In an article in this week’s magazine, Daniel Mendelsohn delves into the uses that the hundred-year-old Titanic tragedy has been put to, as myth, parable, morality tale, and even humor, citing a 1999 headline from the Onion:
“WORLD’S LARGEST METAPHOR HITS ICE-BERG”
For me, the real mark of the Titanic’s enduring hold on our imagination is that enough time has passed so that the comic imagination has sidled in beside the tragic one. It’s ye olde tragedy + time = comedy cliché at work. When James Cameron’s sentimental epic of romance and heroism came out, in 1997, it was ripe for spoofing by New Yorker cartoonists Donald Reilly and Jack Ziegler.
There’s nothing wrong with the sort of romance and heroism and chivalry that occurred on the Titanic, except that it’s not funny. Can’t be. The harsh truth of humor is that it doesn’t elevate human attributes,
it diminishes them:
The statue below, located in Litchfield, England, celebrates the bravery of the Titanic’s captain, Edward John Smith, who went down with the ship, bequeathing, as the memorial plaque says “…the memory and example of a great heart, a brave life, and a heroic death…”
As you can see, the photo of the captain is shot from below—way below. Probably because the pigeons in Litchfield are not any more respectful of heroic statues than pigeons elsewhere.
Aristotle said that tragedy presented characters who were above the average, while in comedy they fell far short.
This is why the fool is a stock character of comedy along with the coward, who is especially funny if he expected to be as courageous as a lion
or a captain:
