Saturday, May 30, 2009

Just, Wow

I am all for using humor as a means of healing and catharsis. And I'm all for getting things out in the open. I think communication and acknowledgment are important parts of being able to move on and not dwell too much upon past wrongs and tragedies.

However, today I encountered something that I personally believe to be in poor taste, and that was a giant inflatable slide of the Titanic sinking. I don't like to be prudish or take things too seriously, but wow. Perhaps the context was once different, and this was an attraction for the traveling Titanic exhibition or something... (I don't know; I didn't make it by the St. Louis Science Center when it came here.)

Now I know I'm not one to talk given that many people would consider some of the things I've done to be in extremely poor taste. I'll admit I like to push the envelope and I fall into the role of devil's advocate a bit too easily. Confrontation can be good. And I suppose this sort of relates back to my previous posts on taste and censorship. But I don't really question whether or not this has an right to be here, so this isn't really a question of censorship so much as appropriateness. I just wonder if this is truly in bad taste or if it reflects a culture having healed and moved on from a great loss. What do you think? I just can't completely wrap my mind around it.

2 comments:

ChaoticBlackSheep said...

Looking online, there are a lot of companies that manufacture and rent these Titanic slides.

http://www.goodsearch.com/search.aspx?keywords=inflatable+titanic+slide

This slide is better than most others I've found. A common catch phrase is "Who will survive the ride down?" I don't know if this makes it better or worse.

ChaoticBlackSheep said...

What amazes me most is that people actually pay money to own/rent these. And they seem popular even.