Between ubiquitous media event and teenage fan phenomenon: notes on the mainstream cult of James Cameron’s Titanic1
p. 283-307
Texte intégral
INTRODUCTION: MORE THAN A MOVIE
1The concept of cult is concerned with great devotion towards a person, object, idea or work, such as a film or a book. Usually, the cult is associated with a small sectarian group characterised by such devotion. Cults understood in this sense are almost by definition based on a set of acquired and limited cultural codes and symbolic capital, that function to distinguish the “deviant” believers from the non-believers. Often, much of the cultic potential is found in the denial of utilitarianism, or in opposition to commercial values (as in worshipping the misrecognised genius). The non-believers, however, are more inclined to regard such devotion as negative, as a fad and/or verging on pathological idolisation.
2In this paper I propose turning this idea on its head. Without denying the fruitfulness of the above approach, I will argue that cultic phenomena may also very well co-exist with strong economic forces in a commercial context, and may be associated with mainstream cultural expressions. This conceptualisation may seem a contradiction in terms, as cults are usually associated with the dedicated worship of marginal, provocative or mystical beliefs (as in Satanism), and with non-commercial activity. But as Durkheim suggested with his notion of the modern “cult of the individual” almost 100 years ago, cults may also be viewed as oriented towards the universalistic2. Moreover, they do not escape the economy. Witness for instance the fan followings of certain rock stars, or groups, such as Elvis or The (who are worshipped by the “Deadheads”).
3Hollywood director James Cameron’s recent cinematic account of the Titanic disaster is another example, which I will here use as a case of study3. An enormous commercial apparatus employing all available media to achieve maximum publicity, combined with a spectacular mainstream Hollywood aesthetics and narrative, made the film Titanic itself into a ubiquitous media event. Largely because of the film’s intention to faithfully reconstruct an event that caused one of the great collective traumas of the previous century, Cameron’s Titanic can be interpreted as creating a centripetal “holy” centre of attention for almost the entire Western world. Not only does it provide a shared focus, as we enter the new millennium it also proposes a definition of a shared past, and of a common origin and fate. This does not mean that all viewers are equally devoted, or that everyone gets the same message. Even though Cameron’s Titanic has been the object of almost universal worship, the codes constituting the worshipping relation between different subjects (i. e. people) and different aspects of the film may vary. We are, after all, dealing with a reconstruction that is also pervaded by Hollywoodian fictional moves that may lead to everything from total involvement for some to downright refusal to accept any authenticity at all for others. Nevertheless, both box office figures (which broke all previous records), public debate and polls suggest that most people tended to become deeply involved with the film, which can be interpreted as expressions of an extensive collective “mainstream” cult, in which we all are, in some sense, involved. The cult, then, consists of (a) a sacred object, (b) a large, but loosely defined collective of worshippers, and (c) a set of codes, establishing the meaningful relationship between subjects and object – in other words: the worship. These codes may to a certain extent be agreed upon, but this is not necessarily the case. Negotiations of the meaning of such relationships are just what this essay is all about.
4In this paper I will address the problem of understanding the appeal of Cameron’s Titanic, locating it analytically as a curious mix of media event, cult pilgrimage and manipulated action entertainment. Empirically, the paper reviews and discusses some features of experiencing the Titanic movie from the viewpoint of Norway, on the outskirts of Europe. In other words, I emphasise the local reception of this internationally distributed best-seller, at the level of both cinematographic institutions and audience reception, and ask: how is the film made sense of within the Norwegian film-going culture? The cinema sociological approach applied tones down (but in no way ignores) the role of genre and aesthetics in favour of practice; it also makes action at the distribution and reception level of communication into central features of study. I focus not only the narrative features of the film itself but also on the symbolic environment of promotional images and other media coverage, as well as on the reasons people went to see the movie, the ways they attended the cinema, and the pleasure they got from the film4.
TITANIC AS UBIQUITOUS MEDIA EVENT
5In Media Events – The Live Broadcasting of History5, Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz deal with important historical events of international interest as they are mediated by television, such as the first moon landing, and the Kennedy funeral. The authors analyse what they term a new television narrative genre. Syntactically, media events are characterised as interruptions of routine, being broadcast live from remote locations. Semantically, they are hailed as historic and presented with reverence. Pragmatically, they attract very large audiences, and a unique norm of viewing, often in ceremonial context, guides the reception. To speak of a media event, “all three elements are ‘necessary’”, the authors argue6, which also means that the corpus of their study “is limited to ceremonial occasions7”. Furthermore, from a reception perspective, media events involve the possibility that television spectators might be brought into the ceremonial arena. Indeed, the argument rests to a considerable extent on the assumption that television possesses the power to transcend the distance between viewer and event; that television is able to give the viewer a participating sense of “being there”, and thus, turn a “spectacle” mode of interaction into a “ceremonial” mode of interaction.
6Being mentioned by Dayan & Katz as spectacle par excellence, movies are omitted from the media events definition and frame of reference8. That is, their perspective does not claim that cinematic experience has a similar potentially transcending power. The main difference is, of course, the “syntactic” dimension of time: while televised media events take place in liminal collective time-outs, displaying “history in the making” for all television viewers to witness as it unfolds, cinematic experience is not based on simultaneity in time (apart from its involving actual viewers on a certain night, in a certain theatre, who experience a simultaneity of attendance, even if not simultaneous with the event itself). Also, a movie is a commodity, openly “defiled” by economic concerns and factors, in contrast to the “pure” televised ceremony. Still, Cameron’s Titanic as cultural phenomenon bears some important similarities to the television ceremonies studied by Dayan and Katz, and these may influence the reception and meaning of the film.
7Titanic was a “media event”, I will argue, in the following ways: “Syntactically” it was an unusual movie. The film more or less monopolised the attention of the entire cinematographic world for months, and, as I will develop below, distributors and other senders could not simply conduct “business as usual” in handling the film. Even though the account of the disaster obviously not was a live event, and the cinematic experience of it was mainly embedded in leisure time and took place at various points in time for different people, a certain simultaneity in experiencing the phenomenon was nevertheless evident: in a more “liminoid”, broad sense, during the winter, spring and summer of 1998, we, as a social aggregate, “all” saw Titanic. As with television, the experience was remote: we were invited to travel along, and we could join in, but without risk.
