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Back-to-back airings of the movie 'Titanic' put Fuji TV in hot water

21 Comments
By SoraNews24

The 1997 film "Titanic," which chronicles two lovers whose stars couldn’t be more crossed aboard the notoriously doomed luxury liner, is considered a masterpiece of cinema, earning both critical and box-office success. But there’s a time and a place for everything, and two days after people were declared dead in a submarine en route to the actual shipwreck probably isn’t it for this movie.

People around the world had been following reports on the fate of Oceangate’s Titan sub and its passengers all week before it was declared on June 22 that the vessel had imploded before arriving at the site of the Titanic. Perhaps the amount of attention was due to the eerily numerous parallels to the actual Titanic sinking, from the affluence of the passengers to the lack of appropriate safety measures and even the name of the vessel.

Around this same time, people started noticing that major network Fuji Television was set to air the movie "Titanic" – not once but twice, on June 24 and July 1, causing the network to be faced with accusations of trying to cash in on the widespread morbid curiosity.

In fairness to Fuji TV, the showings of "Titanic" were first announced on May 23, well before most people ever even heard of Oceangate. However, even in light of the news, the network still decided to press ahead with the airing.

While there were mixed opinions, readers of the news online largely felt that Fuji TV was well within its rights to stick with the decision even if it wasn’t what they themselves would do in the situation.

“Just don’t watch if you think it’s disrespectful. No one’s forcing you.”

“Some many people die every day. Why do these guys get special treatment?”

“Isn’t it just as bad as watching a war movie, since wars are going on right now?”

“The movie didn’t do anything wrong, but showing it probably would make a lot of people feel bad.”

“This is really unscrupulous.”

“I don’t see any difference between what Fuji TV did and what the people who went to see a mass grave for fun did.”

“Maybe they can show it but just cut out the part where the ship sinks.”

“I can’t watch Titanic without thinking about what just happened.”

“I would have just chalked it up to bad luck and changed the schedule.”

“That’s some really amazing timing!”

“They’re absolutely going to get higher ratings for this and they know it.”

“I haven’t seen Leonardo DiCaprio in anything recently… What’s he doing?”

“Lol, all you guys still watch TV?”

It’s worth pointing out that despite the prevalence of on-demand film, movies on TV still seem to hold quite a bit of stock in Japanese culture. A TV broadcast acts as a sort of touchstone of a film’s quality that can’t be determined on a video store’s rack or streaming service’s menu. And considering the many, many crappy titles floating around out there, that’s still worth something.

Source: Josei Jishin, My Game News Flash

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

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© SoraNews24

©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.

21 Comments
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The last comment is gold. Exactly!

8 ( +10 / -2 )

Television producers in this country have a collective IQ in negative digits. How crass can you get airing this to sponge off the dead in the recent incident.

-13 ( +3 / -16 )

“Maybe they can show it but just cut out the part where the ship sinks.”

“I haven’t seen Leonardo DiCaprio in anything recently… What’s he doing?”

“Lol, all you guys still watch TV?”

Lmao!

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Nobody, and I mean nobody, is outraged here.

Its all performative. A quick little self administration of endorphins in the morning showing everyone how caring one is. How empathetic....

How virtuous...

Fuji TV has had this on their schedule for weeks. Its a funny little coincidence. Thats it.

Nobody is outraged in the least.

10 ( +17 / -7 )

People need to chill out. The only reason why those couple of people even get so much media attention is because they are rich. Thousands of people die everyday around the world from all kind of stuff, but you don't see anyone getting work up by those.

16 ( +17 / -1 )

I saw Titanic in the theater back in the day. That's three hours of my life I'll never get back. I'm never going to watch it again, whether on Fuji or any other platform.

-8 ( +2 / -10 )

Babe RuthToday  08:18 am JST

Nobody, and I mean nobody, is outraged here. 

Its all performative. A quick little self administration of endorphins in the morning showing everyone how caring one is. How empathetic.... 

How virtuous...

Fuji TV has had this on their schedule for weeks. Its a funny little coincidence. Thats it. 

Nobody is outraged in the least. 

This post pretty much sums it up!

3 ( +4 / -1 )

I happened to see it on TV on the first day of airing and said to my wife, "Is that just a coincidence or did they decide this after the accident? And if it is the later, it is definitely in poor taste." Guess I wasn't the only one that noticed.

S

4 ( +4 / -0 )

EntertainmentBack-to-back airings of the movie 'Titanic' put Fuji TV in hot water

from who?

if I didn’t see this article, I wouldn’t even known it was gonna be shown on tv.

and generally if there’s international news, NOT involving anyone or anything from Japan, how many people (that watch Saturday night tv) even knew about the Titanic submarine?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

And just as a follow up... somebody (TV execs) should have realized that a "programming change" should have been and could have been done to show respect to the deceased. I'm sure they were aware of the "international" events that were going on.

S

-6 ( +0 / -6 )

“Maybe they can show it but just cut out the part where the ship sinks.”

My favorite part of this whole article.

I saw it on playing on TV too right during the submersible incident and thought it was quite a coincidence.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

hiro - right to the point.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sharp, etc. should all invent TVs that let you change the channel. And if possible, with an "off" switch too.

That way, you'll never be forced to watch a movie being aired by a TV network that doesn't jump through your virtue-signal hoops.

Oh, wait .....

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Anyway, one of the most overrated movies of history..

0 ( +2 / -2 )

The Titan disaster was not as heavily reported on here as it was in English speaking countries. For what it's worth.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

It’s only a bleeding film on the telly, what’s the fuss about eh, lol

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Probably exactly why they did it, for the demented reasons only they could come up with

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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