Posted on 09/18/2020 3:28:04 PM PDT by Capt. Tom
The blockbuster film Jaws has been a perennial favorite here on Martha’s Vineyard since its release 45 years ago.
The epic 1975 feature film, shot on the Vineyard in iconic places like the picturesque fishing village of Menemsha, pits a fictional seaside tourist town called Amity against a villainous great white shark whose fearsome triangular teeth—300 of them—bite and kill unsuspecting townspeople and summer visitors enjoying the local Atlantic Ocean waters.
Jaws played recently at a COVID-safe drive-in theater here, allowing viewers to scream in the privacy of their own cars.
The movie took a deep dive into the psyche of audiences—and ocean swimmers—creating a larger-than-life fictional movie monster that evoked perpetual fear of the great white shark.
“The book and film exaggerated the white shark’s behavior. The white shark in the film was far larger than normal—about 25 feet—while the largest animals in the wild are typically 15 to 18 feet,” says Greg Skomal, a fisheries biologist and well-known shark expert with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
When Jaws came out, “relatively little was known about the white shark. We know a lot more now about white shark ecology, distribution and natural history,” says Skomal. Studies of the white shark species, Carcharodon carcharias, show its critical role in keeping the marine ecosystem in balance, exerting top-down forces on the food web that help hold other ocean species in check.
Nonetheless, when attacks do occur, they draw incredible publicity. In July, a wetsuit-wearing 63-year-old woman swimming in the chilly Gulf of Maine waters was killed by a great white shark—the first such death in Maine’s history. In September 2018, a 26-year-old man boogie boarding off Massachusetts’ Cape Cod was killed by a shark, the first shark attack fatality in the state since 1936.
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
I might take a sharknado over another Iowa winter. Saw some geese flying south already - not a good sign.
When I saw the movie in 1975 at the theater, I was sitting between two friends of mine. They could not understand why, at several points of the film that were supposed to be scary, I had burst out laughing. But they had not majored in zoology, with a speciality in animal behavior.
I think this particular seal became lunch. But there was that one who sat on the shark’s head and then escaped.
I can see that, but...I loved it as entertainment.
I am not one of those that looks to the theater for facts and learning, for sure.
Hahaha, you were lucky you weren’t sitting next to me in that theater-when Brody is chumming the water and the shark appears, I involuntarily jerked my hand back and smacked the lady sitting next to me!
Heh, I think she was so disturbed by the movie I don’t recall if she even noticed, but I did whack her pretty good!
Honestly, Scientific American should be giving Jaws more credit, it’s BECAUSE of that film and book that we even GOT that research into sharks that you use to put down the film.
And this is speaking as someone who has disgust for the opening scene for the movie regarding a certain opening death (mostly because it inspired WAY too many art of a girl getting chomped, usually as the punchline).
I wouldn’t say they’re misunderstood per se. They definitely aren’t the apex predators save for Orcas in the ocean for nothing, so they definitely shouldn’t be underestimated. But they’re definitely not maneaters either, not by nature at least (if anything, we’re more likely to cause indigestion due to being too bony to even allow them to power their bodies, too slow to digest.).
I wouldn’t say “peaceful”, but they definitely aren’t going to view us as effective prey (they prefer seals since their blubber would allow them to power their muscular bodies and thus swim to survive. We’re too bony. In fact, probably the only time we’d even BECOME suitable prey for them is if we end up with the same figure as Vladimir Harkonnen from Dune.). I think the only way we’d be on the menu is during outright feeding frenzies or if the shark has NOT had anything to eat for a VERY long while.
That’s probably a reasonable way to frame it!
I was fortunate enough to see it a few years ago at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra playing John Wiliams' brilliant score live.
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