8Semantically, Titanic was hailed as historic. Not only the original event of 1912, but also the achievements of the film in 1997/98 were quickly designated as historical. Cameron displayed great care in reconstructing the original event as faithfully and respectfully as possible, to ensure the authenticity of the film. He even stressed the physical likeness of cast and real persons9. The achievements of the film in 1997/98 to a great extent contributed to create the film’s power as a modern media event, as all aspects of it became news and sources for other mediated reflections on both the phenomenon and movie called “Titanic”. The event was “rehearsed” via this massive media publicity at the time of the premiere, and we became quite aware of what to expect inside the theatre – here, we were taken to the Titanic; in the theatre we witness the event unfold through the eyes of the characters. Still, in this media event we are not participating in “history in the making”, we know we are watching history. In contrast to televised ceremonial events (but with the important possible exception of “coronation” events), we know the outcome in advance. This awareness of Titanic’s being fictional docudrama taking us back in time via active reconstruction also means that the element of historical event is partially transferred from the syntactic interruptive level at a commonly experienced moment in time (as in Dayan and Katz’s theory) to the semantic narrative level.
9Pragmatically, the film’s box office records point to more than just another Hollywood triumph. The film was also unusual were opinion was concerned. Not only did it attract an unusually large audience, including a lot of non-regular cinema-goers, it also created an unusual atmosphere of cinematic occasion. There have been few (if any) moments in cinematic history to have displayed such a clear collective consciousness of a cinematic phenomenon: even individuals who usually are most ignorant of cinema and other entertainment could not help but notice this film.
10In sum, the significance of these “media event” features of Cameron’s Titanic adds up to a compelling invitation to participate in mediated pilgrimage.
TITANIC AS MEDIA-CONSTRUCTED “MAINSTREAM” CULT
11In sociology of religion, the cultic community is often contrasted with the sectarian community. Historically, cultic religious collectivities are characterised as “a loose association of persons with a private, eclectic religiosity… Although many cults historically took place in a group (e. g. a whole village making an annual pilgrimage), they tended to be highly individualistic. Participants sought personal intentions, and the desired religious experience was not expected to bind members into any long lasting sense of community10”.
12Cults also “had loosely defined boundaries: Doctrine was absent or minimal, and membership was loose, undefined and voluntary. These groups tended to be very pluralistic, so one might belong to several different cults, depending on one’s needs at the time11”.
13We can easily see how this original definition of religious “cult” fits with contemporary media-constructed collectivities, in the sense that, historically, cultic communities were often just as fragile and “diasporic” as modern media-constructed “imagined” communities. Indeed, the pragmatic orientation toward the satisfaction of needs and gratifications displayed by members of the historical cults described above is almost postmodern in essence. Cults understood in this way do not equip the believer with a “total” lifestyle or ideology expressed in certain cultic objects and rites (as in Satanism). They are not associated with a coherent mythology or gospel. Cults are not sects12. Nor are they necessarily long-lasting.
14The concept of cult has been important for scholars of religion due to its precise reference to the form of much popular (in the sense, “created from below”) religious practice throughout history. Historically, many cults arose from popular images associated with local places or persons, the symbols and relics of which were made into iconic cultic objects. What cults do have in common with sects is opposition to official religion, and they often come across as slightly threatening, and potentially subversive to the latter. A pilgrimage, for instance, was an expression of communitas: the spontaneous linking of social relations initiated and governed by the people themselves. On these grounds, it may seem paradoxical to suggest that Titanic can be interpreted as pilgrimage, since it to a great extent is a media construction: a commercially guided and manipulated commodity of entertainment, quite the opposite of something popularly created.
15Still, Cameron’s Titanic is, as I will argue below, narrated as an invitation to join a universally-oriented cult, and the actual, unusually extensive, participation more or less fulfils this cultic potential of the film. The mainstream expression is what gives the movie its unique, crossover, “media events” appeal; when added to the already existing cultural history and context of the Titanic developed throughout the 20th century, it offers the greatest “mainstream” cultic appeal. Titanic, then, has constructed a cultic collectivity, the morphology of which may be described by loose boundaries, non-rigid structure and lack of traditional authority, as well as anonymity. Its most basic expression is the audience. Still, it can also be viewed from an “imagined community” frame of reference: each viewer knows very well that seeing this film is an experience he or she shares with quite a lot of others. Those who have not seen it know that most others have. The audience actually constitutes a network of people associated by this common experience. This process of unification is strengthened if the text of the movie is strongly embedded in collective memory and in myth, if it constitutes a “sacred” centre that contributes to ground the communal mechanism of this experience (as in Titanic). Films like Titanic inhibit a quality that makes possible a sort of cinematic “diasporic spectacle”, comparable to the notion of televised “diasporic ceremonies” proposed by Dayan and Katz13. It may actually be argued that part of the cultic appeal may be traced just in the spectacle position, in the element of “touching from a distance” that involves a potential for mystery and enchantment, without risk in the liminal moment. The distance between the screen and the viewer is also a distance between the cultic object and the participants engaged in worshipping it.
16I will, then, suggest that the cultic practice associated with Cameron’s Titanic can be compared to a pilgrimage. For most of us, this pilgrimage is a time-limited experience. We participate in it due to various reasons (to be discussed below); we are easily, but deeply, touched by it (again due to different reasons); then we “return”, somewhat, but not in any basic sense, transformed. For some, however, this pilgrimage leads to a deeper and more dedicated fan cult. But even those who worship the film in the more traditional fan-cultic sense may not do so in any articulate or reflective manner. On the contrary, I will show how even the most passionate Titanic cult simultaneously mixes expressions of a serious world view (Titanic being basically a moral drama of course) with an open and frank fan cult (often verging on the awkwardly silly).
17Titanic is manipulated myth, and as myth it “gives voice to, and thus make public, deep anxieties as well as basic beliefs and values14”. But myth-making is also a process of cultural mainstreaming, in the sense that it seeks to interpret and incorporate sudden anxiety and threats into society, and thus normalise them it. The commercial context obviously opens up the potential for manipulation, and the film carries some interesting paradoxes. First, there is on the one hand the ambiguity between its elements of moral meaning and the serious aura of expressing a real tragedy in a possible cathartic way, and on the other the possible cynical exploitation of a tragedy to make oneself (even more) rich and famous15. Another paradoxical element of the Titanic as “mainstream cult” is its character of being engulfing and self-inclusive. While cults are usually “exclusive”, in the sense that one chooses to participate and has to make an effort to be included, the mainstream cult is self-inclusive in the sense that people are automatically involved unless they make dedicated and conscious efforts not to be included.
