Introduction – A Titanic Disaster

In August 2018, while talks between the UK and the European Union (EU) to negotiate the terms of the UK's departure from the EU were dominating news cycles, a short film called Brexit: A Titanic Disaster (2017) went viral across social media platforms. Created by Comedy Central writer Josh Pappenheim, it mocked the prominent ‘Leaver’ and erstwhile British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's comment that ‘Brexit means Brexit and we are going to make a Titanic success of it’ (Johnson 2016); it also tapped into growing fears that the negotiations were going so badly that Britain was drifting towards the iceberg of a ‘No Deal’ Brexit in March 2019. Featuring scenes from James Cameron's iconic romantic blockbuster Titanic (1997), with the faces of high-profile politicians doctored into the footage, the film was watched more than ten million times in a matter of days (Townsend 2018). It begins with a foghorn bellowing and former Prime Minister David Cameron warning that ‘there is no going back from this’. Then, as water starts to overwhelm the ocean-liner, his successor, Theresa May, urges the people to ‘come together and seize the day’. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, playing a slow lament on a violin, says ‘the British people have made their decision’, and an image of the pound sterling falls off the ship and crashes into the water. Cabin lights then illuminate the split vote, 48 per cent against 52 per cent, on opposite sides of the ship as it breaks down the middle and sinks into the ocean.

While the film is clearly partisan and aimed at the sympathies of ‘Remainers’, it is also quite witty. And though its message is unsubtle, its ending intrigues. Where Titanic's tragedy of the young couple being torn apart offers a terrible finality (albeit assuaged by Celine Dion's soaring, if trite, insistence that their love ‘will go on’), the ending of Brexit: A Titanic Disaster is more ambiguous, uncertain and creepy. While May is left floating on the water, huddled, freezing and waiting to be rescued, the narrative ends by cutting to the scene in the original film where Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) is painting the nude Rose (Kate Winslet).