Obsession with the Titanic

Perhaps it's just me, but I do feel a distaste for the industry that's grown up around the sinking of the Titanic. The ship sank 100 years ago yesterday after striking an iceberg in the north Atlantic. More than 1,500 people lost their lives and many died a dreadful death in the icy water, with survivors sundered from their families and loved ones. It was horrific, a massive tragedy and one that shocked Britain and America to the core.


Increasingly, we've turned this awful event into an industry, and this culminated in a festival of crassness and bad taste at the centenary of the accident this weekend. This was a horrific accident with massive loss of life and it needs to be treated with some reverence, but that has been completely disregarded. I don't think it makes any difference that it happened 100 years ago and that everyone who survived the Titanic is now dead.


What does it say about us that we are able to spot the commercial opportunity in a shocking, horrific event and exploit it for all it's worth? Are we going to do the same with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in 90 years time?


Of course there will be books and documentaries about the event, even films - although I was uneasy about the massive hype around the Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslett film that used the tragedy as the backdrop for a pretty lame love story. Since then, we've had high-tech expeditions to locate the wreck site; remote-controlled submarines 'climbing all over it'. There have been Titanic exhibitions and now there's now a massive permanent exhibition in Belfast where the ship was built. The centenary has brought about a feeding frenzy in all things Titanic.


The Kate Winslett film has been re-released in 3D, we've had a new ITV mini-series, countless documentaries, concerts and incredibly crass news reports about the whole thing - reports that show a dreadful lack of knowledge and empathy about the disaster and treat it as an entertainment event rather than a massive human tragedy. The worse thing about the whole anniversary has been a commemorative cruise (using a  modern cruise ship) which has recreated the journey as accurately as possible (sans iceberg, of course). Places were sold out within days as people, some of whom had relatives killed or involved in the acutal event, scrabbled to be part of the ultimate Titanic experience.

Passengers at the wreath-laying ceremony - all of them
recording the solemn moment on cameras and
camera-phones.

I didn't watch the news on Sunday, but Margaret said it was featured on the morning bulletin and they held a memorial service and dropped wreaths on the sea above the wreck. Margaret said they had some lame churchman conducting a service, reading from a script (wouldn't you have thought he could have committed it to memory?), no-one knew any of the hymns and throughout the service people were taking photographs, videoing the event and holding up their mobile phones.


I hope after this feeding frenzy, people will regain some perspective and view the Titanic as a dreadful accident to be remembered with sorrow and sadness and not a festival of entertainment.