18This is due to the movie’s “media event” qualities that set Titanic apart from other mainstream “blockbuster” movies: the documentary character of real history, its aura of authenticity. Despite being enormously expensive and even more profitable, despite being part-time disaster movie and fictional love story, Titanic also aims to come across as authentic, universal and “true”.
NARRATING TITANIC
19In script and plot, Cameron’s Titanic draws heavily from previous reconstructions of the Titanic event. Its combination of fact and fiction, especially the move of inventing a fictional plot of persons engaged in emotional and/or family relations through which we co-experience the tragedy, echoes both Titanic (1953), SOS Titanic (1979) and Titanic (1996)16. Cameron’s most unique move, compared with previous representations, is the introduction of the storyteller and the framing story, which serves to diminish the temporal distance between now and then, thus making the film stand out with strong contemporary appeal and relevance. The framing story also serves to establish credibility in the narrative through the way it incorporates underwater pictures of the actual wreck, giving the whole movie a veil of authenticity, and thus, lends authority and legitimacy to Cameron’s account of the events.
20In what ways does the film as text invite ritual and cultic participation? First of all, by means of a structure that strongly resembles a rite of passage; secondly, and relatedly, as myth:
21– Titanic actually consists of a rite of passage within another rite of passage. The original Titanic event was itself a rite of passage, and within the film, this original event is reconstructed as faithfully as possible. The film thus portrays a liminal phase, but also a liminal space: the Titanic is a unique universe that is separated from the rest of the world – the “here”, where we are, from where we wave the ship goodbye – and that departs into a liminal space. We are to follow this “conquest” as participants: the maiden journey of the ship that is bigger than any ship built before, that goes faster than any other ship, a ship that is even supposed to be unsinkable. We are indeed witnessing a historical moment. The “impossible” deed of the conquest is almost seen as itself improbable, which in effect makes the event look more like a “coronation17”. However, the ship collides with an iceberg and sinks, and the improbable turns out to be probable after all. Regardless of whether the Titanic before the collision is interpreted as “conquest” or “coronation” (in its positive “life-giving” sense), it obviously turns into a “coronation” in the negative “funeral” sense after the collision. The rite of passage is transformed into a funeral (or maybe conquest gone wrong) and the presupposed historicity of the event as “conquest” takes on another, even more historical and tragic, direction.
22The liminal moments of rituals illuminate culture by reference to “the subjunctive”, says Turner18, the “what ought to be” rather than “what is”. Now, how subjunctive is this experience? The subjunctive is located, I will argue, in the final “wedding” of Rose and Jack, the leading characters. Their love relationship (that eventually is sexual, too) represents the unification of first and third class, female and male, possibly even nature and culture.
23The relationship of the leading characters is in itself ordered as ritual: their first meeting is actually when Rose prepares her own definitive “separation”, attempting to commit suicide by jumping off the back of the boat. After Jack prevents her from jumping, they both gradually and simultaneously “separate” from their previous contexts and social classes and move towards unification. We then witness the liminal moment of communion aboard the Titanic; an impossible moment that cannot last and that eventually leads to their separation when Jack drowns and Rose survives. As in myths, their separation is caused by social and collective forces beyond their control. In one of the final scenes, however, we are told also about their “reunion”.
24And the storyteller, as is made clear relatively early in the film, is Rose herself, now an old woman, forced to relive the Titanic event once again, as she watches on television a group of people diving for the Titanic. As Dayan and Katz say of the royal wedding in 1981: “we were addressed as if we would be asked – perhaps by our grandchildren – to retell the event, to report what it felt like19”; this is exactly the function of the film’s framing story, this is indeed the event as told by one of the surviving participants. Thus, the role of the storyteller in the movie can be interpreted as the film’s way of substituting its non-ability to “be there” when the event occurs, as in televised media events. Instead, we are “taken there” by listening to one of the survivors’tale. She is telling her version of the story, which is not the definitive story on the Titanic, of course, but her recontextualisation.
25Rose tells the story to the treasure hunting diving team, but they are really no more than a symbol for ourselves, the audience, and in the end, society. When she has finished her story, we have all been through another, and somewhat different, rite of passage than the original event. What Rose is sharing with us is not simply her personal tale, it is no less than the myth and enduring universal lesson of the Titanic.
26– Told as myth, Cameron’s Titanic is simply the myth of falling in love – falling in love as the ultimate communion, which makes possible the subjunctive element of the ritual as discussed above. The “universal” tale of love also symbolises the universality of the event. The love story makes it difficult not to become involved and to sympathise with the heroes. Or, to put it another way, non-involvement or weak involvement will tend to depend on a relatively distanced, almost cynical and consciously critical, attitude. Such an oppositional reading may be fostered, however, by the visible commercial elements of the movie and its release, and especially, for some viewers, by the casting (in particular DiCaprio). The latter is primarily a problem for the younger cinema lovers, though; Cameron can, strategically, loose these viewers from his cult following as the very same move probably wins even more “non-cinema lovers”.
27Be that as it may, the “love across a class divide” theme serves to strengthen the universality of the tale. So does the obvious unfairness of the passengers’access to the lifeboats being organised according to class. Contemporary cinema-goers don’t really need to be reminded of the absurdity of this rule; we simply experience it through the eyes of the characters, through which it comes across as naturalised and “objectively” unfair.
28In line with a dominant theme also in the folklore of the Titanic, the film dramatises the way “arrogant male culture” tries to control nature, but fails. We are then invited identify with and feel loyalty toward those who knew better, who knew how to interpret the signs. One of the first things we learn about Rose is that she is not impressed with the “titanic” proportions of the ship (that also had inspired its name). She knows her Freud, and his focus on the male fixation on the “size” of things. Rose knows that, due to unconscious motives and drives, man could be his own worst enemy. She quickly realises, for example, that the number of lifeboats is inadequate.
29The distinction of male versus female is found, of course, in the traditional “gendering” of the ship as female, as “she20”: the male domination of the seaways can be seen as analogous to men’s ways of dominating and subduing the female; not only women, but also, in Jungian terms, the female elements of men themselves (such as compassion, fear, the need for security and safety, etc.). The “female” Titanic, however, is lead into catastrophe by male culture, and comes to represent the beginning of the end of the arrogant male view that nature and technology can be totally controlled.
