Titanic Mania!

[CaptainNiamhy]

Hey guys,

How many of you have heard of TITANIC BELFAST

Northern Ireland is pumping A LOT of money into this. I'm wondering has this actually made world news?


And I also can't comprehend being proud of building a ship that sank killing over 1500 people... :/

[Haggis]

Well, technically it's not exactly the ship that killed them but the iceberg, but yeah, turning it into a tourist attraction does seem a bit weird. I'm all for the education part of it, but I'm not sure if something like this will get many people interested in history.

(And no, I hadn't heard about this until you post this topic.)

[CaptainNiamhy]

Really?

Cause Belfast seems to think that this "experience" is our eiffel tower.. It's seriously not.

Plus it's over priced and I don't understand what it's an attraction. And yeah the iceberg sank it... but then there's this.

[Haggis]

Ah, I see... yeah, that's definitely not something to be proud of. Sounds like they're just trying to cash in here after seeing how the movie raked in tons of dough. Couldn't they have come up with a less controversial, but equally awesome tourist attraction?

[FaNaTiC]

Funnily enough I was just talking about this type of thing in my class this morning.

Well, not this specific example, but we were discussing tourism and heritage sites and how you deal with memorial or dedicating a historic site to something like a tragedy with respect and dignity.

Or not.

For example, http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_480/4802205/file/jewish-museum-caterpillar-small-29668.jpg
that image was an advertising campaign for the Jewish Museum in Berlin. I don't need to remind you that a Jewish Museum in Germany certainly would have to deal a great deal with the atrocities of the holocaust. So, having this advertising campaign is somewhat controversial, and possibly offensive/disrespectful to the memory and legacy ... or maybe it's not?

Discuss.

[Haggis]

I think it's a clever ad, actually. Because let's be honest, to advertise a Jewish Museum in Germany as if it's only about the Holocaust would be insulting to the Germans who are alive today. Why should it dedicate more attention to that part of history than any other Jewish museum in the world just because it happens to be in Germany? Now, if it's a Holocaust Museum, that's different, I expect lots of WWII history there. But if I go to a Jewish Museum, I expect to learn things about Jewish history and culture in general, not just about a 5-year window, no matter how destructive it was.

Think of it this way: would an American Museum in the Middle East make any sense at all if it focused mostly on 9/11?