Discrimination is a popular theme in America. It had been mainly against African Americans but took other forms later on. This movie presents discrimination again, but this time not according to color, race, wealth or social status but according to one's genes.
Illusion versus reality is another theme present in the movie. The pretence that some people put, the arrogance of some and the community that cannot see the reality of things but are trapped within their own illusions embodies this theme. They see genetic code as the ultimate determiner of a person's level and cannot buy any other idea. Despite the laws that ban discrimination against those genetically inferior, law is "not taken seriously." This is a reflection of current discrimination practices in the
The idea of a dream, a strong dream, that one strongly has and achieves by persistence despite all the odds is in main focus in this movie. At the end of the movie, the protagonest, the genetically disadvantaged young man who beat all the odds and went to extremes to fulfill his dream, did actually go on his way to space fulfilling his life time dream. The American dream of freedom and achieving the impossible despite the odds has strong presence in the movie, in fact it is the focus of the whole movie.
The selection of the goal for the protagonest to be reaching outer space has a symbolic significance. Space symbolizes freedom, it also means a new world where the negative aspects of the current world are eliminated, discrimination being one of them. Also reaching to outer space has something to do with thinking out of the box and not being a prisoner to imposed stereotyping.
The guy whom the protagonest took the character of was selected to be a foreigner. Partly this was done due to shunning the idea of an American degrading himself in that way, only a foreigner will do it. Also it might make the audience less sad at the end of the movie when he decides to commit suicide.
His committing suicide by burning himself at the end of the movie is because he has now ended his mission and is no longer needed. The medal he won was the last thing the audience sow of him, it was seen melting in the fire. This indicated his death to the audience and was used instead of showing his body clearly burning in order to reduce any audience anxiety or pity, they only get to see the gold medal which is the thing that remains. This indicates that all that mattered to him was the fame, the appearance, the achievement he made. He wanted his name to be there, and indeed, though it was not him who went to the outer space mission, yet it was his name that went, and that is all that mattered to him. This again revolves around the theme of illusion versus reality, the hypocrisy of society and it's distorted vision of reality and it's sinking in illusion.
The name Jerome has a close sound to the word genome which is the genetic material of an organism. The word became popular with the Human Genome Project, which aimed at mapping the human genetic makeup, a project that faced a lot of public resistance as it started.
The inferiority and inability to compete for those genetically inferior was the reason behind their incompetence. It was only when the protagonest challenged this idea and this view that he was able to succeed. After beating his brother in swimming (the game of chicken) for the first time, the protagonest starts questioning the whole view of his inferiority and it is the turning point in his life.
