fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3486 ]

[ SECRET POST #3486 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3486 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Maya Rudolph & Martin Short]

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[Hamilton/South Park]

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[John Spencer]

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[Sliders]

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[Daniel Radcliffe]

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[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]

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[Dune]

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[Assassin's Creed Syndicate]

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[Mulberry]

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13. [tb]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 28 secrets from Secret Submission Post #498.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I honestly don't even mind seeing characters I like bashed as long as it's interesting. Or are there assholes you like as characters that you're including in this?

Any character who is an asshole which is failed to be addressed by the plot.

I thought of an example. I don't mind people bashing Rose from Titanic as a cheater or a gold digger because factually, well, she was. And the movie only portrayed her as the long-suffering good girl, which was kind of bullshit. On the other hand, if they try to make Cal some kind of knight in shining armor by bashing Rose, that's where I hit the back button because he was an abusive asshole too and that shouldn't be forgotten. Everybody in that movie was a dick.

I feel like her 'cheating' gets kind of a pass, because that relationship was entirely not her idea, and she actively (and sometimes vocally) did not want it, but was trapped in that relationship because at the time she was not allowed to make her own choices, and it wasn't like there were a whole lot of options for women at the time. Not zero, certainly, but not a lot, and she still had a mother to support.

As for gold digging, again, that was Rose's mother, not her. Rose didn't give a damn about the money, thus the 'I'm getting off with you, Jack!"

Her doing it for money is not that part that bothers me, it's the part where she agreed and entered into an engagement then broke the rules of that as soon as the opportunity came up. Without even informing anyone else that she had decided to renege on the engagement. When you make a promise to someone and decide to break it, the least you could do is be upfront and inform them it's happening and everything's off.

I would have thought her less of an asshole if she had outright refused the whole movie, or been upfront with her mother when she changed her mind. The young and reckless running off with the guy she's known for a week is romantic but also running off from all responsibility too. I see why teens loved it, but it would have been an idiot teen tragedy in the making without the iceberg too.

She didn't agree, though. That agreement was made without her input or consent by her mother and Cal. You also have to remember that Rose was not in a position where she could be upfront and make that decision. It was 104 years ago, women didn't make those decisions, especially women born into the upper class.

As for idiot teen tragedy, 1) It's literally Romeo and Juliet, but on a boat. 2) They were teens. Rose is 17 and Jack is either 19 or 20 depending on your source.

That agreement still meant a comfortable future for herself and her mother and while I don't agree that she should have gone into it against her will, giving her mother a heads up at their entire future life is going bye-bye would have been mature of her since she wasn't in it alone. If being a woman born into the upper class and having no other choice applies to Rose, it applies to her mother as well, plus her mother is too old to work. Everyone is in a shit position there.

As for idiot teen tragedy, 1) It's literally Romeo and Juliet, but on a boat. 2) They were teens. Rose is 17 and Jack is either 19 or 20 depending on your source.

That's exactly what I said, so I'm glad to see you agree? It was *not* treated that way in the movie or addressed at all - the movie was like R&J taken seriously and glorified instead of seen as foolish teens - which is why I don't mind when people point it out and bash that aspect.

giving her mother a heads up at their entire future life is going bye-bye would have been mature of her since she wasn't in it alone. She tried that. Remember the corset scene? And there was that moment where she got into a fight with Cal about everything and he hit her. And that time she finally said "Yeah I'm with this guy" and Cal was like 'Okay, I'll put him on a boat for you' and there was no boat. And that time way back in the beginning where she was so stuck with no way out that she attempted to commit suicide because 'no thanks I don't want to get married' was not an option for her. I'm not really sure what other options you think she had. Of course having no choices also applied to her mother, but that doesn't really negate my point of 'Rose did not consent to this agreement, her 'cheating' doesn't really count since she's been actively trying not to be there.'

It was *not* treated that way in the movie or addressed at all - the movie was like R&J taken seriously and glorified instead of seen as foolish teens

That's a fair point but I think it's more a flaw in our perception as a society of Romeo and Juliet, which just carried over to Titanic. I definitely think the movie took some time to point out they were being reckless idiots, though (See: The corset scene again, where her mother reminds her that they have no money, and "You're so stupid, Rose!" when she went jumping back on the boat.

