Ignores the fact that women in 1912 - rich and poor - were pretty much property

Rating: 7/10 (12 November 2009)

The special effects are great in this film, and the love story is compelling. Even though there is no uncertainty as to how this movie plays out, it is still quite dramatic and interesting. Plus, you have to marvel at a movie that managed to win the Academy Award for best picture and was also a huge box office hit - a distinction shared with few films over the last twenty years.
However, there are a few oversimplifications of the social situation of the passengers in the context of the realities of the early 20th century that bug me every time I watch this movie. First off, there is a heavy handed message of rich = bored and unhappy, poor = genuine and full of life. Given that there was absolutely no social safety net anywhere in the world in 1912, there could be nothing more brutal and grinding than being poor in that era, as if there is any such thing as "easy poverty" at any point in history, including today.
Second, and somewhat accompanying the first sticking point, is the idea that Rose will somehow be free to be something out of a 1969 Virginia Slim's commercial if only she can lose that rich stiff she is engaged to (Billy Zane's character, Cal) and run off with kindred free-spirit Jack. This illusion not only confronts the fact of grinding poverty in early 20th century America, this flies in the face of entrenched sexism enshrined in the law during that time that wasn't even confronted as a problem until the 1960's. Who, in 1912, is going to let Rose put on a pair of jeans and ride side-saddle on Coney Island? Let her learn to pilot a plane? Allow her to pursue her career goals unless they involve teaching school, nursing, or performing (i.e. doing something that involves serving men)? And even learning those skills cost money she did not have. The fact is at that time a woman in America or anywhere else in the world was considered property. She could either be the property of a rich man (evil Cal) or a poor man. The only main character in this movie that seems to be facing facts is Rose's mother who shows genuine terror at the idea of being poor again - and she SHOULD be afraid, VERY afraid.
I once had a 3rd sticking point, but it has been nullified over the last ten years. That sticking point was that Billy Zane's character could feel so superior and entitled given that his wealth and stature were accidents of birth, not the fruits of his own enterprise and imagination. I have since come to realize that some of the smuggest most entitled people on earth are those that were born into their circumstances, so I withdraw that objection.
This movie did do a service by dispelling the myth that the slogan on the Titanic was "women and children first", when it was, in fact, "first class women and children first". In reality, if you were a first-class woman, you had a 97% chance of survival, and just about every first class woman that did die chose to stay behind because she did not want to leave her husband. If you were a female steerage passenger you had about a 45% chance of survival. Worse yet, third class children had a 1 in 3 chance of survival, which was the same rate of survival as the first class men. Not one of either the first or second class children died on the Titanic.
Thus, I still enjoy the movie immensely, but I think that the false presentation of early 20th century social reality will always bother me a little every time I watch the film.