JAWS Premieres
On This Day in History: June 20, 1975
I hate that fish.
That fucking Jaws movie. I grew up in a small town with one movie screen. When I was seven, my parents dumped my sister and me off at the theater so they could have some 1970s-style adult fun time, or something. Assholes. That movie fucking traumatized me. Decades later I can’t go snorkeling without hearing the music.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: June 20, 1975--
Duunnn dunnn . . . duuuunnnn duun . . . duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. On June 20, 1975, people were suddenly afraid to get in the water, me included. Jaws made Steven Spielberg a household name and, because it became the biggest-grossing movie to date, it also launched the concept of the “summer blockbuster.”
The bestselling Peter Benchley book it was based on, published the previous year, had some fucked-up shit in it that the screenwriter wisely cut. Like, the whole mafia plotline, someone murdering a cat, and the fact that Roy Scheider’s wife was having an affair with Richard Dreyfuss, and while Dreyfuss was being eaten by the shark Scheider shot him in the neck as an additional fuck-you for fucking his wife. Well, he was aiming for the shark. Supposedly.
Jaws was influenced by Moby-Dick, and the Quint character, a survivor of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis (google that—it’s relevant), is totally like Captain Ahab on a mission to rid the world of those evil man-eaters. Quint even named his boat Orca, which is the only predator the great white has. Other than humans, I mean.
I wasn’t the only one freaked out by the film. Beach attendance went down the summer it was released, and shark sightings went up. The movie did a terrible injustice to sharks as a species, perpetuating a stereotype of them as remorseless eating machines thirsting for the blood of middle-class white people.
Benchley, for his part, regretted the portrayal and its aftermath, which came to be called the “Jaws Effect,” where fishermen went about killing sharks like it was a national pastime, believing they were doing some kind of community service. The author, after learning sharks were not hunting humans for sport, dedicated himself to rehabilitating the damage he’d done to their reputation.
Since then, many shark species have been added to the endangered list.
NOTE: This piece was researched and written by a human, not some bullshit “ai” plagiarism software.
Those who cannot remember the past need a history teacher who says “fuck” a lot. Get both volumes of ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN.
OMG! That movie so traumatised me that to this day I am not going deeper than a foot into the ocean. I am 74 and that movie, along with a Florida overhead photo of my favourite beach in Clearwater that showed 16 foot sharks swimming gracefully between unaware swimmers, cemented my fear of the open ocean. I love that there are sharks and I always think that it's a travesty against nature when people go up in arms crying or baying for shark removal because a surfer was taken. Respect them; it's THEIR habitat, not yours. Swim or do as you please, but don't penalise an animal that mistakes you for a seal dinner.
Seven years old? Yikes!
I was fifteen, saw it premier night in my town with two friends. Afterward we went swimming in my family's backyard pool, all lights off.
I was one click short of terrified, swimming "in the deep end", in the dark. I KNEW I was in a freshwater pool in my own back yard but wrestling with my imagination was like trying to hold a full team of runaway horses.
Fun times.