I watched The Island again remembering it had both Utopian and Eugenic themes. The movie stars Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson as two clones amongst thousands of clones living in an underground compound. These clones serve as back up for the rich and famous in the year 2019. If the original human ever becomes sick, injured, in need of transplant, or whatever ill fate may disrupt or end their healthy lives, the clone serves as a harvester of skin, organs, etc.
The clones live happily falsely believing they have survived an apocalypse, or “contamination,” and that one day, based on a lottery, they will end up going to The Island, which is really where they go to die because their human is in need of them for one reason or another. They believe in this apocalypse and Island because during their cloning process they were given false memories. Ultimately McGregor and Johansson’s characters figure out the truth and escape. After that, the movie is basically irrelevant when it comes to this class.
However, I thought the idea of using the hope of a Utopia amongst the post-apocalyptic world with out any idea of how it came to be is quite relevant to our discussions of body utopias, utopias that exist without any human effort. I know that the Island was never real and that this applies to literature, but the people were led to believe this ideal place existed without any knowledge of how it came to be.
I also thought it was interesting that they used the Island to keep the clones content with their dystopian state. In this dystopia, the compound, they work as slaves for the company, have their diet heavily regulated, have no concept of intimacy, cannot become close with other clones (physically and emotionally), all while waiting to die.
The idea of hurting a few humans (clones) to save the same few (real) humans is not really utilitarianism because there is no gain, but only financial gain for this cloning company. So, while I would argue this movie has some concepts we have discussed in class and evokes a future moral dilemma, it is lacking in being a strong Utopian/Dystopian film.