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Titanic

(Best Picture, 1997)

What Should Have Won: L.A. Confidential.

"The Official Story":  "The movie about a tragedy".  Ah, yes; indeed...! The movie that honored a tragedy, was it? Complete with totally fictional characters! Complete with unforgettably smug Oscar speeches by director and producer James Cameron ---"King of the World! Woooo!"--- where Cameron asked for a moment of silence to honor those who died aboard Titanic. In mere seconds, James would say: "That's enough...Let's all party...!"

What We Think Happened :  In the end; Titanic was a fad. The Rubik's Cube. Leisure Suits. Disco. The Pet Rock. Cabbage Patch Dolls. Tickle Me Elmo. They were all considered the-bomb back in the day, only to be old news as little as a year later. Yet here's the thing with Titanic: it was a fad while Oscar ballots were handed out. Sure it would occur to people the very next year how mistaken they were the year before. Yet then it was too late.

But this is belittling the point. Titanic fanaticism was not only rampant; it was truly maniacal. Online fangirl flame wars began to ridicule not just L.A. Confidential, but Oscar classics as well. I'll never forget the Usenet newsgroups at the time, when one girl actually insisted that Schindler's List was a "caricature of a picture" in comparison. I don't know; maybe I should've left that for the "why is this embarrassing today" category, but I felt the need to mention it here, if just because: at the time, this poor girl actually believed it.

Some fans even marched with picket signs outside the theater on Oscar night, allegedly "livid" that Leonardo DiCaprio did not get nominated as Best Actor. After all; when Rose says to Jack "You have a gift; you see people," and Jack coos, "I see you"...? Man; who else could've delivered such witty dialog?  Oh, and how about how believably he painted Rose naked? ...or the believable way he taught her how to spit? Yet many a woman insisted this was the work of a master actor, if just because of, well...hormones. Sorry, ladies. If you could just listen to some of their embarrassing rambles at the time...! Some of them are still online. Take a look. We can wait.

So...Titanic wins Best Picture, and a whole lot of other Oscars, because of a fad that simply would not die...until the next day, anyway. As early as the week after, the fad had jumped the shark. Fan sites started disappearing left and right. Its favoritism rating at the Internet Movie Database fell like a rock. The party was over. Unfortunately for some, it lasted too late already.

What Makes It So Embarrassing "Today":  Everyone jokes about the Star "Trekkie" who goes to conventions wearing rubber Spock ears. Fans can get crazy sometimes. But how far is "to far"...? Magazines like Entertainment Weekly showed pictures of little girls visiting a tomb with the name "J. Dawson" on it, taking their pictures next to it. Um...ew?!? This would be creepy enough even if the following wasn't true: Jack Dawson was a fictional character. The now infamous tombstone is that of James Dawson. Not that I think the spirit of "J. Dawson" feels insulted, wherever he is. I could imagine he had a lot of fun watching his sudden celebrity status. But...seriously. How embarrassing it must be for these girls as adults, coming across the picture of them standing next to a total stranger's grave, and what's more; it was a grave they had visited, because of some completely fictitious character. 

But as James Cameron would say; this is about real people. These people deserve respect. So, in King of the World style, let's give a moment of silence for the fanatics who suffered embarrassment thanks to Titanic. Okay; moment over. Let's...partyyyyy!

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"Enough of this blasphemy!":

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