Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Gatteca Film Concepts

The futuristic film "Gatteca" has many aspects about it that can be related back to our book "Organizational Communication, Balancing Creativity and Constraint." The first concept that I will be looking at is Gender Differences at work. In the film, there are many(Eisenberg/Goodall 221 examples of gender discrimination. First the overall look of the film was very dark and simplistic almost masculine, and the workplace in which Jerome the lead character works is very male driven. There are only two women in the film who have any lines, Irene and Jerome's mother.
Irene is talked to by her boss at one point in the film in a very bad manner, he uses and assertive talking style to tell her to be the "middle-man" with the detectives who are overlooking the murder. Irene is concerned with her work and her boss has no concern with her worries, out book tells us that, "A woman might interpret a man's instrumental approach to troubles talk as a move to cut her off or diminish her experience." (Eisenberg/Goodall 204) In Irene's case she was be cut off and diminished by her boss.
Also, I felt that Jerome was sort of brave and reckless in the film, trying to overcome his genetic disability's while Irene was the voice of reason and acted in a calm manner throughout the film. She had a genetic heart condition, but did nothing about it, she was more interested in love in the film, while Jerome was interested in challenges and success.
Another theme in our book that really relates to the film Gatteca is Negotiating Multiple Identities, which is exactly what Jerome/Vincent does in the film. While the book looks at gender and race discrimination the film deals with genetic discrimination. Specifically, "organization members may negatively judge persons who do not meet or seem to meet expectations related to white, middle-class values and attitudes." (Eisenberg/Goodall 221) In the film Gatteca Vincent with his genetic makeup would not be able to work at the place he worked at, so he went to the extreme of making himself another person (Jerome) in order to fit the mold. Our book tells us that "Negotiating multiple identities simultaneously is an ongoing project for most individuals."(Eisenberg/Goodall 221)The film Gatteca shows us how difficult is was for Jerome to fit into his made up identity, and it almost cost him his freedom.

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