The Titanic Theory

Remember the movie “Titanic?” Of course you do, I just had no other way of starting this post. If you haven’t heard of it, eh, well, you’re an idiot. I’m not saying it was a great movie, but it wasn’t as bad as its detractors made it out to be. It was a mammoth display of star power, technology and earnings, it was, titanic (har har).

Aside from the overall cheesiness and the fact that it was essentially a centuries-old love story lazily retold with the ship’s sinking serving as a mere backdrop, I have a major issue with one of the prevalent plot points and themes. I hate when the media and the entertainment industries try to paint poverty and the lower class as these free-spirited and care-free folks who know how to have a good time and are much wiser than their wealthy counterparts. This notion is not only an insult to those struggling to survive with minimal income, but a slap in the face to anyone with a brain.

In “Titanic,” they present the aristocratic upper class as stiff, boring and generally mean spirited. In contrast, they portray the poor people as these dancing goofs who know how to have a good time and are able to not only survive, but thrive while wallowing in poverty. This has been done in many films and countless musicals and I cannot believe that the world hasn’t caught onto the phoniness of this idea. Musicals love this sort of conflict because it can allow for a song and dance scene that incorporates some sort of choreographed trash can and street sweeper scene.

I challenge you to find a single homeless person or someone living paycheck to paycheck who wouldn’t want to trade places with someone who is financially well off. It’s completely ludicrous to believe that a person begging for change at 30th Street in the freezing cold with rain water seeping into their pores initiating the start of pneumonia would not like to trade places with the well dressed man making his way into the Comcast Tower to sit in his warm, plush leather chair behind an oak desk in front of a wide window in a corner office overlooking the city.

It is a juvenile concept and is mockery of the lower class. Now, some would argue that the upper class and the rich are constantly arguing about expenses and vacations while simultaneously going through the excruciating process of seeing which day care is the best for their child to attend once their class day is finished at whatever private and forward thinking elementary school they attend. Trust me, these are the problems that someone at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale would love to encounter. Worrying about what to do with the abundance of money that you have multiplying in your Swiss bank account is a much better problem than wondering if you will be able to place food on your table or if you will have a job tomorrow.

Please, stop trying to force feed us this completely false idea of the lower class being these jolly people who know how to have a better time than their wealthy brethren. It’s moronic and kind of reminiscent of Stepin Fetchit. Everybody wants to have money and nobody wants to be poor, no matter how glamorous the mainstream media strives to make it out to be.