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AIBU?

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The Titanic

114 replies

Whyarethetoyseverywhere · 09/09/2023 11:54

I have a soft spot about the titanic. I think everyone has that one disaster that gets them emotional and that is mine. I’ve done a lot of research about it and I am fed up of seeing people make jokes or referencing it in such a casual way.

The latest, a woman on TikTok who does photography with her children and poses them as Jack and Rose from the movie in water and added fake frost. Regardless of the characters being fictional, it’s still a real story and people were freezing to death and drowning and this woman thought it would make a cute photo to replicate that?!

Theres a song that says ‘going down like the titanic’ but could you imagine if someone said ‘going down like the world trade centre’ in a pop song? There’d be uproar.

AIBU to be sick of people forgetting that it wasn’t just a film and that 1500 people actually died in a horrific disaster and making jokes about it is disgusting?

OP posts:
mbosnz · 09/09/2023 11:58

I agree. It also makes me angry that people are going and disturbing that terrible watery grave.

Fieldofbrokenpromises · 09/09/2023 11:58

Some people have questionable tastes - some people even wrote a “comedy” tv show about the resistance and Gestapo in WW2 France. It was unaccountably very popular.
YANBU to be upset, but this is unlikely to change.

GasPanic · 09/09/2023 12:11

It was a terrible disaster, but it was also a long time ago.

People lose their emotional connection to it when they have no relatives who suffered/read the stories on the news/could identify better with the people who were on it. Also a lot of people today only see the more "positive" side of the disaster such as the film rather than coming face to face with the horror of drowning in icy water.

I don't think people should be blase about it, on the other hand it is probably unreasonable to expect people to have a strong emotional connection to it in the way people did in the past.

TheAOEAztec · 09/09/2023 12:16

‘going down like the world trade centre’
In 100 years? Totally possible song.

MrReflection · 09/09/2023 12:25

There will always be insensitive people in the World. You just have to accept it, even if it's wrong.

Incidentally the story of the Titanic has fascinated me since I was a young boy. I have a visit to Belfast and the museum there on my 50+ bucket list.

Freepo · 09/09/2023 12:31

I don’t think something which happened 20 years again and something which happened 100 years ago are comparable for this purpose. Posing as fictional characters from a film would be fine if was eg Jack and Rose at the bow of the ship, but I can see the unease at them replicating the freezing to death. That’s a bit weird with kids.

andrainwillmaketheflowersgrow · 09/09/2023 12:35

I mean, it was a century ago. As tragic as it was, you can't expect people to have the same attachment to it as they do about things like 9/11.

MapleSyrupWaffles · 09/09/2023 12:36

the Titanic museum has a bit at the end with a fake bow of the ship where people can go on to the platform and take a photo like in the film!

That actually surprised me, actually, give that the rest of the museum was mainly about the ship building and the effect of the industry on the development of the city and so on, and very little about the actual disaster.

PuttingDownRoots · 09/09/2023 12:37

The Titanic disaster is definitely romanticised. As is WWII.

I don't think the World Trade Centre is comparable to the Titanic though.. one was a deliberate act of terrorism, the other was an accident. It would be more accurate to compare it to Grenfell for example, which people definitely see as bad taste!

RamsesTheChub · 09/09/2023 12:38

Did you get angry when they made it into a silly love story?

I too am fascinated by Titanic and it remains a haunting and heartbreaking story, but I think you're being a bit unfair tbh. Is our gratification (research, documentaries, films) any better than theirs?

MadamWhiteleigh · 09/09/2023 12:40

I never liked the film. The idea that you had to add in a fictional pair of star-crossed lovers to make it tragic. It was already tragic enough.

OnAMidnightTrainToGeorgia · 09/09/2023 12:46

Op you are over thinking it...

KrisAkabusi · 09/09/2023 12:46

Tragedy + time = comedy

I have no doubt in another 100 years there will be jokes and songs about the world trade center. And virtual reality comedy tours or whatever is invented by then.

Mercurial123 · 09/09/2023 12:46

Do people really have one disaster that makes them emotional? It's a bit ridiculous getting upset about something you have no connection to.

LakeTiticaca · 09/09/2023 12:48

How many films about WW1 and WW2 do you think have been made? Hundreds would be my guess.
If film directors stuck to only making films that couldn't possibly offend anyone at all, the industry would have collapsed years ago.

itsallnewnow · 09/09/2023 12:50

Freepo · 09/09/2023 12:31

I don’t think something which happened 20 years again and something which happened 100 years ago are comparable for this purpose. Posing as fictional characters from a film would be fine if was eg Jack and Rose at the bow of the ship, but I can see the unease at them replicating the freezing to death. That’s a bit weird with kids.

I've seen the video/pictures and it's very weird... "here's my kids pretending to freeze to death in water TEHE, see how long it took to set up!"

I was Confused

Scoobydoobywho · 09/09/2023 12:53

I remember going to watch the film at the cinema when it came out. The amount of teenage girls crying because of Jack a fictional character dieing. No thought about the real life people who did lose their lives was ridiculous.

ShutTheDoorBabe · 09/09/2023 12:53

The people who died on it are dead and therefore won't care. The people who didn't die on the boat and survived are mostly also dead so don't care. Most of the families of the people affected are dead so don't care. It was ages ago. It's fine.

Thebigblueballoon · 09/09/2023 12:53

If you want to be angry/upset with anybody, direct it towards James Cameron and his film crew.
The story was made into a worldwide, record-breaking film by adding a romanticised fictional storyline that people don’t relate to in a ‘real’ sense. Jack and Rose/ Titanic film themes/memes are everywhere.

VainAbigail · 09/09/2023 12:55

TheAOEAztec · 09/09/2023 12:16

‘going down like the world trade centre’
In 100 years? Totally possible song.

You’d hope not as the people on the titanic died because of an accident, where as those who died in the WTC were ‘murdered’? As an example, no one will probably ever write a lyric relating to the holocaust in a pop song.

GalileoHumpkins · 09/09/2023 12:56

I have a soft spot about the titanic. I think everyone has that one disaster that gets them emotional and that is mine

I think that's weird tbh.

AliceOlive · 09/09/2023 12:59

GalileoHumpkins · 09/09/2023 12:56

I have a soft spot about the titanic. I think everyone has that one disaster that gets them emotional and that is mine

I think that's weird tbh.

Edited

Yeah, I don’t have a pet disaster.

Were you searching “titanic” on Tik Tok?

CurlewKate · 09/09/2023 13:03

@Whyarethetoyseverywhere I do hope your "research" goes into the appalling class distinction in the plan for evacuation? And the % of crew and 3rd class passengers who escaped against the 1st class? Certainly worth a look.

BodegaSushi · 09/09/2023 13:06

I think that doing lots of research and getting quite emotional about something that happened so long ago is odd. But different strokes and all that. You are not the arbiter of the scale of what’s appropriate.

TheAOEAztec · 09/09/2023 13:07

Scoobydoobywho · 09/09/2023 12:53

I remember going to watch the film at the cinema when it came out. The amount of teenage girls crying because of Jack a fictional character dieing. No thought about the real life people who did lose their lives was ridiculous.

Because they were watching a movie not a documentary