James Cameron’s Movie The Titanic: An Ideology Of Class, Gender And Race

James Cameron’s movie the Titanic, is one of the most successful and of the most popular movies released in its era. The movie is a representation of a unique history of cinema and fell off the charts from its success in the late 1990’s. The movie represents the differences of class and portrays the types of class treatment aboard the ship. Popular culture is portrayed throughout the film and is something, well liked and known by many people and includes the traditional practices and beliefs of a specific group and the practices of everyday life (O’Brien, 2019). The Titanic is a direct mirror image of popular culture as it is something well known and popular by most of the world, it was obviously created for profit and it represents a form of culture for the people, by its loving story and its genre made by consumers. The interest from society of this movie, contributed to the psychological impact it had on the public. Not only is the Titanic a movie, it was the words largest ship during the time of 1912 and claimed to be unsinkable. Since the disaster, many things changed when it came to ocean safety regulations and made travel safe today. When it comes to pop culture, the film was produced through the entertainment industry, commercial media and reached large audiences. Pop culture has a history of social class positions and this movie’s main theme is the representation of social class and the disaster following it.

Ideology and discourse are two important concepts in the movie Titanic since, it depicts two different classes that were being treated during the film and in real life. Ideology refers to the process by which the set beliefs and values in a society become naturalized or an outcome of history (O’Brien 2019). This ties into popular culture because the film explores the white males and females from the middle class and the upper class. However, this ideology presented is challenged because the storyline involves a young man (Jack) from a working-class background who falls in love with a rich upper-class woman (Kate). The film describes her conflict and struggle with all her upper-class amenities and being engaged with her fiancé who is part of the poor- working class. The expectations she has from her family are frankly strict and result from a patriarchal society she is involved with. The tragedy that this film presents unfolds during the story that challenges this social division as upper class and lower class’ fight for survival. When the ship sinks at the end of the film, the lower class aren’t put as a priority because the ideology of this film states that they are less important than the upper class, so the “ruling class” are put on life boats and the lower deck who are the working class, drown. Overall, this ideology presented by the film truly depicts ideology in popular culture and how individuals need to use the process of encoding and decoding to truly know the construction of the virtual and real world and their position within a culture. The conditions in which people lived during the Titanic were obscured by others and some people truly suffered because of their class position.

Just like in pop culture, dominance and hegemony are big factors, as dominant groups in the society were exercising control over the weaker groups, which led to the decision and motif of saving the upper-class people first. The mythology that is presented in contemporary society is that, class describes a relationship to wealth and status, so one’s class position has an influence on their identity and social orientation. The Titanic also represents different forms of pop culture and specifically, folk culture as the movie was developed over time within a particular community and was passed from generation to generation. Many people for example, my age know about this movie and is going to remain an important part of generations to come. This film connects with ideology because it is based off a real story and the real conditions of the people became obscured, for the sake of maintaining power.

Discourse is another important concept in popular culture because the movie ties its attention to many messages, embraces culture, meanings and popular culture as a whole. Discourse is something that describes a distinct area of social knowledge and the linguistic practices which are associated with it (O’Brien,2019). The discourse that is produced during the film’s disaster, aims to keep the cultural beliefs and values in place that have may been threatened by what had happened following the sinking of the ship. The discourse in the Titanic blames society, the workers and especially the ship owner for challenging nature and entering such dangerous conditions. Not only was the discourse challenged, the creators of the Titanic thought they created a ship that would never sink, and nature could not takeover. Everyone was in disbelief that the ship sank, and this was because of the unreliable sources of communication and information, released by amateur broadcasters during the beginning of the wireless communication era.

Furthermore, important factors of the movie are that it deals with consumerism and consumption as well, which is important for pop culture as its dealt with on an everyday basis. Pierre Bourdieu discusses how the social use of consumption is in the form of class and group discrimination and or domination. The differences in consumption express the way in which consumption has been used to create pre-existing class divisions. Also, Thorsten Verblens theory about conspicuous consumption is an example of how the upper class was limited, in its social hierarchy and only a few people could have it and this resulted in them being saved, while the majority of the working class were unhappy and were left to drown. References to class, gender, sinking, religious and romantic illusions have persuaded that the tragedy really did occur. Overall, the movie could be a result of the 20th century experiences, like consumerism, tourism and other representations.

Stuart Halls’ notes for deconstructing the popular deals with popular culture and the notions of different classes. Stuart hall discusses the problematic meaning of the word “popular”. He discusses how working-class members are often manipulated consumers as well as those who seek an original working-class culture that does not exist. Hall likes the changing descriptions of pop culture. The period in which Hall wrote his notes saw changes in urban working classes with the appearance of industries and technology. He looked at the corporate produced culture and the mass culture. He also holds significance to the lower classes. This relates to the example of the Titanic because the working class in the movie was often manipulated and worked as servants and were not saved first when the titanic sank, rather the upper class was seen as more important to save. Hall also sees pop culture as an ongoing process, and this connects to the Titanic as certain forms gained and lost support from institutions.

In conclusion the film, the Titanic, shows an ideology of class, gender and race which appealed to a wide audience and proved to be a worldwide success. The time in which the film was produced in, had significant changes in the world and many working-class people during the time of the issue, experienced issues with their race, gender and work. This film carried out many notions of class and the differences of treatment. Ideology and discourse are two themes that are widely presented in the era of the film and represent popular culture as a whole. While watching the movie one can see the different classes presented and how popular culture arose from this movie. The spread and intensification of this film brought new forms of ideology and new concepts of social class and how people should be treated. In today’s modern world. It is essential to interpret the illusions presented and the motives the film is trying to present, Lastly, the movie is directly a form of popular culture because of its consumerism, its wide popularity, its exchange of money and its contribution of profit that the film had made. The tragedy as we know about refer to white, males and females and their sacrifices, but these are all humanist myths!