Gimme The F-ing Raft, Rose!

In honor of  X Chromosome Movie Appreciation Day, I’m re-posting my post on Titanic from a few months ago. Enjoy!  

I’ve said this before but I love Titanic. I do. Shoot me. It’s a terrific movie: the coming-of-age girl story, the front and center romance, the crisp editing. That moment right after the iceberg hits the boat and everything seems to slow down and get very calm. Even the music sort of… stills. The first few measures of violin solo on “Nearer My God To Thee” when things are going to hell? It’s really great movie-making! Mind you, I wasn’t very pro on the 3D enhancement and it was a bit of a shocker to see Leo/Jack looking so exceptionally young, so freakishly young, so (deep breath) not-quite-as-hot-as-remembered young. Was he really so young? It looked he was hooking up with a naughty Canadian Au Pair during the big sex scene in the car with Kate Winslet.

But never mind, because what I will always love is Jack’s deliciously retro, unreconstructed, anachronistic masculinity. Watching it this time around I was taken by his single-minded devotion to the Keep Rose Alive project. I mean, sure, he’s an archetypal romantic male movie lead; of course he wants to keep her alive! But there’s a certain missionary zeal in his protection of that bossy, impulsive girl that caught me off guard this time around. See, it’s not only that he wants to keep Rose alive. He only wants to keep her alive. He totally gives up like a loser when the flotsam and jetsam rafty thing tips over. Why, Jack, why? Couldn’t you have given it another shot? After all you kids have been through together? Don’t you realize you’re crossing that fine line between gallantry and idiocy, and in so doing have joined a long list of heroic saps (including my pale friend, Mr. Edward Cullen) who ever so slightly get on my modern, uncomprehending nerves?

Jack, honey, you have options!