TikTok has declared Old Rose the real villain of Titanic, and they’ve got a point

Ever since the tragic events of the Titan submersible going missing and then imploding, my TikTok FYP has been completely and utterly encompassed by Titanic videos. I have watched the entirety of James Cameron’s Titanic via three minute TikTok chunks over the last few weeks. Kind of against my will, but I’ve also welcomed it. Amongst all the Titanic clips and facts though, one video stuck out to me. A TikTok creator has done a series explaining why Old Rose is actually the villain of Titanic, and he’s got more than a few points.

The TikTok basically talks about how in the scenes in the present (well, the 90s, but the present at the time of Titanic’s release) Old Rose is actually being a bit evil. She rings up the scientists and asks if they’ve found the Heart of the Ocean yet, even though she knows full well they haven’t because she’s got it on her person.

Old Rose lets all the men on the boat, which must be expensive to run and to send subs down from, continue even though she knows she could stop it at any moment. Old Rose then moans that it’s so heavy, but yet flies out to where the Titanic sank and the men continue to work whilst letting them continue when she had the treasure right there.

Another reason TikTok has called out Old Rose for being the villain of Titanic is due to her problematic comment where she calls Titanic “a slave ship” and describes herself as being in chains on it. Like, I get the metaphor – she finds the class divide and expectations on her stifling but to compare her first class ship experience to the experience those kidnapped to be slaves went through is beyond belief.

There are also several moments of her being villainous on the Titanic too, before she became Old Rose. One of these is how technically, in the film’s context at least, her and Jack literally caused the Titanic to crash because the crew on the lookout for icebergs got distracted by Rose and Jack necking off on deck.

All things considered, Rose is cancelled

@harrisonjbrock

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