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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think in Titanic Cal and Roses mother weren’t that bad?

51 replies

RoryGlory · 29/08/2019 19:05

Watching as a young teen I always thought Cal and Ruth were awful people. But now I don’t see it so black and white, as in there are no goodies or baddies.

Cal loved Rose in his own way and it just have been pretty heartbreaking to watch your fiancée sneak about with another person and then sleep with them.

Ruth was just a product of her environment. Must be scary to leave the only world you’ve ever known and become poor - obviously much harsher conditions back then.

OP posts:

Mummyshark2018 · 29/08/2019 20:41

Yabu. Recently watched this with the kids. Cal slapped rose round the face, lied that jack had stolen something then used a terrified child to secure his place on a lifeboat. They were stuck up scum who looked down their noses at everyone. Jack was the first person that showed rose any proper love and affection.

Original poster

RoryGlory · 29/08/2019 20:43

I haven’t. I just think it’s a bit silly to compare a 100 years ago to the modern day.

Cals actions in today’s society would be a million miles off. 109 years ago it would be the norm.

Also it’s called a debate

OP posts:

Original poster

RoryGlory · 29/08/2019 20:44

then used a terrified child to secure his place on a lifeboat.

True but I’m pretty sure that child would have died otherwise?

OP posts:

MrsTerryPratchett · 29/08/2019 20:44

Yes all true but let's be honest. Billy Zane vs Leo di Caprio? There is no contest. Billy all the way. He was on my laminated list.

And he was worse in Dead Calm and even hotter.

CallMeOnMyCell · 29/08/2019 20:49

Why even start this strange thread if you think you are right and don’t want the views of others?

ShinyMe · 29/08/2019 20:57

I believe that that stuff about insisting she honour him in the way a wife should honour a husband is absolutely about the sex. But if you can't see that, then it's fine. It's a film after all, with made-up characters designed to appeal to (and be hated by) modern audiences. The baddies are very pantomimey. The good thing about made-up films is you can read into it what you will. I won't be dissuaded that he wants to force her to sleep with him. All that "open your heart to me" bullshit is just a more expensive version of the old 'but I bought you dinner, why can't I feel your tits?' schtick.

St0pTryingT0MakeFetchHappen · 29/08/2019 20:59

@RoryGlory

RosesAndRaindrops · 29/08/2019 21:06

No one was dying around her. She was on one of the first boats and there was no panic at that point

Whichever way you look at it, she didn't want to share a boat with anybody poor or beneath her, she was an utter callous snob.
Rose and her family had been told that there weren't enough lifeboats to go around.
Her mum made some sneery remark about as long as the right type of people got saved.

RosesAndRaindrops · 29/08/2019 21:08

True but I’m pretty sure that child would have died otherwise?

Yes, because THAT was what he was thinking about (not) - he just wanted to save his own skin.

Ravenblack · 29/08/2019 21:24

@Mummyshark2018

This ^ 100%. And it's correct that Cal didn't give a shit about that child - he was just after saving his own skin. And I doubt that child 'would have died anyway...' What's more, when Cal got to NY he was wandering around alone, (when Rose saw him.) He didn't have that child with him then. Probably sold her.

And her mother was a callous, selfish witch.

Ravenblack · 29/08/2019 21:24

@MrsTerryPratchett

Yes all true but let's be honest. Billy Zane vs Leo di Caprio? There is no contest. Billy all the way. He was on my laminated list.

Nah no way. And Leo vs Billy Zane now..? No contest. Leo all the way. Billy is only 8 years older than Leo and looks old enough to be his dad.

Plus Leo has a phenomenal career and a massive fan base. I can't remember the last time I saw Billy Zane in anything!

I think we all know who is the winner here.

To think in Titanic Cal and Roses mother weren’t that bad?

Merril · 29/08/2019 21:31

I can't remember the last time I saw Billy Zane in anything

Billy Zane has just has a bit part in The Boys playing himself.

Aside from that Leo in Titanic is much better than Billy Zane. Leo in anything since...nope. He's a great actor, but I don't think he's aging very well and looks more and more like Norman Lamont as he gets older.

MrsTerryPratchett · 29/08/2019 21:57

He's not in a lot because he isn't a compulsive narcissistic fame addict like Leo. Or something. I feel very loyal.

herculepoirot2 · 29/08/2019 22:08

Cal is an utter bastard. He tries to dominate her, threatens to rape her, hits her and tries to kill the man she actually loves. He pretends to rescue a child so he can sneak off the ship.

Ruth is more sympathetic.

