Out of the Mouth of Babes

My six year old son has become obsessed with the movie Titanic. He becomes obsessed with different things very easily. We've gone through the dog phase, the Spongebob phase, the Phineas and Ferb phase, the Disney World phase, and now it's Titanic. Since this is not a kid friendly subject, I don't know whether to praise his mature sense of taste or to be a bit worried about his morbid sense of taste.

He has yet to see the movie in its entirely. Several weeks ago I had stumbled across the movie. It was the week before the Oscars and all the classic movie channels were playing movies that were recognized by the Academy. Titanic was on and it was about half way through the movie. I left it on because there was nothing else on and because it is just one of those movies that I can get swept away in time and time again.

It was the last half of the movie, which is pretty much a movie within itself right there. Let's face it. Titanic is two movies in one: the first half being a star crossed lovers' love story and the second half being a disaster flick. Come to think of it, this might be the perfect combination of a Guy Movie and a Chick Flick.

Anyway, the ship had just hit the iceberg and the movie took a hold of my son. He was enthralled by it. He had many questions and was so curious. I explained that even though Jack and Rose were not real people, that the disaster of Titanic really did happen. It seemed to amaze him that so many people died. That children and babies died. It amazed him even more that the ship still lays on the bottom of the ocean floor, a haunting, watery grave.

When the movie was over, he wanted to see more. He wanted me to Google pictures of the ship. He wanted to know how long ago it was and if it could ever happen again. I knew that a new obsession was forming.

The obsession never reached it's full peak like his former ones, but occasionally he would bring it up. He did make us watch a home video we had taken when we visited a Titanic exhibition back when he was a baby. He doesn't remember that trip and wishes he could, but was grateful that we had the good sense to film some it.

Last night, Titanic was on again. I asked if he wanted to see the beginning of the movie. Only the first hour, because then it was his bedtime. He was very excited and could not wait. Curled up under his Spongebob blanket with one dog on his side and his sister on the other, he watched with wide eyes.

He was a bit confused at first with Rose being old and the whole treasure hunter part with Bill Paxton and the submarines, but he caught on quickly. He actually seemed to really like the underwater sequences and the forensic observations once he was able to grasp it.

And then they flashed back and showed Titanic in her full glory, docked just before she set sail. And my son's eyes lit up. I could tell that for a little boy who had never even been on a cruise ship or seen anything larger than some East Long Island yacht, he truly appreciated Titanic's size, grace, and beauty.

And then he turned to me and said "Why didn't they test it? Why didn't they run all kinds of test to make sure it was safe?"

And I smiled. Such wise words for a little boy. I knew what he was thinking. Not only would lives be spared, but so would this great ship. He was right. They should have tested it in all different ways. But man is vain and greedy. To test meant more spending money and less coming in. They wanted to prove she was unsinkable. She was grand. She was remarkable. She was the ship of dreams. Too bad the world isn't run by six year olds. It would definitely be a better place.

I always wondered if the movie exploited the turmoil and horrors that took place on that fateful night. If it exploited the loss of lives. The despair of the survivors. A horrendous thing happened and we turned it into entertainment. We hired perfect looking people to play perfect looking fictional characters in a time where orthodontics, cosmetics, and plastic surgery were unheard of. We spent millions to make it and millions more to see it.

The people that died on that cold night were exploited, by James Cameron and by us, the viewers. But after seeing the compassion that my son holds for the people, the ship, and even the dogs that are occasionally seen in the movie I would think the victims would be proud in some way. It's almost one hundred years later and they have been slowly forgotten, but then a little boy discovers the movie and wants to learn more. And then he discovers compassion and sympathy for them.

Maybe they weren't exploited after all. They were memorialized. Memorialized with beautiful filming and haunting music.