25 years have passed since James Cameron’s Titanic burst onto screens and changed the landscape of cinema forever. But is a calamity such as Titanic really fair game for one of the most iconic love stories ever told?
Something which has always struck me as odd about Titanic’s legacy is the constant debate over Jack’s death. In 2012, Mythbusters designed an entire experiment to prove he could have survived. Leonardo DiCaprio is still regularly questioned over what has been dubbed the “biggest movie controversy of all time”. Even now, 25 years after the film’s release, James Cameron is so often asked about it that he is conducting a “thorough forensic analysis with a hypothermia expert” to finally put an end to the debate.
I’ll admit, I weep every time I watch Rose pry Jack’s hands from hers, sending him plunging to the icy depths. It is wholly, undeniably tragic. But still, I wonder: how has debate over a fictional character’s death come to totally eclipse discussions about the 1,500 very real people who died on the Titanic?
As a 90s kid who (to this day) loves Rose and Jack as much as the next millennial, what I am about to say almost feels criminal. Yet I feel the time has really come to question: should Titanic ever have been made? Was it ethical to romanticise one of the most traumatic events of the 20th Century—during the lifetime of the survivors, no less—for the sake of blockbuster cinema?
Increasingly, psychologists are emphasising that we live in a world which has become desensitised to violence and death, the impact of which means people are losing “the ability to empathise.” As I watch teens engage in passionate debate over whether there was room on the door, or the satirical narrative delivered by the MythBusters during their investigation, I can’t help but feel people are forgetting Jack’s fate depicts the very painful reality of how so many hundreds died that night.
Seven Titanic survivors were still alive when Cameron’s film hit cinemas. Though most of them were not in a position either physically or emotionally to watch the film, one survivor was able to make the trip. Eleanor Johnson Shuman described in 1998 that the movie was “so realistic it was difficult to watch. ‘I did a lot of crying’”.
Before production even began on Cameron’s film the sentiments of the survivors were already well documented. Milvina Dean was nine months old when the ship went down, and she was a firm and vocal critic of the Titanic industry which boomed after the wreckage was discovered in 1985. After declining to watch both Cameron’s 1997 movie and his follow-up documentary in 2003, Dean stated “I have only seen one of the Titanic films, when I went to America. It was A Night to Remember […] But I really couldn’t bear it, it was too distressing”. She explained “when the film showed the ship going down all I could think of was my father, and wonder what he was doing and feeling at that moment. It was terrible, I never wanted to see any of the films, and I don’t want to see this one”.
Eva Hart, another survivor, offered her opinion on retellings of the disaster in 1979: “when the whole thing is finished, and undoubtedly on the screen will be a large ship gradually sinking, nose first; that I cannot look at and don’t want to”. Nevertheless, production on the blockbuster film continued full steam ahead, regardless of the trauma it would undoubtedly cause.
25 years later, it seems the entertainment industry has not advanced in handling the concerns of survivors of historical events. This October saw widespread media outcry over the release of Netflix’s Dahmer series, which depicted the harrowing crimes of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in the 80s and 90s. Series creator Ryan Murphy expressed bewilderment that despite reaching out to “around 20 – of the victims’ families and friends […] not a single person responded.” The show has received extensive criticism not only for its lack of sensitivity towards the survivors’ relatives, but also for the sympathetic way in which Dahmer is occasionally portrayed.
But what has this got to do with Titanic? Creative license is somewhat of a given when creating historical fiction. But, similarly to Dahmer, elements of Titanic border on being unethical to the detriment of the families of those involved.
One such example includes Titanic’s portrayal of owner Bruce Ismay as a coward who abandons his ship and claims one of very few lifeboat spaces for himself. Today, Ismay’s real-life son and grandson continue to feel the impact of the film, and stand by the ruling of the inquiry into his actions: that there was “no evidence” to contradict he “only entered one of the last lifeboats after helping load other boats and checking that there were no more women or children nearby”. They insist “he wasn’t the man he was portrayed – and […] he deserves some justice now”.
Similarly, First Officer Will Murdoch is shown as a murderous villain when in actuality, he was responsible for saving countless souls before perishing himself in the sinking. In recent years Cameron has admitted that he “wasn’t thinking about the fact that his family […] might feel offended by that, and they were”.
Nevertheless, there’s no denying Cameron’s Titanic has done a lot of good too. It has kept the disaster at the forefront of conversation far more than any other recent adaptation, and continues to do so to this day. Yet there is also no denying it is riddled with unethical flaws.
Popular West End musical Come From Away, set against the backdrop of 9/11, stands as proof of how inspiring an awful moment in history can be when handled with dignity. It is not uncommon for the real-life come-from-aways whose stories are depicted on stage to attend the production, celebrating the light they salvaged from one of history’s darkest weeks. The show is an uncontroversial success because the story has been told on the survivors’ terms.
So the question remains: if Cameron’s intention was to tell the greatest love story of all time, did it really need to be against the backdrop of a very real tragedy? Was the trauma and pain of that night really his to manipulate for the purpose of cinema?
The fact that Titanic has become such an iconic moment in pop-culture makes these questions even more difficult to interrogate. Yet while the answers are unclear, one thing couldn’t be more certain: even after 25 years, people will insist Jack could fit on that door.
Words by Kate Padley
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