Titanic Ethical Movie Review

TITANIC

(Movie Analysis)

ETHICS II

The movie Titanic is one of my all-time favorites. This movie is FILLED with moral and ethical dilemmas. So many dilemmas it would take you a month to list them all. I want to focus on two of the main characters, Rose and her fiancé Cal. The basis of the movie is of one of the greatest ships in the world and how it comes to its demise however in this movie it tells a great love story and survival story not just from the sinking ship but Rose’s personal battle with her unhappiness.

Rose DeWitt Bukater is a high society young woman who recently lost her father and all of their families’ wealth. She is engaged to Cal Hockley, a man from a rich and powerful family that can give her and her mother anything in life they desire. They are on the Titanic headed to America to be married. She spends her days playing the socialite games and going through the same routine and boring rituals to please her egoist mother who doesn’t want to lose their high society status or wealth. She finally has enough and tries to end her life by jumping overboard when she meets a young man (Jack Dawson) who talks her out of ending her pain. She starts spending time with Jack to thank him and finds his free spirit attitude towards life and simple care free adventurous lifestyle intriguing. Soon after, she falls in love with Jack and plans to leave her fiancé and mother for a care free life with Jack. The Titanic then hits an iceberg and the boat begins to sink. She must make a decision of whether to stay with her fiancé and mother in a rich high society and be miserable or live a fun filled adventurous life with the man she really loves.

Rose is looking for the pursuit of happiness and fulfillment as seen in Virtue Ethics. She wants to do the right thing but has to find for herself what the “right thing” is. She wants to please her mother and make sure she is happy and taken care of but at what price to her own happiness will this avail? She has finally fallen in love and found someone so spontaneous in his actions that she will have the life she always dreamed of even if it means being poor. Jack tells her of the great adventures they will have and how she will live to be and old woman with many children. She is fascinated with his dreams and adventures and chooses to spend the rest of her life with him. She tells her egoist fiancé her plans as the boat is sinking and he calls her a whore. She then looks him in the eye and states “I would rather be his whore than your wife”, and turns and walks away. She finds Jack and they fight together to survive on the sinking ship.

Cal Hockley is without a doubt an egoist. He is manipulative and only thinks of his own best interests in all of his actions of daily life. I’m sure it was how he was raised to be spoiled rotten and always get his way. He is both verbally and physically abusive to Rose, always telling her what she will and won’t do and having her followed on the boat by his personal assistant to spy