1. Titanic is a terrible film,
so utterly awful that
everyone involved
should be in prison
Cumberland Lodge, March 2006

2. But is it philosophy?
Socrates in discussion with Gorgias and others

5. Entertainment
• Familiar
• Safe
• Does not challenge
the consumer
• Does not challenge
the political and
economic status quo
• Reducible to
technique
Art
• Opposite of all these!

6. That’s
Entertainment!

8. Titanic, at last
• Fourteen Academy
Award Nominations
• Eleven Academy
Awards
• Best Picture!
• Three Hours Long
• This is serious!

9. The Critique
• Crass stereotypes (dastardly English
aristos vs. salt of the earth Irish who would
never molest or rob an heiress who turned
up uninvited in their ceilidh).
• Implausible Characters (how did the awful
aristocracy spawn winsome Rose?)
• Simple division into goodies and baddies.
• Clumsy coercion of judgment (e.g. the
corset-lacing scene)

11. Incoherent as drama
There are three stories in one:
• the present-day bounty hunters;
• the Titanic;
• Romeo and Juliet.

12. Far from enhancing each other,
they trip each other up.
• The bounty-hunters are irrelevant—their whole
section is simply to reunite the aged Rose with
her drawing so that we can see that she never
forgot.
• The engineering hubris story—which could have
been the basis for a thoughtful film in a society
such as ours—is reduced to a lot of special
effects.
• Jack isn’t killed because their love is impossible
(Romeo and Juliet proper). He just dies
because the ship sinks.

13. It’s sentimental
It insults your intelligence at every turn, so
obviously we’re not supposed to be thinking
while we watch.

14. But it has a politics
• Where are the English working class? We
meet lickspittle valets and suchlike, but no
loveable English proles.
• Nor do we meet any obnoxious
Americans. Even the rich ones are
decent, and (being new money) down to
earth. Where are the Boston Brahmins?

15. It’s about America, stupid
• The ship is old Europe in miniature and in
caricature.
• The Goodies and Baddies are familiar
from the founding myth of the USA (wicked
redcoats, huddled masses).
• The tragedy: they didn’t get to America!
• This insults US cinema audiences more
than anyone else.

16. No really, this is philosophy
• It’s not just the odd film: our whole media
culture confirms a stock set of morality-
tales.
• Aesthetics (how is art different from
entertainment?)
• Reason, emotion and the imagination
• Political theory (can we fix this without
falling into elitism?)

17. Why is this not what
philosophers typically do?
• Institutional and political pressures push
for the teachable, mechanically-graded
technique
• Normal research is easier and better
rewarded