"I'm infected by your genetics": An Exploration of Genetics Through Song (Repo: The Genetic Opera)

There are several cult classic films out there, including Evil Dead, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and The Labyrinth, but one of my favorites is Repo! The Genetic Opera.  The film is set in a futuristic, post apocalyptic world where human populations have been largely wiped out due to an infectious disease, and those who survived the disease were able to do so by undergoing costly organ replacement surgeries.  The main character of the film, Shilo, is a young girl who is a forced shut in due to her overprotective father who is convinced Shilo’s delicate immune system caused by a rare inherited blood disorder cannot withstand the contemporary biological assaults to her overall health, and the film chronicles Shilo’s adventures as she tries to embark on her own in this new dystopian world. 

This film touches on several themes that can be discussed in anthropology, including the various idiosyncrasies of culture, particularly popular culture vs. ideal culture, and biological topics, including genetics.  This blog post focuses on this latter subject, genetics.   I will explore this topic by utilizing the song, Infected, as a means of explaining the basic ideas of genetics.

Genetics is the study of heredity or the mechanisms of inheritance.  Basically, this is the field of science that focuses on how biological traits, known as genes, are passed from parent to offspring.  Our biological composition is composed of a series of genes that we receive from our parents, hence why you may hear someone say, “Oh, you have your father’s eyes,” or “You have your mother’s nose,” etc.  Or in the terms of the song, one is “infected by your genetics” (‘your’ being the parents’ genes).  Each gene codes for a specific trait, such as hair or eye color, but you may already know that there is a great variety of options available for each gene out there.  For example, if we look at human eye color, we know that the options include blue, brown, gray, green, and hazel eye colors.  These options are known as alleles, which are formally known as gene variants. 

Because each organism receives one set of genes from each parent, genes contained within an organism are paired, demonstrating that one gene comes from the mother and the other comes from the father.  The genetic options available to offspring, however, are dependent on what the parents have in regards to their own genetic compositions, which are known as genotypes.  We can guess an organism’s genotype based on their physical appearance, or phenotype.  For example, someone with blue eyes (their phenotype) would have a genotype (genetic composition) that is different from someone who has brown eyes.  I am not going to go into specifics here as that will be discussed in a different blog post.

In Shilo’s song, she says, “How much of it's genetics? /How much of it is fate? /How much of it depends on the choices that we make?”  This is important because genes are not biologically static entities as environmental conditions play a role in how genes are expressed.  Take, for example, the environmental effect of the sun.  When one receives too much sun exposure, his or her skin changes color.  As that sun exposure decreases, the skin returns to its original color again, hence why it is easier to tan in the summer vs. the winter.  As Shilo correctly identifies, there is a “fate” factor involved based on the “choices that we make”.  This is by no means the only environmental factor that affects genes, but it is the simplest to demonstrate the point that genes are acted upon by both biological and environmental factors. 

Now genes code for all sorts of traits, not just eye and hair color.  Genes provide information that result in the structure and appearance of our bodies (e.g. height and nose shape) as well as the composition of our bodies (e.g. blood type and genetic disorders).  There are several different types of inherited genetic disorders out there, including Trisomy 21 (Down’s Syndrome) and Achondroplasia (popularly known as “Dwarfism”), and these can and will affect a variety of different organ system’s and bodily functions.  In the case of the character Shilo, she believes she has a rare blood disorder that she inherited from her parents.  There are several different types of inherited blood disorders out there, including sickle cell anemia and hemophilia, although the specific type Shilo has is never identified in the film.  Shilo does not believe that she “can be fixed”, and while several genetic disorders are incredibly difficult to cure, so to speak, they can be managed.  For example, individuals with sickle cell anemia can have their disease managed with medicines and blood transfusions, although this latter option is only available to a handful of patients, and similar treatments are available to individuals with hemophilia.  Due to the nature of inherited disorders, however, very few options are available at this time, and some individuals can feel like Shilo when she states: “You have limitations, don't go chasing flies.”  This does not mean that individuals with genetic disorders cannot live fulfilling and happy lives as advances in medicine and treatment options have not only lengthened terms of life for individuals but also the quality of life.  But as Shilo correctly identified, “Oh why are my genetics such a bitch?”, which most  individuals around the world, healthy and those deemed not so healthy, feel every once in awhile when they lament the shape of their nose, their extreme or diminutive stature, or lack of socially preferred eye color.