30By this token, it is also the male hero who must die21. Rose on the other hand manages to survive and to produce a family. The female becomes the symbol of life and love, of artistic expression and sexual liberation. It is also symbol of heart: “it doesn’t make any sense. That’s why I trust it”, says Rose, in her attempt to explain and legitimise her family “betrayal” (which, it should be added, in hindsight easily can be seen as forward-looking and in line with what was to become a dominant constitutive element of family life towards the end of the 20th century: families constructed more on emotional grounds rather than reason). Even her name is symbolic: the rose is the flower with the almost archetypal quality as the ultimate symbol of love in most western cultures.
31Another mythic element of the Titanic movie is the opportunity it provides for expressing grief. As Rothenbuhler22 has pointed out, myth is “a form for expressing, thereby sharing, and thereby creating the conditions for the resolution of socially originating but personally experienced anxieties”. In Titanic, we are asked to share in the condemnation of the arrogant men who make chaos. In a symbolic sense, it is a coronation that “call [s] on us to attend, to share emotions and to show that we care23”. The film says to the dead: “forgive us our sins”; we then witness the moment of reconciliation in the final scene. Here Rose is reconciled with Jack, though whether in dreams or in death – we can not tell. Nevertheless, it represents a reconciliation, functioning at the mythic level.
32Is the reconciliation for the end of an era? Is Cameron here giving us an opportunity to come to terms with modernity’s accidents and catastrophes? We are invited to reconcile with the man-made sins of the last century (Rose is 100 years old!); the failed attempts to control nature, as they are associated with the world wars, the making of the atomic bomb, climate change etc. It seems that a future based on love is possible after all, and Cameron uses the most efficient technology available today to teach us this potentially transformative lesson.
DISTRIBUTING AND SHOWING TITANIC
33Even though it is difficult to be certain about exact figures, Cameron’s Titanic is rumoured to be the most expensive film ever made. The estimated cost is 200 million dollars24. It was premiered on December 19. 1997, and was shown in most of the western countries during the winter and spring of 1997/1998. The production and promotion apparatus worked without a hitch, and succeeded quite well in producing an unusual degree of audience anticipation also in Norway, judging by the enormous and immediate demand for tickets, compared to other movies. In Norway it was premiered on February 13. 1998, very likely drawing from a spin-off effect caused both by the earlier international premiere and the success it already had achieved elsewhere, as well as massive publicity in other media (a film about the film on television, news reports of its international success etc.). National hero Sissel Kyrkjebø appeared on the soundtrack, providing vocals on “Southampton”. In the capital of Oslo, the local cinema authorities even had producer Jon Landau attend the premiere, only three days after Titanic had received its 14 Oscar nominations (thus tying the 1950 record held by All about Eve). By the time of the Norwegian premiere, the international apparatus had been in activity long enough to also seriously challenging the established routines of Norwegian cinema institutions.
34Sharing the role of local sender in this cinematic media event were the distributors (Kommunenes filmsentral) and the local cinema authorities (in the case of this analysis, Oslo Kinematografer, located in the capital25). Both these institutions view Titanic as an “unusual” film that involved a kind of interruption of their ordinary “routines”. Referring to international statistics, Kommunenes filmsentral (KF) confirms that Titanic has broken “records all over”, and that they were forced into some specific responses on these grounds. My argument here will be that while the syntactics of televised media events, their “grammar”, more or less breaks down when we move from television to film (most importantly, the aspect of live broadcasting), elements of both interruption of routine, monopoly and being remote are kept intact. The actions and concerns of the above-mentioned organisations in handling the Titanic movie shed light on a variant of a “reconstructed syntactics” of the Titanic movie as media event, at least at the institutional level of cinema.
35The film is longer in length than the average movie (3 hours, 15 minutes) and was considered too long to be shown in Oslo Spektrum, which otherwise would have been an obvious venue. Oslo Spektrum is not a cinema, but an indoor sports arena also used for concerts and some spectacular movies (Star Wars, Golden Eye and Independence Day have all been shown here). Its audience capacity is considerably higher than ordinary theatres, which makes it suitable for films that are huge audience successes. Spektrum-tickets are also more expensive than ordinary tickets. However, in the case of Titanic, the comfort of the seating in the hall was not considered good enough, as Titanic was supposed to appeal to, and attract, all generations. It was also considered as too long to be shown twice in the same theatre on weekdays. These decisions lead to fewer showings per day, screenings in ordinary theatres only, and consequently, a smaller audience capacity per night. Still, largely due to the length of the film, a higher ticket-price than usual was decided on by KF and Oslo Kinematografer (OK) jointly.
36In Oslo, Titanic premiered in three theatres at once, in contrast to the usual one or two, and soon expanded to a fourth theatre, due to the exceptional demand for tickets. OK was soon forced to introduce the sale of tickets fours days in advance, which, as far as I know, has not happened before in ordinary movie theatre showings. They were even allowed to show the movie on Sunday mornings, an exception from the law requiring no public entertainment take place during the “holy Church period” on Sundays.
37Also, still at the institutional “syntactical” level, other films had to wait to be shown. At least this was reported to be the case in the rest of the country, if not necessarily in Oslo, which has a considerable number of small cinema theatres.
38The 1998 box office figures from Oslo show that the amount of Titanic tickets sold was 198.129, which corresponds to almost half the population. The film made 13.426.365 kroner, almost twice as much as the second most shown film, As Good As it Gets26. This does not necessarily mean that half the population saw it, as some may have seen it several times. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the premiere, the reception of Titanic made the national news, focussing, among other things, on teenagers who had seen it many times already. So some viewers were obviously deeply involved. Still, general impression in OK is that Titanic involved the influx of an “unusual” audience, one not used to booking tickets and so on, which suggests that the film also to a considerable extent also appealed to a vast group of not-regular cinema goers. No statistics of the social composition of the audience exist, but an the OK representative clearly suggested that the main bulk of the audience consisted of not-regular cinema-goers seeing the film once. In other words, the high number of tickets sold was not primarily caused by dedicated fans watching the film over and over.
39At the national level, about 1.4 million tickets have been sold among a total population of approximately 4 million. Titanic earned 83 million kroner, over twice the sum made by the previous record holders of Golden Eye and Dancing with Wolves (which both made 36 million kroner). KF was quite clear in viewing such figures as a one-off and doubted if they could ever be repeated.
