknowns of that. The main character of Gattaca was born with some physical limitations and high risks for heart disease and such, but he is so determined to succeed in the cutthroat, elite, and “geno-ist” world of science/space travel that he takes the identity of a formerly  perfect man, Jerome, who has now fallen from his social standing after becoming cr*ppled.  The movie tells the story of the main character struggling to keep his identity from being discovered as he tries to become an astronaut in a society that considers people like him worthless.

Interesting idea, right? It could be a powerful commentary on the dangers and horror of a society in which supposedly the only remaining form of oppression is a drastic and explicit ableism, called “geno-ism.” It could be a story that affirms disabled people living their lives how they want to against all odds, or fighting for their rights to determine their own lives and potential. It could be a story that hammers home the message that judging people on the basis of disability is extremely damaging and that you can’t possibly know everything a person is or could be by knowing their genetics and abilities.

It could be--or could have been, rather, since instead of challenging ableism or giving us a story in which the In-Valid people launch a rebellion or even protest for their rights, we get a story that ignores that ableism is no distant horror, but already alive and well in the present world. We get a story in which fake-Jerome, the protagonist, achieves his dreams by faking being a Valid. He proves to us that there’s nothing wrong with being an In-Valid and that In-Valids, too, can be successful--but only as long as no one knows they’re In-Valid.

Today, at the end of the class I decided I should say something. I got a couple of sentences in about ableism and disability and such, and then I couldn’t talk. I could not make myself speak. My entire body was shaking and I was fighting tears, listening to my heartbeat againsts the silence of the classroom. I bit down on my lip to keep from crying, but I still couldn’t speak. I shrugged and lifted my hands as though making an offering. The teacher picked up the thread of conversation and kept going, but what I wanted to say I was never able to articulate. After class I stood in a bathroom stall choking on the effort not to cry.

I would never have anticipated this response, and I was as shocked as the class probably was when I was rendered unable to say my piece. I knew Gattaca was making me uncomfortable, but I could not have predicted that it would hurt like that. Apparently the movie used up more spoons than I would have thought, and I ran out.  In an effort to parse my reaction, I have tried to pinpoint what dynamics in Gattaca hit so hard and so painfully and why.

The first thing that struck me was that it’s both disingenuous and redundant to set up geno-ism as some new bogey monster that reared its head as an unfortunate consequence after everyone’s DNA was sequenced and made public,  and  manipulating genes to make “perfect” children became the norm.

Yes, being able to know what anyone’s DNA contains and ordains would bring ableism to a new level. But that’s all it is--a new level. Geno-ism isn’t some new social ill. It’s just a heightened and more explicit form of ableism, and geno-ism victimizes people with invisible disabilities to an extent that is not seen today.

To place discrimination on the basis of arbitrarily determined ability--according to risk factors or medical conditions or other disabilities--in the future as if it inhabits a society that we could move towards rather than one we live in now is extremely damaging to people who already are familiar with such discrimination. Because think about it: in Gattaca, ableism is essentially codified policy in many workplaces; people with disabilities are denied social services; they are forced to work menial jobs as cheap labor; and many parents deliberately avoid having their children born with any condition that would render them In-Valid.

Now think about today’s world: disabled people face massive workplace discrimination, and yes, even for nearly invisible disabilities--I know someone who had to leave her job because of harassment for being diabetic. People with disabilities are systematically shut out from many healthcare options--before Obamacare, if I had not already had insurance when I was diagnosed with my various medical problems, I would not have been able to get it or would have had an extremely hard time doing so because insurance companies discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. People with disabilities are very often relegated to menial jobs, such as janitors or fast food workers, and given no other options. And although I support abortion rights, one of the reasons given in support of reproductive rights is frequently that abortions allow parents to avoid having children born with disabilities. And here, too, sometimes it is necessary to hide your disabilities in order to be accepted. Gattaca  threw all these things into blatant view in its “futuristic” society, but they are no imminent nightmare--they’re already here, and we didn’t even need public knowledge of everyone’s genome to accomplish that.  Gattaca made disability the sole dividing line between elites and the underclass, but ableism doesn’t need to be that stark in order to be deeply entrenched and do deep damage.

