Titanic/YMMV


 * Acceptable Target: The film goes out of its way to trash the image of one William Murdoch, who (aside from being implicated in the Titanic hitting the iceberg) variously takes a bribe from Cal Hockley, shoots people as the ship sinks, and then finally kills himself. This might have been a way of demonstrating incompetence by the ship's crew... had there not actually been a William Murdoch who was on Titanic and who actually had the position the William Murdoch who appears on screen did. There were eyewitness reports from the Titanic's survivors that Murdoch killed no one, did not commit suicide, and was alive in the water when the ship went down, fighting hard to loose more lifeboats right to the bitter end. Murdoch's surviving relatives complained when they saw the film, and the vice president of the entire Fox Network eventually flew out personally to apologise for the gaffe, donating five thousand pounds to a British school's William Murdoch Memorial Prize. (Possibly the only time anyone has ever been upset about a Fox affiliation insulting somebody called Murdoch.)
 * Though, to be fair, the one person Murdoch shot was by accident, or at least out of reflex rather than actually taking aim and pulling the trigger. Additionally, prior to that incident in the movie, he literally throws Cal's money back in his face with the line "Your money can't save you any more than it can save me."
 * Plus he seemed to stare at Cal in disbelief when he shoved the money at him.
 * In addition, there are a number of survivor accounts of an officer shooting himself on the forward end of the starboard Boat Deck. If this did happen, it would have had to been either Chief Officer Wilde or First Officer Murdoch, as all the other officers are accounted for elsewhere. Murdoch seems to be the more likely one.
 * Well, there are two potentially CREDIBLE direct accounts (others are from people who, because of their positions, such as in lifeboats launched earlier, couldn't possibly have seen or heard what they later claimed.) Adding to the confusion is both simply refer to the "Chief Officer", without it being at all clear whether they used the term correctly or who they meant. Through crew juggling in Southampton, it's possible both Murdoch (the original Chief Officer) and Wilde (who transferred from Olympic at the last minute) could have been wearing Chief Officer's insignia and it's unlikely most passengers knew either man by name. As for who seemed more likely, Murdoch was married, Wilde was a widower with a family to support, and a lifeboat left to launch. The only eyewitness who absolutely knew Murdoch by sight, Lightoller, wrote to Murdoch's widow immediately after the sinking and said the last he had seen before being swept off the deck, Murdoch had been attempting to free the last collapsible boat before everyone was washed overboard.
 * And now Cameron has issued a public apology to Murdoch's relatives. Cameron says, "I think I have come to the realization that it was probably wrong to portray a specific person, in this case First Officer Murdoch, as the one who fired the weapon. First Officer Murdoch has a family and they took exception to that, and I think rightly so."
 * Badass Longcoat: Rose's pink jacket. The fact that she wears it mostly during the sequence where she becomes a more conventional action heroine when she goes to rescue Jack from the Master-at-Arm's cabin reinforces this. She even takes it off once she has the axe and is about to go into the chest-high water, the same way a badass hero/heroine would remove their long coat to let people know they're about to get down to business. Later, Cal's jacket becomes this once Rose starts wearing it.
 * Cliché Storm: Before Avatar!
 * Deader Than Disco: Its popularity plus the squeeing Leo fangirls turned the movie into something people wouldn't admit they liked. It's becoming acceptable again, though.
 * Ear Worm: In addition to the all-pervading "My Heart Will Go On", just try getting the belowdecks party music out of your head...
 * Fan Dumb: Apparently, some Titanic fans never realized the iconic ship was real...until the 3D re-release, and posted their amazement on Facebook and Twitter. What...
 * Freud Was Right: "I think you'll find his insight on the male preoccupation with size quite interesting."
 * It Was His Sled: Jack freezes to death. Also, the Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: Jack dies and Rose lets his dead body float away. More than a decade later, Christopher Nolan's Inception came out, and the film opens up with DiCaprio's character washing up on a beach.
 * This is naturally picked up on during the Riff Trax. "Damn Titanic!"
 * Jerkass Woobie: Cal. Being a product of his times, he genuinely cannot understand how Rose could possibly be happy as the wife of a homeless man with no financial security. His treatment of Rose is also a direct by-product of his upbringing and culture, though that doesn't make it any less deplorable. Rose and Jack themselves, meanwhile, are clearly ahead of their time as far as their values go(this may explain why so many people view them as anachronistic characters). In short, he genuinely loves Rose but does not know how to show it properly, he loses her to another man, and then gets to New York thinking that she's dead.
 * Just Here for Godzilla: Hands up, who just skips to when the ship's sinking?
 * The VHS release of the film splits into two cassettes and Tape #2 picks up a little after the ship actually hits the iceberg, so you could have just started from there if you wanted.
 * Manic Pixie Dream Boy: An argument can be made for Jack Dawson being a rare male example of the MPDG trope: a mysterious, handsome, appealing, artistic and free-spirited boy who, because we see him entirely from Rose's perspective, we get very little sense of his interior life or character motivation beyond how he relates to Rose. All his actions throughout the film relate to Rose and are as much about defining her character as they are about his. His "big speech" moment is not about him, it's all about Rose and how he sees her as a beautiful creature trapped in her world who'll die if she can't break free. An example of why Tropes Are Not Bad, and explanation (along with the fact the character was played by Leonardo DiCaprio) of this film's insane popularity with the teen girl demographic.
 * Memetic Mutation: Loads, though the most famous remains Rose's declaration that she'll "never let go, Jack"...moments before she shoves him off her impromptu life-raft, and we get a shot of him sinking into the depths. That and that damn song, which to this day can't be played without being mocked.
 * "I'm going to sink this bitch!"
 * "Jack, draw me like one of your French girls" - an image macro with this quote as a caption and a character in a suggestive pose as an image. Humour derived from the character not being an attractive girl or the pose being not intentionally suggestive - no one's sure what's the proper way, as it started as one of 60s Spiderman macros which features both at once.
 * Narm / Narm Charm: There's a reason many aspects of this movie are often parodied, but a fair chunk of those parodies are in some measure affectionate.
 * Memetic Bystander / Ensemble Darkhorse: The Propeller Guy.
 * It's Popular, Now It Sucks
 * Retroactive Recognition: Ioan Gruffudd is the officer that rescues Rose from the icy waters.
 * Special Effects Failure: The film has one of the first digital face replacements, i.e. the faces of two stunt doubles are replaced with the faces of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in one scene. It is painfully obvious, to say the least.
 * Straw Man Has a Point: Two antagonists have a point.
 * Until Cal begins to Kick the Dog he is Roses' fiancee, and has every right to be angry about her going to the party with the guy she had just met yesterday.
 * Thing is that at that point they were "just" friends implying males and females cant be friends and part of the romance is pushed along by his jerkish behavior as Jack wants to save Rose from him.
 * Uh, it was 1912. They CANNOT be unchaperoned friends. Not remotely appropriate, even if Jack had been another first-class passenger. While Cal does evolve into a Jerkass even by the standards of the day (having a psycho valet stalk your fiancee and hitting her while overturning the tea table weren't appropriate even then) he's still right to be annoyed at least by Rose running around unsupervised with a total stranger of the opposite sex.
 * Rose's mother has every right to be scared that she would have to go to work and have their things auctioned off, and marrying your daughter into a wealthy family to ensure wealth was very common. The Big Bad in that was really Rose's father, leaving his wife and daughter with a ton of bad debts.
 * Problem is that Rose's mother is still putting it all on her. And that's not even getting into the blatant emotional manipulation by the mother on her own daughter in that scene