WATCHING TITANIC: VARIATIONS IN RECEPTION27
40The Titanic event carries strong cultic potential, and it is tempting to interpret the enormous audience reactions to Cameron’s Titanic as a pilgrimage. This type of travel requires the consent and active involvement of the viewer. In what sense did people seeing Titanic “travel”? What characterises this pilgrimage and the reception in general?
“Textual” reception; elements of involvement
41Involvement will be analysed on the basis of Dayan and Katz’ distinction between three interactional dimensions of involvement28. According to the authors, involvement has three facets: type of involvement, intensity of involvement and scope of involvement. Type of involvement will here be analysed in relation to possible involvement in different themes of the text: in the love story (on the basis of the semantic analysis postulated as a dominant type of involvement), in the “action” elements of the catastrophe, in visual aesthetics (or “beauty”), in truth accuracy and authenticity, in sound effects; involvement may even be manifested in strong opposition to the film, due to the commercial exploitation of a tragic event. The intensity of involvement in these different types may range from superficial to strong. Finally, the scope of involvement is the combination of type and intensity: the larger the number of types of involvement, and the more intense these different types are, the greater the “scope” of total involvement in the event. More precisely, scope of involvement has to do with the number of different themes that the participants engage in.
42The love story is mentioned by most informants, but not necessarily as the dominant or most important type of involvement. More than being viewed as a love story within a dramatic context of catastrophe, the film is seen as a catastrophe with a love story added. “The film was dramatic, and managed to build in a love story that is enhanced by the surrounding drama”, one informant says. Another main theme mentioned by most viewers is the sociological dimension of class division, and the unfairness associated with who gained access to the lifeboats. “It was very unfair… the poor [i. e. the third class] were not informed at all. It was right that the women and children were allowed to enter the lifeboats, but all the rich men… well, they still came first”. Or: “The lack of lifeboats, and that the rich get the best seats and the poor just drown”.
43The main interpretation actually seems to be that of tragedy, death and disaster. The psalm performed by the orchestra (Nearer My God to Thee) is mentioned by many, as is the scene where Jack dies and is pulled into the ice-cold water. The youngest informants in particular mention the action scenes as the most touching (Jack’s death, the crewmember that commits suicide, the real shipwreck in the beginning of the film). And in comparison to Princess Diana’s death, which the informants were asked to compare Titanic with, many expressed stronger grief at the Titanic event. “I had more feelings for the Titanic… It is two different things… (In Titanic) lots of people died”. Here, as often elsewhere in the interviews, a realist mode of interpretation is activated (the greater the number of people who die, the greater the tragedy…). The audience actively tones down the role of the fictionalised love story, which is especially dominant in the first part of the movie, in favour of the real historical event: the tragic disaster that took the lives of 1522 people.
44The most important type of involvement seems to be the “truth accuracy” of the event: Titanic deals with an actual event; it uses a copy of the original ship, and great care has been taken in assuring the authenticity of the story. The pictures of the real wreck succeed in establishing authenticity (“I have read about the cameras that had taken pictures of the Titanic; that it was real shots, done in the proper way”). Also, the story was enacted “naturally” (in the sense, “not affected”), a value often ranked highly by Norwegians: “It was very natural, as if one actually were there; as if the actors were there when it actually happened”.
45This statement brings us to the role of the anchor, which was favourably valued by almost all. “It functioned very well… a fine way of capturing the audience… to gain insight into the historical”. Another respondent says of the way it worked: “I could very possibly not have liked it. But I did… I could feel that I was partially there”.
46In fact, half of the informants suggest that they were “taken there”, in the sense that the awareness of being in a cinema was forced into the background of their consciousness. A viewer who in advance had been critical of the movie and had expected ordinary mainstream American entertainment was positively surprised by the film “… I was absorbed into the visuals and the film”, she says. This statement is reminiscent of MacAloon’s argument29 that some spectators who are critical in advance may still be drawn into a spectacle, so that the spectacle mode of interaction is transformed into a ritual ceremonial mode of interaction.
47The sense of intensity of the experience expressed was for most informants very strong, with the possible exception of the youth. These informants also expressed the narrowest scope, in the sense that they mentioned fewer thematic elements that had attracted their attention, in comparison with the rest of the sample30. However, all viewers claim that the film met with their anticipations, which were very high due to the advance media publicity, talk of the most expensive and the best film ever made, etc. (“I had heard that it was the best film ever made”). Nor did any of the viewers find the film too long.
48There’s obviously the danger that the film has been too well advertised, and that the entertainment aspect of it supplants the mythic aspect of the tale. The presence of DiCaprio, for example, may destroy the “sacred” dimension. This view is clearly articulated by one informant: “When the actors are very well known, they… he… does not become the character in full, since we know all too well that he is DiCaprio”. Also, the one non-viewer in the sample mentions this point as part of his resistance towards this film31. Others express a relatively moderate critical attitude towards the commercialisation of a tragedy, and wonder if the film perhaps is too soft on reality: “I guess it was less romantic… in reality… than in the film”, one informant argues. We here witness “commercialisation… of a story that is a much bigger drama than the film expresses”, another one says.
“Contextual” reception: elements of ritual participation
49What are the indications of festive, non-routine viewing? In what ways, if any, does watching Titanic differ from other movies? We know only too little of any type of cinema-going, whether routinized, habitual everyday use of cinema to kill time and so on, or cinema-going that, more or less deliberately, is turned into a “social occasion”, as ritualised everyday ceremony. We do not even know for certain that most people go the cinema with others (even if this is most likely), as official statistics is concerned with measuring the level of individual use only32. Field observation will probably reveal that most people go the cinema with others, as many seem to view these occasions as an opportunity to see friends and family.
50Virtually none of the informants report any sense of occasion either planning to see the movie or in actually going to see it. No elements of any conscious attempts at celebration or “ritualisation” can be identified33. All the informants report doing what they usually do when they go to movies, that is, go to the cinema, possibly have a drink or two at a cafe afterwards, and then home. But then, this is Norwegian cinematic culture in a nutshell; this is the way Norwegians approach the cinema theatre, the film clubs included. Only recently have there been arrangements for buying alcoholic drinks inside the theatre, and cinema-going in general is not an activity associated with enacting ritual.
51Still, one informant says it the best film she’s ever seen, and another informant says she was somewhat critical in advance, but was totally compelled by the experience. All respondents report having seen it with others, either friends, relatives or “significant others”. Thus, one does not watch for oneself. Finally, half of the informants did not consider themselves regular cinema spectators, but nevertheless felt that they “had to see this film”.
