Science fiction works have a long history of foreseeing future social reality. They provide inspiration for inventions as well as fictitious prototypes for technologies that eventually materialize in actual science. Science fiction films are able to spark public interest or deepen public resistance to a particular technology by displaying its seemingly tangible potentials and effects. Representations of science in popular culture texts thus play an important role in the (re)production of social meanings. Provided we live in the time of exponential rise in molecular genetics, this thesis addresses the eugenic theme of human transformation in science fiction films. The implications of cinematic eugenic interventions have traditionally been portrayed as harmful to both the protagonist and the society, thereby rendering them undesirable. In accordance, we investigate whether superhero motion picture Captain America the First Avenger (2011) continues with this tradition. On grounds of multimodal discursive analysis we find that the film represents a paradigmatic turn in the genre since it debuts the portrayal of eugenic transformation as fully positive. This may help legitimise the use of the seminal CRISPR gene-editing tool with which we could conduct eugenic interventions into the human genome in near future.
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