Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Fear of Clones
Ethical issues of cloning aside (e.g. for the purpose of harvesting organs, for example, about which a novel has been written if memory serves), today's lecture about our fear of clones got me thinking about its manifestation in popular culture. Specifically, I thought the issue was quite well examined in Gundam Seed.
In Gundam Seed, genetic science has developed so well that people can now 'customise' their babies, choosing appearances (eye/hair colours, for instance) and wanting their children to be essentially 'better' than everybody else's--and when something goes 'wrong' so they don't get the baby they'd wanted, they blame the doctors and get angry as though the babies are some products one might buy off the shelves of a retailer store. But the real problem arises when a 'superior' specie of humans are created, who basically look and are humans, only superior to the 'old' variety. Eventually, the Naturals (the original humans) feel threatened and demand 'Clean, Blue, Pure World,' advocating destruction of the Coordinators (the superior specie). Many Coordinators are murdered and eventually they're all driven off of earth, establishing their own colony with their own gov't and such in another planet. This is how the story begins, and the plot takes us through the war between the Naturals and the Coordinators.
In fact, the main 'villain' is a pessimistic clone who has become severely disillusioned by the world and its hatred and greed, claiming that he is the product of the epitome of human greed which knows no bounds (to be that which is 'superior' to everyone else), and wants to see this 'horrible world' destroyed. Basically, it's a question of 'where do we reach the limit / when do we stop?' At the same time, it's also geared towards showing us that there's actually very little difference between the Naturals and the Coordinators--in the end, they're both humans and innocent people suffer because of a pointless war. Anyways, even though this is an anime, I thought a lot of the questions it asks are quite thought-provoking and I would recommend it to anyone interested in exploring these themes. I personally did not enjoy its sequel (Gundam Seed: Destiny) as much, but you may find it different.
As well, cloning is a strongly embedded subject in the Hitman video game series (which I have discussed in a previous post concerning drive without desire). Here, the fear for clone also stems from concern for competition (at least from the perspective of main antagonists). Essentially, cloning technology is being developed to create an army of perfect assassins, from which Agent 47 is the sole surviving case of a successful experiment--and the antagonists (from competing agencies) are after him because his bone marrow contains the 'secret formula' needed to create more in his footstep. You can read more about it in detail here.
In Gundam Seed, genetic science has developed so well that people can now 'customise' their babies, choosing appearances (eye/hair colours, for instance) and wanting their children to be essentially 'better' than everybody else's--and when something goes 'wrong' so they don't get the baby they'd wanted, they blame the doctors and get angry as though the babies are some products one might buy off the shelves of a retailer store. But the real problem arises when a 'superior' specie of humans are created, who basically look and are humans, only superior to the 'old' variety. Eventually, the Naturals (the original humans) feel threatened and demand 'Clean, Blue, Pure World,' advocating destruction of the Coordinators (the superior specie). Many Coordinators are murdered and eventually they're all driven off of earth, establishing their own colony with their own gov't and such in another planet. This is how the story begins, and the plot takes us through the war between the Naturals and the Coordinators.
In fact, the main 'villain' is a pessimistic clone who has become severely disillusioned by the world and its hatred and greed, claiming that he is the product of the epitome of human greed which knows no bounds (to be that which is 'superior' to everyone else), and wants to see this 'horrible world' destroyed. Basically, it's a question of 'where do we reach the limit / when do we stop?' At the same time, it's also geared towards showing us that there's actually very little difference between the Naturals and the Coordinators--in the end, they're both humans and innocent people suffer because of a pointless war. Anyways, even though this is an anime, I thought a lot of the questions it asks are quite thought-provoking and I would recommend it to anyone interested in exploring these themes. I personally did not enjoy its sequel (Gundam Seed: Destiny) as much, but you may find it different.
As well, cloning is a strongly embedded subject in the Hitman video game series (which I have discussed in a previous post concerning drive without desire). Here, the fear for clone also stems from concern for competition (at least from the perspective of main antagonists). Essentially, cloning technology is being developed to create an army of perfect assassins, from which Agent 47 is the sole surviving case of a successful experiment--and the antagonists (from competing agencies) are after him because his bone marrow contains the 'secret formula' needed to create more in his footstep. You can read more about it in detail here.
# posted by Raye Lee @ 1:27 PM 
