Back-to-back airings of the movie Titanic put Fuji TV in hot water

Too soon?

The 1997 film Titanic, which chronicles two lovers whose stars couldn’t be more crossed aboard the notoriously doomed luxury liner, is considered a masterpiece of cinema, earning both critical and box-office success. But there’s a time and a place for everything, and two days after people were declared dead in a submarine en route to the actual shipwreck probably isn’t it for this movie.

People around the world had been following reports on the fate of Oceangate’s Titan sub and its passengers all week before it was declared on 22 June that the vessel had imploded before arriving at the site of the Titanic. Perhaps the amount of attention was due to the eerily numerous parallels to the actual Titanic sinking, from the affluence of the passengers to the lack of appropriate safety measures and even the name of the vessel.

Around this same time, people started noticing that major network Fuji Television was set to air the movie Titanic – not once but twice, on 24 June and 1 July, causing the network to be faced with accusations of trying to cash in on the widespread morbid curiosity.

In fairness to Fuji TV, the showings of Titanic were first announced on 23 May, well before most people ever even heard of Oceangate. However, even in light of the news, the network still decided to press ahead with the airing.

While there were mixed opinions, readers of the news online largely felt that Fuji TV was well within its rights to stick with the decision even if it wasn’t what they themselves would do in the situation.

“Just don’t watch if you think it’s disrespectful. No one’s forcing you.”
“Some many people die every day. Why do these guys get special treatment?”
“Isn’t it just as bad as watching a war movie, since wars are going on right now?”
“The movie didn’t do anything wrong, but showing it probably would make a lot of people feel bad.”
“This is really unscrupulous.”
“I don’t see any difference between what Fuji TV did and what the people who went to see a mass grave for fun did.”
“Maybe they can show it but just cut out the part where the ship sinks.”
“I can’t watch Titanic without thinking about what just happened.”
“I would have just chalked it up to bad luck and changed the schedule.”
“That’s some really amazing timing!”
“They’re absolutely going to get higher ratings for this and they know it.”
“I haven’t seen Leonardo DiCaprio in anything recently… What’s he doing?”
“Lol, all you guys still watch TV?”

It’s worth pointing out that despite the prevalence of on-demand film, movies on TV still seem to hold quite a bit of stock in Japanese culture. A TV broadcast acts as a sort of touchstone of a film’s quality that can’t be determined on a video store’s rack or streaming service’s menu. And considering the many, many crappy titles floating around out there, that’s still worth something.

▼ Armageddon of the Dead was never given a prime-time weekend slot on network TV.

Personally, I’m for showing Titanic because the main takeaway I got from all this news was that James Cameron is a pretty smart guy. He was starting to loose me with all those blue people movies, but he knows his stuff.

Source: Josei Jishin, My Game News Flash
Top image: YouTube/FilmIsNow Movie Trailers International
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