Class Society and Titanic, Essay Example

The movie Titanic (1997) portrays a love affair that takes place between a man and women from different social classes. Jack represents working-class society and Rose represents the upper class. Although the director of the film, James Cameron, utilized many historical details in Titanic, one historical inaccuracy in the film indicates a bias against the third-class passengers that sailed on the Titanic. Cameron’s depiction of the events of the Titanic’s sinking includes scenes of third-class passengers acting chaotically and violently in their attempt to find an escape from the sinking ship. The historical facts indicate that quite the opposite was, in fact, the case. The alteration of this single aspect of history misrepresents the nature of class-struggle in American history and also the nature of the tragedy of the actual Titanic disaster. As the following discussion will show, not only is Cameron’s depiction of the behavior of the third-class passengers inaccurate, it is a distortion of the actual sociological and economic foundations of the event.

In the article, “The Rescue of the Third Class on the Titanic: A Revisionist History,” Megan Threlkeld points out that Cameron’s depiction of crazed third-class passengers causing the poor use of lifeboats is not based in reality. Threlkeld writes “the vast majority of thirdclass passengers did not reach the boat deck until after all the lifeboats had been launched. The under-loading of the lifeboats, therefore, was not a result of … a mob of panicked, crazy passengers.” (Threlkeld). By suggesting that the third-class passengers on the Titanic reacted with crazed panic, Cameron alters the reality of history, which places the upper-class passengers in a much less flattering light. Decisions that were made by Captain Smith contributed to the unfortunate consequence of the third-class passengers being basically penned-up in the stern of the ship with no access to lifeboats. First-class passengers found potential rescue in lifeboats and there were accounts of first-class passengers panicking; however, no historical accounts support Cameron’s vision that third-class passengers acted in an unruly way.

For this reason, the historical reality of the incident should be examined in relation to Cameron’s movie in order to, as Thelkeld writes “”restore the third-class men to their legitimate role as innocent victims by ‘shifting the moral center of the Titanic story” (Threlkeld). The word “moral” is important in this context because it suggests that, in altering the historical reality of the behavior the third-class passengers, Cameron wanted to send a moral message in relation to the overall class-conscious theme of the film. That message is that all people had a basically equal chance of finding escape from the Titanic until the third-class passengers panicked. This is a drastic shift from what actually happened and places the moral responsibility for the failed escape/rescue on the third-class passengers, rather than on eth Captain and the first-class passengers, where the blame actually belongs.

For this reason, Cameron’s movie must be regarded as more propagandistic than historical. Another consequence of his changing of the facts is that Cameron removes some of the fault for the disaster from the Titanic’s captain. In doing so, he encourages the audience, however slightly, to remain trusting of authority and of the natural order of class hierarchy in American society. Since the authentic historical tragedy of the Titanic sinking would seem, even on a superficial glance, to suggest precisely the opposite conclusion, Cameron’s film must be viewed as a deliberate muddying of the historical record.

Work Cited

Threlkeld, Megan. “The Rescue of the Third Class on the Titanic: A Revisionist History.” The Journal of Transport History 28.2 (2007): 349+.