I have had my rows with Aunt Haley, but the fact always remains that she is an excellent analyst of both mainstream American religious messaging and secular pop culture. She’s hit another home run with her post Jack Dawson game, concerning the 10th anniversary re-release of James Cameron’s maritime epic Titanic. I don’t want to steal all of her fire, so just go read the post, but I want to highlight one key factor. She pushes back against a commenter who describes Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cal (Rose’s betrothed) as beta and alpha, respectively. Haley notes:
I disagree with vitabenedicta that Cal was alpha and Jack was beta. In actuality, the reverse is true. Titanic is actually a testament to inner game and is a celluloid representation of Roissy’s insistence that money and social status alone are not enough to win a woman’s affections.
Jack is more beta on the surface, but he has strong inner game. It is actually this strong inner game that provides the basis for the emotional through-line of the movie. When Jack and Rose first meet, Rose is about to commit suicide by jumping off the back of the ship at night. Jack is able to talk Rose out of suicide using some light negs, nonchalantly reminding her of how cold the water is and how he’s gonna hafta jump in to save her, subtly shifting the power in his favor by insinuating that she’s being silly and emotional. What he does NOT do is act like what she’s about to do is SRS BSNS. A lesser man would have acted frightened that Rose would jump.
Jack is also unapologetic about his station in life and sees it as a good thing. He does not try to seek Rose’s approval (or even make any pledge or attempt to better himself for her).
He is unruffled by Cal’s continued attempts to belittle him and charms all of Rose’s upper-crusty dinner companions. He tells her what to do (“meet me at the clock”) rather than requesting behavior of her. … In contrast, Cal, while having an alpha social position, has little inner game and thinks that bullying is a substitute for alpha frame. He is domineering rather than dominant. He acts defensively and lets little things bother him, and he spends most of the movie in a petulant mood, being rude to Jack because he can sense Rose’s attraction to him, and paying his #1 minion to spy on Jack and frame him for theft. When he loses his temper with Rose, it’s not one of Roissy’s occasional outbursts to correct bad behavior, it’s a man trying to intimidate because he can sense that he’s losing the woman and intimidation is the only tool he has left in his arsenal.
The contrast is more like the Lover/Provider complex (hat tip to Ferdinand Bardamu) – Rose has the choice of a man who will meet her every material need and provide her a station of status, or the penniless urchin who can make her heart sing.
It brings to mind one of Roissy’s 16 Commandments:
IX. Connect with her emotions
Set yourself apart from other men and connect with a woman’s emotional landscape. Her mind is an alien world that requires deft navigation to reach your rendevous. Frolic in the surf of emotions rather than the arid desert of logic. Be playful. Employ all your senses. Describe in lush detail scenarios to set her heart afire. Give your feelings freedom to roam. ROAM. Yes, that is a good word. You’re not on a linear path with her. You are ROAMING all over, taking her on an adventure. In this world, there is no need to finish thoughts or draw conclusions. There is only need to EXPERIENCE. You’re grabbing her hand and running with her down an infinite, labyrinthine alleyway with no end, laughing and letting your fingers glide on the cobblestone walls along the way.
So much for the Roissyites being intemperately boorish and aloof. It’s not emotional guys that are beta. It’s effete guys that are beta, emotionally incontinent men who constantly need their feelings validated and lack the ability to stand up and take calm charge when the situation calls for it.
Titanic is, as Haley says, Grade A chick crack, but it’s also trite and cliched. It’s all very “A Room With A View.” The society of Cal views Rose as an object, a trophy of status to add to his cabinet. Meanwhile Rose gets to play leading lady in Jack’s epic personal melodrama, a piece in which for once she gets to be alive. This is old hat for the romance genre, because it fits so well with the strong and conflicting desires debated within the female mating strategy war room.
The scene of Jack making a portrait of Rose’s nude form is a key expression of this dynamic. Jack understands and values her intrinsic human qualities, so much so that he makes her the subject of his artistic expression. Even as he is “objectifying” her by transferring her form to the two-dimensional paper, his supposed appreciation of her body for its artistic merits and not for whatever sexual value it could bring to him is thrilling to her. So thrilling that she allows him access to her sexual value. (Such is the paradox of game.)
YOU GOTTA MAKE HER FEEL SOMETHING
Aping the Jack Dawson game, the emotional rebel, is the entire reason Mystery and other PUAs employed the use of kokology, palm reading and other cold-read techniques, and routines that built rapport. A woman is just not going to give her whole self to a man who doesn’t have any skill at tickling her emotional side. Sometimes that means excitement, sometimes it means calm comfort, but either way it explains why a guy can’t simply flout his status or money and expect the women to line up.
An illustrative counterexample is the ubiquitous douchebag. A douchebag has massive social value in his own subculture, and strong social dominance. But his dominant nature itself precludes him from good emotional connection. And my theory is that women who pursue douchebag men are executing a strategy to trade sexuality for access to his social status and lifestyle, so they aren’t really interested in the emotional connection themselves. It’s really a form of caveman game, often adorned with Brooks Brothers and boat shoes but caveman nonetheless.
Poster Comment:
Even though Titanic really is crack for chicks, I like the movie a great deal and have watched it several times, the reason being, mostly, is the difference between Jack and Cal.
Cal is essentially empty. He's just a balloon with almost nothing inside. He's better-looking than Jack and immensely rich--but that's all he has going for him. And when he loses his money, he kills himself. And he has to keep control of everything, which is the sign of a narcissist--someone who covers up their feelings of inadequacy with bluster.
Jack, on the other hand, has self-control and is competent. He keeps his head in difficult circumstances, whereas Cal grabs a kid to get on a lifeboat.
This "alpha" and "beta" stuff is silly in a way, since most people can't tell one from the other.