Eugenics and Genetics in Film

Katie Hooper and Sam Freedman

Genetics, Biotechnology & Society

Conference Paper (final draft), December 2004

“Mass culture,” which includes any production made for a mass audience whether or not it was demonstrably “popular” in origin, constituted a crucial battleground on which professionals, popularizers, journalists, censors, and the audiences struggled to shape the meanings of “eugenics” and “euthanasia” and to define the connection between them, (Pernick, Martin S., page 14).

            This is an excerpt from Martin S. Pernick’s book The Black Stork, written about the eugenics movement and Dr. Harry J. Haiselden, a surgeon at Chicago’s German-American Hospital who diagnosed “defective” children and permitted their death. The theory of eugenics was pioneered by Sir Francis Galton in the early 1800’s. Galton believed that genotype alone determined most characteristics, and that selective "breeding" of the human species could guarantee that the "best" traits would remain in the human population while the "worst" traits could be eliminated. Since then, geneticists have examined more intensely Galton’s theories and in the early 1900’s, much to the credit of Dr. Haiseldon, eugenics was introduced to the public through controversial experiments and propaganda.

We see today how the media can affect public opinion. Since Haiseldon’s death in 1919, eugenic euthanasia has been a controversial subject that has appeared and disappeared from the mass media. When The Black Stork was released as a motion picture in 1916, the public was gaining a first-hand look at the affects of eugenics. In fact, most of the population did not know what eugenics was, or if they did, never expected it to be used. Other eugenic films were released from 1916 up till the 1940’s that shook the public. As a result, questions were raised, such as: Do these films blame the structure of society, or the work of eugenicists and genetic technology? “This multiplicity of meanings reveals not just the general problem of textual ambiguity but a very specific problem in early-twentieth-century health propaganda films. The first half of this paper will analyze four films that contain eugenic messages: Homo Sapiens 1900 (Peter Cohen, 1998), Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931), Olympia (Leni Riefenstahl, 1940) and Personal Hygiene for Girls (Paul Bray, Science of Life, 1922) and Personal Hygiene for Boys (Paul Bray, Science of Life, 1924). All four of these films are similar in that they address the idea of a “perfect race”, that we are supposed to eliminate from society those that are “feeble-minded” and “unfit.” These films differ in that they relate this information through different forms. Where Homo Sapiens 1900, Personal Hygiene for Girls/Personal Hygiene for Boys and Olympia are documentaries, Frankenstein was released as a major motion picture.

In modern culture, eugenics seems to have taken a secondary stance to the following issues: genetic discrimination, cloning, prenatal testing and animal-human boundaries within genetics.  Four films will examine each of these issues within the contemporary timeline: Twilight of the Golds (Ross Kagan Marks, 1997), Godsend (Nick Hamm, 2004), Alien Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997), and Gattaca (Andrew Niccol, 1997).  All of these issues are under the umbrella of the science of genetics, and deal with a few key questions: are women accountable to the public for the choices they make?  How can we start to control the misuse of genetic information?  And more importantly, is cloning worth it?

The effectiveness of these films at portraying the information will be examined through a historical perspective and film techniques/scene study. This paper aims to answer not only the questions brought up in this introduction but one’s that emerge from the study of each individual theme.

Through the analysis of these eight films, we learned that viewers have to be careful when they watch both documentaries and contemporary blockbusters. They should not regard all given information literally; although it is important for people to recognize the growing interest in biological determinism, not every film is intended to give truthful information. Filmmakers tend to manipulate information for dramatic effect and deviate from scientific; they want a certain reaction from their film – shock, surprise, sympathy or even criticism. Movies such as Homo Sapiens 1900 and Personal Hygiene for Girls/Boys are meant to educate society. Olympia, even thought it is technically a documentary, contains hidden messages that hopefully will filter through society. The emergence of ideas about the perfect man/the Aryan is not the subject of the film, but is clearly well represented through Riefenstahl’s dependence on images of the human body and physicality. Frankenstein more closely resembles films like Gattaca because it addresses the issue of creation by human hands and not God. Gattaca similarly generates the idea that natural birth is an imperfection and we need technologies like genetic engineering and counseling to improve society. The general message, even in Twilight of the Golds, Godsend, and Alien: Resurrection is that this technology can be misused and become detrimental to society. Even if the intention of a director is that eugenics, for example, is something of the past, viewers may choose to interpret it another way and believe that eugenics will pose a threat to them in the future.

What should a science teacher show their class when they are discussing genetics? Well, it seems obvious that a movie like Homo Sapiens 1900 would be chosen because its purpose is education. However, what will children of today take away from a slow tedious documentary when they could see a thriller like Godsend or an action movie like Alien: Resurrection? It is up to the director to establish that even though these technologies exist and are being developed further, the topics are exaggerated for the purpose of excitement and controversy.  The job of society is to distinguish between the director’s vision and the subject at hand.