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In this way DNA Dreams brings to life the dystopian nightmare we encounter in the 1997 film Gattaca, in which the main character Vincent, played by Ethan Hawke, narrates: “I belonged to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we have discrimination down to a science.”46 As in so much science fiction, the Whiteness of the main protagonist is telling. Not only does it deflect attention away from the fact that, in the present, many people already live a version of the dystopia represented in the film in future tense. The “unbearable Whiteness” of sci-fi expresses itself in the anxiety underlying so many dystopian visions that, if we keep going down this road, “We’re next.”47 Whether it’s Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, Matt Damon in Elysium, Chris Evans in Snowpiercer – all characters whose Whiteness, maleness, straightness, and (let’s just admit) cuteness would land them at the top of the present social order – they all find themselves in a fictional future among the downtrodden. Viewers, in turn, are compelled to identify with the future oppression of subordinated White people without necessarily feeling concern for the “old” underclasses in our midst.
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