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Later, we get a conversation in which the couple agree that Jack will teach Rose to ride a horse like a man, chew tobacco like a man, and spit like a man. It feels (again) like James Cameron's approximation of what lesbian flirting must be like. "I will free you of these lame womanly things and let you do tomboy things! On horseback!" Jack refuses to be called "Mr. Dawson" by Rose, insisting on the unisex "Jack." When they first kiss, Jack sings a song that was originally sung to a woman by a woman.

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Now look at the additional layer this brings to the climax. Women and children board lifeboats first, which means Jack can theoretically board with Rose, but only by coming out to the crew. Could Jack do that if it meant saving their lives? And if so, is there even a way to do it without causing a riot and maybe even getting shot? I repeat: This would be a way better movie.

Jack makes the choice to stay behind. Then Rose abandons her lifeboat and returns to the ship, which would do nothing to help the situation, unless it's to try to convince Jack to admit the truth and board the next lifeboat with her. It winds up being moot. Everything goes to hell right after that, and the two end up in the water together. Jack tells Rose to grow up and have babies -- if she does choose to marry a man and have a family, that's fine -- and to promise to go on living and "never" give up. Because Cal and her mother weren't her only issues, so she must pledge to deal with them all, for she will surely feel suicidal again.

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Maybe, if only in a version of the story that never left James Cameron's head, what came next was a reveal that brought all of that subtext to the surface. Old Rose could have said, "A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets," and then gone on to say (or show in flashback) exactly what that secret was. It would have been the boldest twist in blockbuster cinema, and Titanic would have gone down as a whole other kind of milestone. "But," James Cameron would presumably have thought, "will this movie make $2 billion at the box office?"

Or, if you want to give him a little more credit, he may have simply written it so that a young woman in the theater could project herself as Rose or Jack, regardless of her orientation -- creating a fantasy that, on one level or another, appeals to literally everyone. If so, it's kind of genius.

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