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.