See below for additional comments regarding the mom, but I don't feel those scenes you described with her count because she is not in any way portrayed as sympathetic when she's just as much of a victim as Rose with just as few options in that sense.

That's complicated. On the one hand, the mother also has fewer options, although at one point she mentions the workhouses, which, while not pleasant, would be a living. On the other hand, period movies tend to be tricky because they try to capture what life was like, while still viewing things through a modern lense, which is a fault in moviemaking for sure. (For example, we are supposed to sympathize with Rose because we understand she was trapped by her time period, while viliainizing the mother because of how she's viewed through modern feminism.)

On the other hand, now that I've typed all that, I just googled 'What did widowed women do in 1912' and it turns out it was perfectly acceptable for widowed women to work in domestic situations. Which brings me back to my original interpretation of the mother: It's not that they will starve without Cal, it's that they will no longer be wealthy, which makes the whole 'Sold my daughter into marriage thing' even creepier than they already will. Because of course, she also could have made a match for Rose, who was gorgeous, with just about any man, it didn't have to be a wealthy one. She actually did have more options than Rose.

I don't think that typical widowed women roles apply to people in Rose's mother's position. Having grown up wealthy she wouldn't have the skills necessary to be proper household help or anything, and at her age... I can completely sympathize with why she felt this was the only way out and her livelihood depended on Rose.

Also they had debts to pay - they were far into the negatives, not merely broke. They weren't wealthy - they were pretending to wealthy while being actually "debt-ridden." There was no way she'd have been able to pay that off in a workhouse at... she must have been around 60? years old.

But I agree, now that I'm thinking about it again so much later, I kind of hate that the movie viewed Rose in terms of her time and totally villainized her mom in terms of modern feminism like you said. WTF.

I actually forgot about the debts, and you have a definite point about her mother not having the necessary skills, which definitely changes things! I think in the end I still sympathize with Rose, especially because she's a teenager, but I also sympathize with her mother. I think they were both stuck, it's just that Rose found what she felt was her 'out.' And I sympathize a bit more with Rose because Cal was a violent jerk and she was willing to kill herself to get away from him.

We agree on the Cal part for sure, I don't sympathize with Cal at all. I *do* think he was a well-written character, believably typical for the times, and Zane acted him fantastically but definitely not a good guy. The part about responsibility where Rose reneged on the engagement was more about ditching her basically-dependant mother for teen infatuation to me.

So maybe I should amend my original statement to, if people are going to view the whole movie with a modern feminist lens, I don't mind people bashing Rose for the same things they bash everyone else for. If people are going to view the whole movie with a historic lens, then they should maybe bash everyone else a bit less.

I feel like if you view the whole thing through a modern feminist lens and ignore historical context, Rose looks a lot better, actually. But I'll be keeping history in mind on my next watch.

I'm not sure about that - modern feminism, depending on what version of it we're talking about, might say she could have left the debt and broken away from the family to work in a workhouse and be independent, like you mentioned. Without the historical context in mind, she never had to agree to the engagement or accept it happening. Hence the cheating part. It all kind of depends.

Yeah but even in modern times, modern feminism accepts that sometimes people cannot leave situations their parents or an abusive partner set out for them. Even if it took place in 2016, you still have the fact that her mother arranged this and Cal is a violent jerk.

I'm not arguing that Rose isn't a victim. I'm saying through a modern lens where women are expected to have more agency, she could be seen as more responsible instead of less. A modern woman would have been expected to say no to begin with.

I don't think "she knew he was an abuser and couldn't leave" really works as a rationale there. Cal didn't become abusive until halfway through the movie... IIRC after she had already decided to leave and told him she was 'cheating' on him in front of everyone else. So I wouldn't say "she couldn't leave the abuse" because it didn't get abusive until after she had decided to go and announced her plans.

This is not to say Cal wasn't abusive, I just don't think the situation you describe applies from the start.

I think it could definitely be seen either way.

I will concede on the abuse point, however.

And now that I think about it I don't know what her mother would have done if the iceberg hadn't hit and Rose had left her with a broken engagement, no money, and no family. I don't know what her mother did after the ship sunk and she was left with all the debt. Everyone sees Rose as the victim of being a woman in those times, but never her mother who probably had it worse and ended up with even less while trying to secure a life for herself and her daughter the only way she knew how.

Now I want a fic about her mom.

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[ SECRET POST #3486 ]

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