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I hate that fish.
That fucking Jaws movie. I lived in a small town with one movie screen. When I was seven, my parents dumped my sister and me off at the theatre 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 dunnnnnnnnnnn dunnnn. On June 20, 1975, people were suddenly afraid to get in the water. Jaws also 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”.
Anyway, megatoothed murder fish.
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 Dreyfus, and while Dreyfus 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 maneaters. 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.
Peter 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. Benchley, 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. But hey, we got all those knock-off movies, including ones with mecha sharks, ghost sharks, sharks in tornados, and ones with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads.
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Get the book ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN.
That book was one crazy read.
I live in an eco-tourism town and I see the Jaws effect mentality on display regularly. "The only good shark is a dead shark" or variations of in colourful Aussie vernacular over and again. It's very disappointing to hear locals and tourists (especially the latter) continue to push this narrative. I'm extremely respectful of them, they've been here longer than us and will probably continue long after we're gone. And they are awesome to swim with.
That moronic shark cartilage craze also did a huge amount of damage to shark populations. At least Benchley had the balls to admit he was wrong so kudos to him.