| Beginning with the cloning of Dolly the Sheep in 1996, the issue of biotechnology has drawn a significant amount of interest in academia and the general public. Because of the complexity of the science and ethics involved in biotechnology, popular culture has a large role in shaping people's understanding of the issue of biotechnologies, with Hollywood being one of the key producers of popular culture. The four movies being analyzed in the dissertation are The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Gattaca (1997), The 6th Day (2000), and The Island (2005).;The American political context of the last forty years has been dominated by the emergence of the New Right in which corporate interests and religious conservatism have formed an alliance.;While many studies have found that Hollywood reflects capitalist ideology, the issue of biotechnology brings out a clash between the corporate interests and religious conservatism that has characterized the emergence of the New Right.;Most Christian denominations are against biotechnology, especially human cloning. The Southern Baptist Convention, the United Methodist Church, and the Catholic Church have all issued statements against human cloning as an affront to God. This opposition by Christian religious groups to cloning derives in large part from the passage in Genesis in which Man (sic) is created in God's image. Therefore attempts to alter that image are seen as sinful in the eyes of most Christian groups.;Guided by the theoretical framework and methodology provided by Douglas Kellner's notion of "diagnostic critique," this dissertation attempts to identify how Hollywood represents biotechnology. For Kellner, diagnostic critique involves the reading of media texts politically.;While it is possible to be against human cloning and other forms of biotechnology from a secular, liberal perspective, all four of the movies analyzed in this dissertation found the arguments made against biotechnology are made in religious, mostly Christian, terms. |
