7. Getting Back Onto A Sinking Ship – Titanic
Hindsight is a beautiful thing. Watching Titanic, it’s easy to become accustomed to the sense of foreboding knowing that the ship is doomed to sink. The Titanic’s passengers almost certainly didn’t feel that same sense of impending disaster – not, at least, until it was too late to do anything about it.
Though Titanic heavily features the sinking of the ship (it’s sort of the whole deal), it is primarily a tragic love story between Jack and Rose. Therefore, it’s a key romantic moment when Rose gives up her space in one of the lifeboats in order to be with Jack for just a little longer. It may be (sort of) romantic, but it’s also a really, really bad decision.
Consider the facts. Rose knows that the ship is sinking, and probably also that the lifeboats can’t possibly hold every passenger. She knows that giving up her space is akin to signing her own death certificate, and she opts to do so in order to spend an extra few minutes with a ragamuffin she hardly knows. Yes, Rose may have shown some suicidal tendencies in the film, but her decision to give up her space is actually vaguely insulting to every single person denied the opportunity. She throws her privilege away as though she has no idea what it’s worth, and that’s genuinely a pretty dumb thing to do.