Now, after I tried and failed to say my piece in class, my teacher began talking about the movie as a positive portrayal of why geno-ism would be so dangerous, why it’s wrong to judge on the basis of In-Validity, and how disabled people can overcome their obstacles and achieve great things. Besides being a bit of trite  inspirationalism (if that’s not a word, it should be--making disabled people’s successes out to be inspirational  and extra-impressive just because they happened , which is apparently shocking and unlikely), considering Gattaca a triumphant repudiation of geno-ism--although I acknowledge that it raises some important bioethical questions and may help non-disabled people sympathize with someone facing ableist discrimination--does not stand up to scrutiny.

At the end of the movie, fake-Jerome has headed out to space, and as he leaves Earth behind, he feels he is in fact coming home. Escaping Earth just to feel at home--what does this say? If this is supposed to be a movie about why it’s bad to judge people on their DNA,what message is this sending? Isn’t the message here that the protagonist has to go into space, to a different planet, in order to not live in fear of people’s judgment and condemnation? If the movie was trying to point out how terrible this possible society would be, there ought to have been attacks on that society and an attempt to overthrow it. Fight-the-bad-government-and-win might be a bit hackneyed as a plotline, but please, give me a little revolution. Give me a little vindication. Let us see this terrible paradigm toppled as the movie grapples more directly with real questions about the harm in gauging people’s worth according to their ability. Let us see resistance to this system. Let us see the In-Valids forming solidarity alliances and refusing to submit, refusing to be written off as lesser, refusing to try only to blend in and be acceptable according to the norm.

Because that’s all Jerome does. Determined to become an astronaut, he becomes an impostor in the world of Valid people. We all know he isn’t really Valid, that he’s carrying out a dangerous balancing act--and sure, we root for him, because we don’t want him to fall victim to discrimination on the basis of his In-Validity. Yes, the unfairness of his assigned position in society is clear. But the only solution we see for changing this situation is to fake it, to go to extreme lengths to “pass” as Valid. This is a toxic message about disability that’s all too prevalent in our society today: blend in, be normal, don’t be weird, don’t let them know, don’t be how you really are, be how you’re supposed to be. This message racks up real casualties, real people who keep  struggling to meet the criteria for “normal” that are not possible and should not be demanded of them.  

Also, our one disabled main character (not played by a disabled actor) serves the sole purpose, it seems, of supplying bodily materials and samples so that fake-Jerome, the In-Valid, can pass as real-Jerome, the former Valid turned cr*pple. His personality, when he gets one, seems to be built around his bitterness that even as a Valid he was never good enough, and now he doesn’t have an identity or a life outside of helping someone impersonate him. To make matters worse (spoiler warning), at the end of the movie, while fake-Jerome soars off into space aboard a rocket ship, real-Jerome self-immolates. Thus we see our In-Valid character succumb to the impossibility of his life. His suicide could be taken as a commentary on the tragic fallout of “geno-ism,” but when set against the success of the In-Valid who “beat the system” by passing as Valid, fake-Jerome’s story seems to say that real-Jerome was a failure. Not to mention, it reinforces the idea that the disabled character who “overcame” their disabilities--by hiding them and conforming to the rigid standard of perfection--can get a happy ending, can succeed, while the other commits suicide.

Gattaca’s  message, therefore, ends up coming across as saying that to avoid that inexorable shame of being In-Valid, passing as normal should be the ultimate goal for disabled people, and that as long as they don’t, there is no opportunity for them. The goal does not seem to be to dismantle this system, to fight, to demand rights, to demand respect, to push back against geno-ism. What we learn instead is that the way to avoid being a target of geno-ism is to avoid being seen or known as disabled. There is no activism or protest. There is a mention that there are laws meant to forbid geno-ism that are completely disregarded, and while that’s a realistic touch, it merely reinforces the prevailing idea that the only way to beat the system is to become the system, without letting the system know that you’re an impostor.

That is no way to dismantle oppression. That is no way to build a better world. That is no way to affirm disabled people as real, complex humans who don’t need to change in order to fit a straitjacket of “normal.” Maybe Gattaca’s creators intended that it provoke reflection on our current ableist world, but if so, it failed for me utterly. And whatever the intention, to halfheartedly tackle ableism without really fighting it is no way to make us feel like our struggles are comprehended and respected, and like our lives are full and worth living exactly as we are.