When we watched *Titanic* as kids, we only saw Jack and Rose’s love as romantic and tragic.
Watching it again as adults, many of us suddenly think: Rose, the heroine, seems downright awful.
Back then, we were young and saw only how she escaped the cage of aristocratic society to pursue love.
It’s only as adults that we understand her situation was a dilemma in itself.
Her family had her trapped, counting on a marriage alliance to save their failing fortune. Her fiancé, Cal, gave her a life of luxury, but treated her like a collectible he could trade.
A lot of people call her “selfish”: she takes Cal’s diamond, enjoys his wealth, then falls in love with Jack—and in the end, survives alone, spending the rest of her life with Cal’s treasure.
But from another angle, what Rose is really rebelling against is an old society that treats women as assets.
What Cal wants is an “expensive collectible” to display in his living room and show off, like the jade and calligraphy his elders collected.
Rose doesn’t want to be an asset with a price tag, waiting for someone to take her off the market. She wants the power to choose and to control her own life.
That ties right in with what we were just saying about how two generations view assets:
In the old days, people themselves could be treated as assets that “grow more valuable the longer you hold on to them,” waiting for someone to take them off your hands;
while people today want the freedom to walk away at any time and make their own choices.
It’s not that Rose was awful. As kids, we only saw the love story;
as adults, we understand the class struggle and the question of who gets to make choices about their own lives beneath it.
Beneath its romantic veneer, this is really the story of someone refusing to be treated as an asset with a price tag.
Watching it again as adults, many of us suddenly think: Rose, the heroine, seems downright awful.
Back then, we were young and saw only how she escaped the cage of aristocratic society to pursue love.
It’s only as adults that we understand her situation was a dilemma in itself.
Her family had her trapped, counting on a marriage alliance to save their failing fortune. Her fiancé, Cal, gave her a life of luxury, but treated her like a collectible he could trade.
A lot of people call her “selfish”: she takes Cal’s diamond, enjoys his wealth, then falls in love with Jack—and in the end, survives alone, spending the rest of her life with Cal’s treasure.
But from another angle, what Rose is really rebelling against is an old society that treats women as assets.
What Cal wants is an “expensive collectible” to display in his living room and show off, like the jade and calligraphy his elders collected.
Rose doesn’t want to be an asset with a price tag, waiting for someone to take her off the market. She wants the power to choose and to control her own life.
That ties right in with what we were just saying about how two generations view assets:
In the old days, people themselves could be treated as assets that “grow more valuable the longer you hold on to them,” waiting for someone to take them off your hands;
while people today want the freedom to walk away at any time and make their own choices.
It’s not that Rose was awful. As kids, we only saw the love story;
as adults, we understand the class struggle and the question of who gets to make choices about their own lives beneath it.
Beneath its romantic veneer, this is really the story of someone refusing to be treated as an asset with a price tag.