I keep getting emails from people and reading people's homepages where they say things like, "Captain Smith was the biggest hero that night." "Fifth Officer Lowe was the biggest hero the night of April 14." "Kitty the dog was the biggest hero." "I am the biggest Titanic fan ever." "Titanic is the greatest disaster in the history of the world."
I just wanna say: "Get real."
That's it. :-) Just kidding of course. I just want to say that really, there *is* no "biggest hero" of Titanic. Almost everyone aboard was heroic. The band, Fifth Officer Lowe, Captain Smith, the first class men, the third class men, the second class men, the first class women, the lookouts, the telegraph operators, the men in the mailroom who tried to save the mail, the men below decks keeping the engines running, the stewards, the cooks... I mean the list could go on and on. Everyone did something which was above and beyond the call of duty.
What I really have a gripe about is the "I'm the biggest Titanic fan ever" attitude. I think there may be two or three people who could have that legitimate argument--Walter Lord, Charles Haas... a couple of others. Of course they may not be the biggest fans of the *movie*, but I'd say they could run circles around all of us as far as knowing the ship and her passengers inside out. But seriously, I do have a problem with people who claim to be these huge Titanic (the movie) fans, and they really know NOTHING about the movie. All they know about is Leonardo DiCaprio. It's always amusing for me to read about someone who thinks they're obsessed beyond belief because they've been to see it "three times" and "even went so far as to by the sound track". I hate to break it to you people but there are those of us who have seen it TWELVE times (yes I'm talking about me here), bought the soundtrack on both CD and cassette, bought not only the James Cameron's Titanic book, but also the fifty dollar Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy one by Charles Haas/John Eaton, the Titanic: Legacy of the World's Greatest Ocean Liner, A Night to Remember, Titanic: End of a Dream, and every magazine that even mentions the word Titanic in it, cut out every newspaper article they could find; bought a puzzle, bought the poster, bought the sheet music, and lots of other stuff. And there are some people who have probably done much more than that. If Titanic makes your heart skip a beat or ten, that's great. But I just think it's unrealistic for anyone to claim to be the "biggest" Titanic fan ever. There isn't one.