52A clear identification of the feeling of “imagined community” when watching the same film is also found. Most importantly, the collective mood as a contextual aspect of reception (and thus involvement) is mentioned by some. Most of the informants know that many other people have seen it, and this is identified as a contributing (if not sole) reason for seeing it themselves. That it is common to see the film, does also imply an invitation to join in. One informant explicitly acknowledges the role of the film as “the small change of conversation”, as Svennik Høyer has aptly put it34.
53Will people continue to see it? The film was released on video in early October 1998, just as it closed in the theatres. Not surprisingly, it has beaten the record also in this medium, and 250,000 copies have been sold to date. Apart from noting this fact, we can only speculate about the possible ritual uses that it represents for private households in the years to come. However, the cult has, in a way, already started on different sites on the World Wide Web (WWW).
WORSHIPPING TITANIC ON THE INTERNET: THE WEB-CULT
54At the Web-site The Titanic Web Ring more than 1000 Web-sites having to do with Cameron’s movie are registered35. I will here simply describe some of the prominent features of what we can call The Titanic Web-cult, as it is manifested on some of these sites. I will also take a closer look at one particular site, constructed in Norway.
55Firstly, the Internet is the medium for The Absolute Dedicated Fans. The web is an adequate medium indeed for cultic worship of different kinds, through the way makes it possible for people to meet and to communicate about a shared cultic object, and to be continuously updated on its activities, no matter where they are located around the globe. It is this type of Titanic fan activity on the Internet that the concept of cult particularly fits. This activity shares some of the characteristics of the religious cult: it is initiated and largely governed from below and expresses a sort of spontaneous dimension of communitas: it is devoted and intense, but not dogmatic, and is also possible to combine with worship of other “obsessions”; it has its unique symbols that are cultivated, in the form of icons or citations from the film. But it is in no way oppositional, and could hardly be said to be critical.
56The cult around Cameron’s movie then, has found its medium. However, the distinctions between Cameron’s Titanic, the actual historical catastrophe, and the Titanic as general phenomenon and metaphor, are often blurred at these sites. Since the film to a large extent is a historical reconstruction, this is almost inevitable. But the film itself is also not clear about where it is documentary and where it is fiction; such knowledge is for the viewer to develop.
57A third prominent trait of these Web-sites is the commercial aspect, especially concerning mediation of official promotional material and related products. Shots from the film, not to speak of the most wellknown icons used in promotion (the “flying scene” and the constructed “bow” image respectively) are frequently copied and are featured on many sites. Links to sites selling Titanic-related products, such as books, soundtrack CDs, calendars and videos, are also common. In addition, those visiting the web-sites must often put up with listening to more or less “machine-made” versions of the hit My Heart Will Go On as sound scenery to their surfing, and they must tolerate more than one banner that promises “words from one of ours sponsors”.
58Fortunately, many sites are not content with simply promoting the film using information and icons copied from the film’s official Web-site. Polls and surveys are common on many fan sites on the Internet; the Titanic cult is no exception. Also interesting is the playful and often creative attitude displayed in finding an unique angle towards the cultic object. One site, for instance, has been created to construct Rose’s subsequent history in the US, about which we seeing the film get only minor information36. Another site has been constructed by a Norwegian with the intention of illuminating problems similar to this essay: What does the appeal of the movie consist in, and what impact has the film had on various viewers? This site, called the The Never Ending Titanic Fascination seems to be the result of a strong and intense cinematic experience that the site designer wishes to share with others:
After watching the film I was stuck with it. I had a weird emotion that said told (sic) me to take care of my friends and love them, because life seems so short. Suddenly there’s probably one of us who pass away, just like the many hopeful victims of the Titanic disaster. I simply couldn’t get the film and the story out of my head. I began browsing a lot of Titanic websites to learn more about what really happened that night in April 1912. I bought the soundtrack and love to listen to the timeless Titanic instrumentals and the hit by Celine Dion. Then it brings me back in the film. I never thought this film would touch me this way, I almost thought I had gone insane because in a period I couldn’t think of anything else. If you felt or still feel like this, we are at least two and I am sure among many more37.
59This person is curious to know about the experiences of others, and to what extent they are in accordance with his own. This site illustrates both the potential and the insufficiency of the Internet as medium. On one hand, like-minded souls here have the opportunity to exchange experiences of, and feelings for, the cultic holy object. On the other hand, and as also the published correspondence also shows, few people have much that is genuine to say, besides expressing such views as “I loved this movie”, “it is the best film I’ve ever seen” and so on. Of course, such messages are important as performances, but they hardly take the message of the site seriously38. There are also expressions of anti-Titanic cult by people who obviously are fed up with the whole phenomenon and by obvious provocateurs.
60A final trait I want to mention, one that is fully in accordance with a cultic perspective, has to do with the question of time. It is not surprising that many of these sites were constructed in January/February 1998, as this corresponds with the period when the fuss about the film was at its most intense. However, it is striking to see how many sites not seem to have been updated since then. If the information about when the sites were constructed, and possibly updated, is correct (this is, of course, not necessarily so…) these sites have to a large extent been constructed impulsively and suddenly, as spontaneous reactions to a strong cinematic experience – but they also seem relatively quickly forgotten! As I have pointed out earlier, cultic devotion may be unstable and fragile. Still, the cultic object may well be discovered anew and cultivated from other perspectives at a later date. Very probably the Web cult is the youngsters’cult: We know that Internet is above all the domain of the young, and many sites also make the claim that this film is the first time one really is confronted with the event and what it implied – and only after having seen Cameron’s film are other sources and representations of the Titanic looked up.
CONCLUSIONS
61In general, neither the meaning of the concept of cult nor the characteristics of cultic objects can be taken for granted. Cults are not based on essentials but are highly time-bound and constructed which means that, in principle, mediums in themselves (film, television), genres (trash, sitcoms) or single programs all may be the object of cults. What is the meaning of considering Titanic as a “cult movie”, and if so, what actually is the cultic object?
62In this essay I have identified and discussed elements that contribute to the making of the “mainstream cult” around Cameron’s Titanic. Let me summarise them as four interdependent factors: (1) the continuing significance of the original event; (2) the textual and narrative elements of the movie; (3) promotion and other media coverage, and (4) timing.
