Titanic 3D: The Drinking Game

I guess I'm not the only one who likes to pretend I'm an airplane

As most of you know, Titanic is being released in 3D tonight in theatres across the country. Of course, this makes us wonder: Why? Just why? If I wanted to see Leonardo DiCaprio drown in 3 dimensions, I’d just go to sleep, because more often than not that’s what happens in my dreams. Instead of releasing Titanic in 3D, they should have cut the middle-man and just shown a 3-hour clip of James Cameron masturbating onto a thirty-foot high bonfire made from $100 bills and some physical embodiment of artistic integrity. Now don’t get me wrong; Titanic is a great movie. You get to see Kate Winslet’s tits, plus there’s a really cool shipwreck that occurs about halfway through the movie. On top of that, sadistic bastards like me really get a kick out of watching people drown for an hour and a half; watching the second half of Titanic is like visiting a water park in Baton Rouge.

The Titanic may not have been "unsinkable," but your liver is!

Anyway, let’s move to the drinking game. First of all, I feel that it’s important to explain why this movie should be approached with optimal levels of intoxication. In my personal case, it stems from the fact that when this movie was released, I was 5 years old and had 4 older sisters between the ages of 10 and 14. (Read: I have no chance at emotional stability.) Therefore, my house was the epicenter of conversations about how cute Leonardo DiCaprio was. Apparently I was the only member of my household who thought he looked like an effeminate little bitch in Titanic. But for those of us who were raised in households that weren’t conducive to self-loathing and an acute awareness of menstrual cycles, there are still reasons to flood your liver during this movie. For one thing, it’s super intellectual to draw a parallel between Jack drowning in the North Atlantic and you drowning in a pool of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Furthermore, if you’re going to spend the money to see this movie again – and by so doing, put more money into the douche-infested pockets of James Cameron – you might as well go all out. As an unfriendly and time-constrained hooker once said to me: Go hard or go home.

So, without further ado, here is the Titanic 3D drinking game. However, because of the uniqueness and importance of this movie, I have devised a drinking game for a few different scenarios in which you might be seeing it.

You’re seeing it with a group of friends: This experience should be made as heinous as humanly possible. I would actually suggest pregaming very heavily, being inappropriately drunk for the first half of the movie, and then starting to drink again during the second half to replenish. Here are some good rules for the second half of the movie:
• Drink every time someone gets in a lifeboat
• Drink every time someone drowns
• Drink every time Jack and Rose look at each other
• Drink every time you think the movie’s almost over and you’re wrong
• Waterfall for as long as the string quarter plays

"You told me you would stop masturbating at the movies..."

You’re seeing it with your girlfriend/wife: Chances are you’re being dragged along to this against your will. In that case, it may not be advisable to get too smashed, or else you’ll have to deal with all that angry girlfriend shit; “You always get drunk on our dates,” “You wouldn’t sacrifice yourself so I could have a spot on the lifeboat if we were on The Titanic,” etc. Steer clear of this whole shitfest but only getting somewhat drunk. Here are the proper rules to only achieve a partial level of inebriation:
• Drink every time Rose’s fiancée is a total sack of dicks
• Drink every time the Titanic hits an iceberg
• Drink every time women and children are given preferential treatment
• Drink every time young Rose gives you an erection and old Rose subsequently makes it go away forever

You’re seeing it alone: Waterfall from the part where it says “20th Century Fox” to the closing credits. You need it.

Drinking at Northwestern

Last Friday, several Friends of the Ave were written up for drinking in the dorms by two CAs. To be fair, the students who were written up for underage possession of alcohol in the dorms were violating Northwestern’s Student Code of Conduct, and the CAs were simply doing their job by enforcing and executing the rules. But the recent incident highlights numerous fundamental problems with Northwestern’s alcohol policy, the role of CAs in dormitories, and the drinking culture in general at Northwestern University.

The main problem lies in a University alcohol policy that is utterly incapable of dealing with the exigent realities of student underage drinking. No matter how valorous the obliteration of underage drinking at Northwestern might seem, the harsh truth is that underage students who want to drink in college will drink in college. Considering the extraordinary amount of resources it would take for the University to annihilate underage drinking on campus, it stands to reason that Northwestern should alter its alcohol policy to focus on preventing and protecting students from the dangers of excessive drinking, instead of promoting a policy that fosters increasingly dangerous underage drinking practices and mistrustful student-CA relations.

As the policy stands, no student under the age of 21 can even be in the presence of alcohol on campus. Such an inflexible and intolerant policy forces students to either drink copious amounts in their locked rooms to hide from their CAs, or else head north to the Frats, where hedonism and free alcohol reign supreme. Both results pose exceedingly dangerous risks to student health. The policy promotes binge drinking by forcing students to hole up in their rooms with a handle of Smirnoff instead of moderately sipping on less-potent alcohol in the open, or else driving students to the Frats, where the only control on how much you drink is how long the line stretches.

Besides promoting binge drinking, the current NU alcohol policy also leaves students unprotected from the harmful effects of excessive drinking brought on by the policy in the first place. How can CAs monitor the health of the students they are supposed to be protecting if underage students are forced to lock their doors from CAs in order to drink? It is impossible for a CA to communicate with students in order to promote responsible drinking or provide necessary medical attention if the students are hidden from view or lost in the sweaty mass of human bodies in the basement of a Frat. Without a medical amnesty policy in place, students are at an even greater risk from excessive drinking.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the current policy is how little uniformity there is among how CAs choose to enforce the rules, considering the extent to which Northwestern relies on CAs to enforce its alcohol policy. Most CAs at NU do a fantastic job balancing their duties as enforcers, protectors, and positive role models. But so many different CAs have so many different ways of dealing with the alcohol policy that it is almost impossible to discern any sort of comprehensive campus-wide philosophy. On top of that, certain CAs, instead of upholding the Division of Student Affairs‘ requirement that CAs “exhibit a positive attitude and high level of personal integrity in order to serve as positive role models for their residents,” display exactly the base and dangerous behavior that they are supposed to guard against.

Underage drinking is the reality of life at Northwestern. Instead of promoting an ignorant policy that creates more problems than it corrects, the University must take steps to address the problems raised by underage drinking in a relevant and meaningful way. In order to promote responsible and healthy drinking, and diminish the destructive effects of binge-drinking, Northwestern should adopt a policy akin to Washington University’s “Open Door” policy, which allows for responsible drinking so long as a student’s door is open for a WashU RA. An “Open Door” concept allows for increased scrutiny for CAs, improved relations between CAs and students, and an overarching sense that, if you act like an adult, you should be treated like an adult. Another potential improvement to Northwestern’s drinking culture would be an on-campus bar, which would allow for the University to promote responsible drinking in a controlled area, a move that would also decrease the risk of evoking the ire of Evanston residents with loud conversations about bl**jobs.

According to President Schapiro, in an interview with North by Northwestern, “We all know prohibition doesn’t work… but I do think our campuses would be safer if we had an 18-year-old drinking age.” It is useless, not to mention dangerous, to continue adhering to the current policy. If, to quote the Northwestern University student handbook, “Rules are an organized set of principles designed and written for the common good, put forth by those who care for the community,” why hasn’t Northwestern University instituted a new alcohol policy written for the common good in order to benefit the common good?