I often forget that the 1993 original Jurassic Park is a horror
movie.
Every other Jurassic Park movie, including the latest installment
Jurassic World, has lost that title.
Instead, they are action movies – not that there’s anything wrong with
this, of course. But it makes them
different, and in doing so, the original stand out.
When I hear the quiet thud of
the T-Rex moving through its paddock, I still get that heart-thump of
adrenaline, even after countless viewings.
That first roar as she steps between the cars still makes me cringe, and
I still watch Ellie’s trip through the jungle as they out-run the raptors through
clenched fingers. And that scene in the
kitchen, where the raptors hunt the two kids, still gives me chills – even now,
at 27, I watch it curled with my feet on the couch and a blanket over my head
like I did when I was seven years old and experiencing it for the first
time.
I love Jurassic Park. And
now, since Netflix recently put all three of the original movies up, I’ve been
re-watching all of them, with the addition of Jurassic World of course. In doing do, I’m struck even more by the
original – as terrifying as it is, Jurassic Park is also a deep, complicated
movie about the ethics of genetic engineering and humanity’s control over
nature.
Part of what’s so terrifying about Jurassic Park is the illusion
of control over nature. This is a fairly
straightforward concept to start: Humans can’t control nature. The end. We can’t control the weather – as evidenced
by the ongoing wildfires in California.
We can’t control animals – as evidenced by so many species that are
slowly going extinct around us. And we can’t control so much more about our
planet, about ourselves.
Something about that lack of control fundamentally bothers us, and
so Jurassic Park, with its careful genetic manipulation and park control and
monitoring systems, tries to address that.
Things inevitably go wrong, of course, otherwise we wouldn’t have a
movie. But the way things spiral out of
control offers commentary on that lack of control and the acceptance it
requires in order to live peacefully.
Control offers humanity a variety of benefits. Safety, stability, no surprises, and more –
think about the basics of the American dream.
Those boil down to being able to control your life. There is nothing wrong with that.
But control has a dark side.
Consider this: A 2015 article
in Women’s Health magazine discusses new advancements in genetic manipulation
and in vitro fertilization. Part of
this includes screening for genetic disorders; if a parent is a carrier,
doctors can now ensure that embryos do not carry those genetic markers, thus
ensuring that a potential child will not have that disorder.
Thus, a national conversation about genetic engineering is booting
up as the possibilities of science catch up with the fiction of movies and
imagination. Questions of control lie at
the heart of this issue: Can we control the genetics of humans in an effective,
non-dangerous way? And where does
control intersect with ethics? After
all, using genetic engineering to eradicate a disease is a different goal than
using it to control eye color or sex. So
where’s the line?
To me, an essential element of the line you shouldn’t cross lies
in proceeding without ethics to guide you.
It’s a slippery slope, this ability of genetic engineering, and
I’m not trying to channel Ian Malcolm when I say that. Fixing a genetic disorder makes sense; fixing
it only for those who can pay through the nose is questionable. Allowing parents to ensure their baby will be
born healthy makes sense; allowing them to engineer the ‘perfect child’ is
questionable.
But people will disagree with me.
What I see as questionable others may find perfectly acceptable, and
that’s part of the problem. There is no
black and white answer to the subject of ethics – it’s easy to say, “Yes, I’m
an ethical person” and much harder to live your life that way, just as it’s
easy to say you won’t judge and much, much harder to actually follow through.
These questions of ethics instead revolve around, not personal
ethics, but the ethics of science, the ethics of what lies in possibility
tempered with what’s actually a good decision.
Instead of what I personally agree with, it’s more about thinking about
the possibilities, acknowledging the potential downfalls and ways things could
backfire, and thinking deeply about the implications and consequences, all long
before the action is ever taken.
That gives the world a much better chance of an ethical decision,
even though there are no guarantees.
Nuclear power and nuclear war come from the same fundamental ideas,
after all, and they are very different things.
In Jurassic Park, it’s made clear that some of those elements have
been considered, but as so many are quick to point out, it’s hard to consider
the negatives when considering them might advise you to turn back. Ian Malcolm even says it:
The conversation about “can” versus “should” is becoming more
prevalent in our society every day, and I’m not always sure I like what I
see.
Think about the genetic engineering of crops. It is certainly possible that engineering
crops like corn, soybeans, and many others could solve the hunger issues of our
planet. If we can make plants resistant
to droughts, or to certain pests, or anything else, we can change the face of
agriculture around the world.
Notice the “can” here.
But when it comes to the question of “Should we do this,” no one
has a good answer. Sometimes crops don’t
work well and cause physical problems like diarrhea in humans. Sometimes the people who engineered them
don’t handle things well, like Monsanto’s questionable history of lawsuits
involving small-time farmers and their products. Sometimes we just aren’t sure what might
happen, 50 or 100 years from now, and since we can’t predict the long-term
consequences, maybe we should hang back until we can.
We live in a world with the ideal vision of control – but as Ellie
Satler reminds us, “You never had control, that’s the illusion.” The creators of Jurassic Park think they have
control – they control chromosomes, DNA, and as Wu brags in one moment, “It’s
really not that difficult.” But since its
very existence is predicated on genetic engineering, the question of should is everywhere.
That's what makes Jurassic Park such a continually relevant movie --
why it continues to hang on, continues to be popular despite the fact that it's
over 20 years old. In Jurassic Park, the
questions we struggle to deal with in the real world are deceptively simple: Don’t
cross the line. Or get eaten if you
do.
All those characters who object to the genetic engineering of the
dinosaurs, survive. Those characters who
endorse it, even capitalize on it (like the lawyer, Gennaro), are killed. Even Hammond – I realize he doesn’t die in
the first movie, but he definitely dies in the book!
We watch this horror movie, and we can sit back and think, "Wow.
If only we could solve things so easily here."
Perhaps not with the same strategies, of
course, but having a T-Rex eat those on the side of what's ethically wrong would
certainly simplify some of our own ethical dilemmas.
It's not that simple here, and we know it. Despite how politicians might shout about who is
right or wrong, American society struggles to articulate what's ethical and what's
not. We struggle to understand how and why
and what we should do with the minimal control we have over our world. And all along, we talk about the line: Don’t
cross the line, don’t flirt with the line, don’t even think about the line -- but when we aren't sure what the line is, movies
like Jurassic Park serve as a balm that lets us, just for a minute, fantasize that
it could be that easy to solve.
