Gattaca: Discrimination between Matt and Vincent

Although Matt and Vincent are not similar in regards to their character, they live under similar social circumstances. I think the main comparison between Matt and Vincent is the idea of discrimination. Because Matt is a clone, he is considered an animal and is not up to the same standards of everyone else. Although he is given education, studies music, and is just as intelligent as everyone else, he is discriminated against because of his status as a clone. This can be compared to Vincent’s life, because even though he has the right intelligence, and he has immense passion for astronomy, he still has to pose as someone else to even get a chance at achieving his dreams. Just like Matt, due to Vincent’s status of an “invalid”.

              These two characters are very similar in the sense that they got no chance in being accepted for the things they wanted to do because of how they were born. Ironically, they are victimized for the opposite reasons –For Matt, he was born from a cow with the DNA from El Patron and grown up as a clone. For Vincent, his parents chose to have a natural birth, which resulted in Vincent’s weaknesses compared to other people such as his brother Anton. Later on throughout both stories, both characters proved themselves to be just as intelligent and capable of things as everyone else. Matt learned how to do many things thanks to characters such as Celia, Tam Lin, and Mr. Ortega. Vincent ended up finally beating his brother in their classic childhood came “chicken”, and showed throughout the movie that he was capable of as many things as anyone else – as long as he was under the disguise of Jerome.

              Some elements of the story also connect with both characters in the sense that they had to pose as different people to accomplish certain things. For Gattaca, the entire story is based on this, but there are certain moments when Matt uses a disguise to his advantage. An example of this is when Matt dresses and acts like an eejit so he can escape with Maria. One of the main issues with both of the characters is that they have to remain in disguise. Vincent had to make sure that he scraped his skin and cut his toe nails every day, as well as have a valid urine sample from Jerome so that he had had no chance of being caught. Matt had to make sure that no one saw the tattoo on his foot when he lived in the Plankton Factory, and made sure he was known under a different name.

              From Matt’s perspective, he is confused as to why everyone hates him and why being a clone makes him different from everyone else. In Vincent’s world, he knows that he is considered lower-class, but continues to strive for his dreams.