63First: The fate of RMS Titanic has occupied a prominent role in collective memory throughout the 20th century39 and there is a tragic appeal in the original event in the sense that it still talks to us40. The Titanic disaster was a transnational, universal event: the vessel had many ethnic groups onboard, and despite being Anglo-Saxon property, it did not sink within a national territory, but in the Atlantic, in international waters. This fact serves to strengthen the universal significance of the event – and the need for reconciliation. A ship can be analysed as a social system, and the Titanic has indeed been interpreted as a metaphor of “society”, or even the “world”, gone wrong, and as a sign of what was to come later, in terms of the threat of nuclear wars, the Challenger accident etc. The cultic potential of the original event is obvious, and in one sense, a Titanic cult existed prior to Cameron’s movie41.
64Second: In Cameron’s Titanic, this international event, with its associated and enduring moral lessons related to the norm of “woman and children first” and the dimension of class, was reconstructed within a universally oriented narrative. Also, great care was taken to satisfy its authenticity. Much concern has obviously gone into the construction of a common past – including the continuing relevance of a common past. At the textual level then, the film employs every means possible to create a spectacle with maximum mainstream and universal appeal, as it combines historical drama and moral seriousness with entertainment and action. The “Freudian” level of meaning in the love story is part of the movie’s mainstream attraction since it, at the symbolic level, meets with the widespread familiarity and concern with Freudian problems related to sexuality, love and family relations in the Western world – easily identifiable problems for most people42. The action elements are visible enough to engage, but also sufficiently “disguised” within the narrative so as to not stand out as completely misplaced. Technically, everything about the movie is spectacular and grandiose: Cameron uses the full range of cinematographic potential available (special effects, sound etc.) as it has never been used before, to attract the attention also of the visually competent television and cyberspace generations of the last decades.
65Simultaneously – and this is my third point – Cameron and the distributors dispense advertising, promotion etc. all the other popular media: a television “film-about-the-film”, books about the film and the director, a CD soundtrack spinning a massive hit single are all produced, not to mention their use of the WWW. In all these media, the film is the main object promoted and cultivated, especially through the use of its central icons. The video, too, becomes a smash from the moment it is released. There is, in other words, an efficient division of labour between different media. The Titanic merchandise and products are both successes within their own form of media, while simultaneously achieving their main goal: to produce general interest in the Titanic movie, and to produce the practice of witnessing the cinematic spectacle itself. This marketing strategy involves elements reminiscent of those involved in pop and rock music fan cults, and succeeds 100 percent in that the movie breaks all kinds of records almost everywhere it goes.
66The fourth element is timing. An object may obviously have different “cult potential” at different points in time, and there is a close relationship between cult and context. Indeed, cults are often explicitly defined in contrast, or opposition, to a dominating trend or practice in a certain context – or, they fill a void. The cultic appeal of Cameron’s Titanic is primarily located in the latter. On these grounds, the contextual history into which Cameron’s Titanic is released is of crucial importance. Against the background of the enduring cultural legacy of the Titanic, the renewed interest in the Titanic after the discovering of the actual wreck – in combination with the fin de siecle and the coming of a new millennium – has strengthened the need for coming to terms with this historical event and for the redemption of the collective trauma it has created. Also, the film seems to have had a special appeal to youngsters, not only because they generally make up the bulk of the cinema audience, but also because the under-40s have not been treated to the previous cinematic Titanic reconstructions: Titanic (from 1953) and A Night to Remember (1958)43, both produced within a climate of cold war and with the threat of nuclear disaster as distinctive context44.
67With its way of telling the story, Cameron’s Titanic involves the potential for a genuine collective experience. Still, different elements of the cinematic experience appealed to different people; this study has traced elements of what might constitute the cultic object, its textual features and its reception among various social and age groups. Obviously, it is the not the medium itself that is worshipped, and nor is it a certain film genre or style. The sacred object in this case is the particular movie, but even within this context, there are several potential objects that may appeal to different kinds of people, such as the actors (esp. the “star” DiCaprio), the characters, the original event, the “Romeo and Juliet on a boat” – love story plot, the quality of the reconstruction etc. However, these textual elements in and of themselves are not sufficient to create a cult, as the evidence of a living cult is found in active participation and ritual consumption, at both the cognitive and enacting levels. The empirical analysis suggests that the textual qualities of the reconstruction as well as its universality are especially appreciated features. What we are dealing with is a “ritualised spectacle”; it is in every way as intense an experience both cognitively and emotionally as experiencing televised ceremonies in private homes or public places. The comparison with media events, as Dayan and Katz define them, is primarily found in mental involvement and especially, in the feeling of witnessing history. In relation to age, I have argued that the film has made its most significant impact on the youngest generation, those who have not been exposed to previous mediated representations of the Titanic disaster and who are expressing their worship on the WWW.
68The “cinematic culture” approach has emphasised that the process of generating a cult is highly dependent on contextual factors, such as economy and audience characteristics. Certain intertextual elements, such as genre or style, are not themselves sufficient, but are further dependent on social organisation. This can easily be highlighted by comparing the 1996 Titanic television movie (by Robert Lieberman) with Cameron’s 1997 movie. The scripts and plots are strikingly similar, but the 1996 version was made for television and thus lacks the special effects and the promotion apparatus of the latter (even though it does include Catherine Zeta-Jones and Peter Gallagher in prominent roles). Instead of being made into a unique centripetal cult object, the television movie enters the context of Cameron’s sacred centre as only one more product those obsessed with his film might pursue.
Notes de bas de page
1 I appreciate the extensive comments from Daniel Dayan on an early version of this paper. I believe our interesting discussions about this topic have served to make this paper markedly better, even though he may not agree with basic assumptions in it. I also want to thank my students for making the group project an exiting one, and Karl Erik Andersen, Frants Mohr and Dag-Erik Møller for help in collecting various bits of information that this work draws from.
2 Durkheim (Émile), The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, New York, The Free Press, 1995 [1912].
3 Titanic (USA, 1997) 195 min. Directed by James Cameron.
4 Sorlin (Pierre), Italian National Cinema 1896-1996, London, Routledge, 1996, p. 9.
5 Dayan (Daniel) & Katz (Elihu), Media Events. The Live Broadcasting of History, London, Harvard University Press, 1992.
6 Dayan (Daniel) & Katz (Elihu), idem., p. 13.
7 Dayan (Daniel) & Katz (Elihu), id., op. cit., p. 7.
8 Dayan (Daniel) & Katz (Elihu), id., op. cit., p. 93.
9 See visual representations at http://www.fix.net/~fx618/compare.htm. The Ultimate Titanic Photo Gallery: Compare the Cast to the Passengers. Visited 10.06.1999.
