RMS Titanic in popular culture
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RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that became infamous for its collision with an iceberg and dramatic sinking in 1912.
[edit] Literature
The Titanic sinking has become the best-known seafaring disaster and therefore an archetype for a disaster involving multiple casualties, which might not necessarily involve ships. The metaphor "rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic", meaning making trivial changes when a fundamental change of course is needed, has come into common usage.
The sinking of Titanic has been the basis for many years and novels describing fictionalised events on board the ship. Many reference books about the disaster have also been written since Titanic sank, the first of these appearing within months of the sinking. Survivors like Second Officer Charles Lightoller and passenger Jack Thayer have written books describing their experiences. Some like Walter Lord, who wrote the popular A Night to Remember, did independent research and interviews to describe the events that happened on board the ship.
Morgan Robertson's 1898 novella Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan, which was written 14 years before RMS Titanic's ill-fated voyage, was found to have many parallels with the Titanic disaster; Robertson's work concerned a fictional state-of-the-art ocean liner called Titan, which eventually collides with an iceberg on a calm April night whilst en route to New York. Most of those aboard die because of the lack of lifeboats. Both Titan itself and the manner of its demise bore many striking similarities to Titanic and its eventual fate, and Robertson's novella remains in print today as an unnerving curiosity.
Clive Cussler's 1976 Dirk Pitt novel Raise the Titanic detailed raising the Titanic using inflatable bags in order to recover a mineral vital to national security. Because it was written before the Titanic was discovered, its premise was based on the theory that the ship remained in one piece. The novel was made into a movie in 1980 starring Richard Jordan in the lead role and included Anne Archer and Jason Robards. The film did not perform at the box office, prompting the producer, Sir (later Lord) Lew Grade to famously remark "It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic!"
In 1997, a novel very similar to the 1997 film was published. It was called Titanic: The Long Night and it was written by Diane Hoh.
[edit] Media and Entertainment
Titanic has been featured in a large number of films and TV movies, most notably:
- Saved From the Titanic (1912)
- In Nacht und Eis (1912)
- Atlantic (1929)
- Titanic (1943)
- Titanic (1953)
- A Night to Remember (1958)
- S.O.S. Titanic, TV movie (1979)
- Raise the Titanic! (1980)
- Titanic, TV mini-series (1996)
- Titanic (1997)
The most widely viewed is the 1997 film Titanic, directed by James Cameron and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. It became the highest-grossing film in history by far, taking over $600 million in the U.S. and beating the 20-year record-holder Star Wars by $140 million.[1] The film grossed over $1.8 billion worldwide. It also won 11 Academy Awards, tying with Ben-Hur (1959) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) for the most awards won. The wide success of the film spurred additional interest in the Titanic story over a variety of mediums.
The story was also made into a Broadway musical, Titanic, written by Peter Stone with music by Maury Yeston. Titanic ran from 1998 to 2000. The 1960 Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown tells survivor Margaret Brown's life story, which included the events onboard Titanic. Interviewed following the disaster, she commented "I'm a Brown. We're unsinkable." The musical was written by Richard Morris with music by Meredith Willson. A film version starring Debbie Reynolds was released in 1964.
Many television shows have also referenced the Titanic disaster. The second episode of the series One Step Beyond was titled "Night of April 14th". The show The Time Tunnel featured a visit to the ship on its first episode. Lady Marjorie Bellamy, a character in the British drama Upstairs, Downstairs, went down in the Titanic. A character on the TV show Dead Like Me became a grim reaper when she died on the Titanic.
The animated series Futurama did a parody where it had the cast boarding a space–faring vessel called Titanic ("A Flight to Remember"). The spaceship was torn in half by a black hole on its maiden voyage. Titanic was once used in the plot of the NBC soap opera Passions, where the lovers Luis and Sheridan discovered that they were passengers on the ship in past lives. The show NewsRadio used the Titanic as the setting for their fourth-season finale, and in the Doctor Who episode The End of the World, The Doctor comments that he was "clinging to an iceberg" after surviving the sinking of an 'unsinkable ship'.
The cartoon series Animaniacs also depicts the Titanic sinking, and in one Pinky and the Brain cartoon, the sunken ship is all in one piece, and was somehow brought back to the surface of the ocean. In movies, Titanic made a brief appearances such as Time Bandits, Cavalcade, Ghostbusters 2, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. In a multi-part story in the Dark Horse Comics Godzilla series, an evil scientist transports Godzilla to various points in time, one issue focusing on Godzilla running into the Titanic and being responsible for its sinking.
Songs about the disaster include folk songs and popular music including the Polish rock group Lady Pank's song "Zostawcie Titanica" which is a plea to not disturb the wreck.
Using Titanic as humor or reference has not been exclusive to popular entertainment. Gus Grissom, whose Liberty Bell 7 Mercury spacecraft sank after his 1961 flight, named his Gemini 3 spacecraft Molly Brown as a reference to the play and his hopes that his second craft would be unsinkable. The Intel Itanium microprocessor has often been jokingly called "Itanic", since (as of 2005) its sales have fallen far short of expectations.
In 1996 Cyberflix made a point and click adventure game, called Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, which sees the player travelling around a virtual representation of the Titanic.
In 1998, Titanic: The Board Game became available briefly in Great Britain but has not been re-released.