IdahoGreen · 29/08/2019 22:08

It’s ridiculous trying to attribute any form of three-dimensional historical realism to such a ropy film. If Billy Zane were any more more of a Cackling Pantomime Villain, people would have been shouting ‘Oh, no he didn’t!’ out of the lifeboats at him as theTitanic sank.

RosesAndRaindrops · 29/08/2019 22:09

Ruth is more sympathetic

In what way?

FudgeBrownie2019 · 29/08/2019 22:25

What’s the point in asking opinions then telling anyone who thinks differently to you that they’re silly? I think you’re silly to come onto AIBU to start a thread and take it so seriously.

My opinion is that Roses mother wasn’t a good Mother. She put her own wants above her child’s and I’d hazard that not every mother at that time behaved in that way. You asked for opinions, there’s mine. Enjoy!

herculepoirot2 · 29/08/2019 22:26

In what way?

She’s a selfish snob, but the prospect of working as a seamstress in her old age probably makes her want to weep. A rich, eligible, aristocratic man wants to marry her daughter and secure their futures. Her daughter wants to run away with a penniless, homeless dude. She’s a bitch, but I get it.

MrsTerryPratchett · 29/08/2019 23:08

She put her own wants above her child’s

Weeeeellllll maybe not wants. Poor people did die with alarming regularity of disease and poverty-related causes back then. Money could mitigate a lot of this. Do you advise your child to choose a life of poverty, grinding hard work and early death or luxury, money and ease? Which also helps you?

It's very easy with free healthcare and a welfare state to say you'd make noble choices but I'm not sure.

novasglowx · 29/08/2019 23:44

For the Billy Zane fans, when I met him he flirted with me. And all my brain could manage at the time was "I put the diamond in the coat. AND I PUT THE COAT ON HER"

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 30/08/2019 00:00

Ruth says words to the effect that 'we're women, and our choices are never easy'. A true statement and much more so in 1912 than today (bearing in mind it was being looked at through the lens of an idealistic genre in 1998).

Ruth = roaring snob who behaved condescendingly to those perceived not of her class, but that's because she was one whisker away from genteel poverty herself, and was afraid of also becoming a 'third class' passenger in life. And families did traditionally marry off their daughters to secure their own fortunes - just look how happy the Bennets were to marry Lydia off to Wickham to save their family name - even though they knew he was a revolting cad who would probably lead her a hell of a life.

Ruth's behaviour is understandable and probably consistent with contemporary attitudes, although she's by no means a likeable character (nor for that matter is her daughter).

Cal? He's violent and abusive, is controlling to the point of ordering his partner's food and censoring her reading material, he's manipulative, devious and murderous (setting up his rival to be convicted as a thief and condemned to die on a sinking ship, and that's after trying to shoot him and not being particularly concerned whether he hit Rose, too), and on top of that, he also shows himself to be a coward. A thoroughly repulsive specimen of manhood. Gobbing in his face was the least of the revenge he deserved!

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 30/08/2019 00:05

Showing my geekery here: for the record. Rose couldn't have been reading 'Dr Freud' in 1912 unless she was fluent in German! At that time his work hadn't been translated into English yet.

mrsmalcolmreynolds · 30/08/2019 00:33

Mariel not main point of the thread but I really disagree with your view of the Lydia situation in P&P.

The Bennetts are not "happy" to marry Lydia off. She has run off and spent several nights as an unmarried woman with Willoughby. She will not be accepted in any kind of respectable society unless she gets married and no one but W is going to marry her (and even he has to be bribed to do so).

Lydia's marriage doesn't "save the family fortunes", it just barely saves them all from disgrace and costs money (which Mr B doesn't have - he thinks his brother in law has paid but it turns out Darcey did).

Rubbish social environment for women? Undoubtedly. But suggesting that the Bennetts sell Lydia off is just incorrect.

GooodMythicalMorning · 30/08/2019 00:47

Maybe she could read German!

Lisastevens · 30/03/2024 07:54

OK so which people believe that Cal's abusive behaviour is acceptable? Coercive control is now illegal in the UK and Cal shows plenty of control in the film. Minding what she reads suggests he's worried she could learn knowledge of a different way of living, he treats her like a child, makes decisions on what she should eat, uses a diamond to manipulate and guilt trip her, slaps her, restrains her, flips tables and throws tea sets at her and gets Jack arrested. He doesn't show any concerns for caring about her as when he even states 'a twenty should do it' as if she's just a possession to him. Then tries to shoot both her and Jack. Maybe in 2012 Rose was seen as behaving badly but it's still abuse and today cal would've got a prison sentence under the new coercive control law.

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