10 Mcguire (Meredith B.), Religion: The Social Context, Belmont-California, Wadsworth, 1992, p. 135.
11 Mcguire (Meredith B.), idem., p. 136.
12 Richardson (James T.), “Definitions of Cult: From Sociological-Technical to Popular-Negative”, Review of Religious Research 34, 1993, p. 348-356.
13 Dayan (Daniel) & Katz (Elihu), Media Events. The Live Broadcasting of History, op. cit., p. 145-146.
14 Rothenbuhler (Eric), Ritual Communication. From Everyday Conversation to Mediated Ceremony, Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications, 1998, p. 92.
15 Cameron was a hugely successful director even before Titanic. Yet, his enormous ambitions in reconstructing Titanic also involved considerable risk for all involved, himself included, both in real-physical and not to say economic matters (Parisi, 1998).
16 Titanic (USA, 1953). Directed by Jean Negulesco/SOS Titanic (USA-TV, 1979) 109 min. Directed by William Hale/Titanic (USA-TV, 1996) 165 min. Directed by Robert Lieberman.
17 On “conquests” and “coronations” as dominating narrative scripts of media events, see Dayan and Katz, op. cit., ch. 2.
18 Turner (Victor), The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Chicago, Aldine, 1969.
19 Dayan (Daniel) & Katz (Elihu), op. cit., p. 123.
20 I am well aware, however, that this is not the case in French.
21 The male hero carries many “female” qualities, however: he is sensitive, artistically gifted; he does not seem to care about making money, and he acts more on basis of emotions than intellect.
22 Rothenbuhler (Eric), op. cit., p. 92.
23 Dayan (Daniel) & Katz (Elihu), op. cit., p. 139.
24 Parisi (Paula), Titanic and the Making of James Cameron. The Inside Story of the Three-Year Adventure that Rewrote Motion Picture History, New York, Newmarket Press, 1998, p. 178.
25 Representatives from each of these institutions have been interviewed twice about their way of approaching the Titanic movie. Interviews were first conducted by one of my students, using telephone. The information was then double-checked by the author in another interview conducted 8 months later.
26 http://www.filmweb.no/oslokino/panorama/2050.html. Oslo kinematografer: Panorama. Visited 12.02.1999.
27 The analysis draws from information collected by a group of students in August 1998. It must be emphasised that the sample is small: the students conducted 6 qualitative interviews only, with persons located in the capital region. Yet, the informants were diverse according to gender (3 males and 3 females), age (13, 14, 28, 31, 68, 73) and social status (2 school pupils, 1 student, 1 employee, 1 self-employed, 1 retired). Among the 6, there was also a declared non-viewer.
28 Dayan (Daniel) & Katz (Elihu), op. cit., p. 144.
29 MacAloon (John J.), “Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle” in Mac aloon (John J.) (ed.) Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Rehearsals Toward a Theory of Cultural Performance, Philadelphia, Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1984, p. 241-280.
30 This can also partially be explained by a methodological factor: these respondents were very young (hardly grown-up) and not very verbally articulate in the first place.
31 In addition to an ideal that movies for him are about entertainment. Since Titanic is a tragedy, of which we know the outcome, the film does not fulfil the characteristic of “entertainment”. He admits that his resistance is not based on argument, but more a feeling of sheer defiance, not the least towards the social pressure of you-must-see-this-film. This pressure had been caused by massive media publicity and the commercial apparatus supporting the film as well as nagging relatives.
32 What we do know is that about 60% of the total population (9-79 years) go to the movies at least once a year, and that youth (9-24 years) and people with higher education are amongst the most frequent attendees (Vaage, 1997).
33 Bell (Catherine), Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, New York, Oxford University Press, 1992.
34 Høyer (Svennik), Små samtaler og store medier (Small conversations and big media), Oslo, Universitetsforlaget, 1989, ch. 4.
35 http://nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=titanicmovie&list. The Titanic Web Ring. Visited 14.09.2001.
36 http://members.tripod.com/bbb101/absolution.htm. Absolution. Visited 14.09.2001
37 http://home.sol.no/~mariuspp/titanic. The Never Ending Titanic Fascination. Visited 14.09.2001.
38 Even leading actress Kate Winslet has supposedly visited the site, captain Edward J. Smith as well, despite the inexorable fact that he drowned on the tragic night in 1912! This may happen as “nicknames” can be freely constructed and used by anyone, a fact someone have used as an opportunity to have fun.
39 Heyer (Paul), Titanic Legacy. Disaster as Media Event and Myth, Westport-Connecticut, Praeger, 1995.
40 From within the context of which this author writes – the Nordic countries – two major sea disasters in the 1990s have touched many of people either directly or indirectly. The ferry Scandinavian Star caught fire in 1990, killing 159 people, and the sinking of Estonia in 1994 killed 852 people. At the moment of writing this (May 1999), I read in the paper about the almost absurd “reality turned into fiction turns into reality” situation of the Sun Vista cruise ship sinking off the coast of Malaysia. Passengers report that they were met by “the tune from Titanic” when they went on board the ship, and then that they were “singing the Celine Dion song My Heart Will Go On from the film Titanic, trying to keep everyone’s spirit up” in the lifeboat (The Independent, May 22. 1999).
41 See Biel (Steven), Down with the Old Canoe. A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. The question of how the “already converted” reacted to Cameron’s re-construction has not been pursued here, however.
42 Moscovici (Serge), La psychoanalyse: Son image et son public, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1976 [1961].
43 Titanic (USA, 1953). Directed by Jean Negulesco/A Night to Remember (UK, 1958) 123 min. Directed by Roy Ward Baker.
44 Biel (Steven), op. cit., ch. 5.
Auteur
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
L'école et ses stratèges
Les pratiques éducatives des nouvelles classes supérieures
Philippe Gombert
2012
Le passage à l'écriture
Mutation culturelle et devenir des savoirs dans une société de l'oralité
Geoffroy A. Dominique Botoyiyê
2010
Actualité de Basil Bernstein
Savoir, pédagogie et société
Daniel Frandji et Philippe Vitale (dir.)
2008
Les étudiants en France
Histoire et sociologie d'une nouvelle jeunesse
Louis Gruel, Olivier Galland et Guillaume Houzel (dir.)
2009
Les classes populaires à l'école
La rencontre ambivalente entre deux cultures à légitimité inégale
Christophe Delay
2011