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The one thing I can hold true from Steven Biel’s Down with the Old Canoe, it’s that there are a whole bunch of stories that come from the Titanic. Biel makes the case that we should not exploit the myths of the Titanic because as its legacy could mean any number of things depending on our own cultural context. Over the years the saga of Titanic has been shaped to a variety of ends – begging for a resolution that Biel argues we will never fully get.
I agree with Amani when she wrote, “the Titanic served as a powerful metaphor for groups all across American society, groups like women’s suffragists, African Americans, the wealthy, and even traditionalists”. And I think Wells said it best when he observed that the Titanic served as a blank canvas on which Americans could project their own meaning, “The Titanic was certainly meaningful, but only in that it reflected the social and ideological complexities of a particular historical moment.” Those fighting for female empowerment pointed to the fact that women were strong enough to row the life-support boats and were organized enough to erect expensive memorials (although they paradoxically praised male chivalry). Meanwhile anti-suffragists reflected that women were better served by chivalry than voting rights. It gave special attention to praising the heroic deeds of the champions of capitalism, like Astor. “Such anecdotes” Biel writes, “served to conflate wealth and self-sacrifice, power and moral grandeur, social status and character” (42). Fundamentalists pointed to the greed and subsequent divine punishment of the day while the progressives pointed to new safety regulations. Everyone, it seemed, had something to gain and lose from the disaster.
But this book is not really about the sinking of the Titanic. No, it’s more about a society’s ability to reconstruct an event. I agree with Molly, the ability of a culture to reshape a disaster does not make the event intrinsically meaningless, especially when we are talking about lives. But thinking about going forward with my primary analysis paper, Biel’s text serves as reminder that I should understand the biases of my speaker. What you have to lose or gain in your recounting or exploiting of disaster?
Ha – here’s one thing this guy gained in exploiting the disaster:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/02/27/titanic-ii-cruise-ship-lifeboats-blue-star-line_n_2771356.html