50 Years On: Was Jaws Really Bad for Sharks?
SHOW NOTES
For Chris Pepin-Neff, Jaws was a pivotal moment in that it was their first introduction to sharks [5.44]. Their first experience of watching the film – aged 7, lying on the carpet in their parent’s living room with a bowl of popcorn – is still a standout memory. “I didn’t think anything was going to happen. And then the shark came out of the water, and the bowl of popcorn goes flying! I was up in my bedroom seconds later,” they recall. But the shark had piqued Chris’ interest, so much so that they went straight to the library the next day and got out every book on sharks that they could find. Jaws paved the way for a lifelong passion, and Chris – now an Associate Professor in public policy at the University of Sydney – has dedicated much of their working life to understanding human-shark interactions.
But Chris’ response to Jaws wasn’t quite the norm. For many people, Jaws instilled in them a fear of sharks, and of swimming in the ocean. Amani recalls her mom having a similar experience [09.41]. “I liked sharks when I was a kid, but Jaws was just not a movie that came up, I think largely because one of my moms grew up on Long Island – and Jaws was filmed in Martha’s Vineyard,” she says. “And my mom has told me that when that movie came out, no one wanted to go in the ocean that whole summer.”
The cultural impact of Jaws cannot be understated. On the 20th of June 1975, the film first opened in theatres across the United States and was an instant smash hit. A masterclass in suspense, Jaws had cinemagoers on the edge of their seats, using expert cinematography, storytelling, and sound – including John Williams’ iconic, pulsing score – to build feelings of tension and foreboding, even when the shark wasn’t on screen [10.00]. The film follows the story of a fictional seaside town, Amity Island, whose residents are being terrorised by an enormous great white shark. It is based on a book of the same name, which in turn is loosely based on the infamous Jersey shark attacks of 1916. “One of the questions people always ask is if Jaws is based on a true story,” Amani says, “and I always say that it’s not. Because the story that it’s based on is a series of shark attacks, by different sharks, not one shark. Sure, it’s based on these Jersey shark attacks, but it’s not a true story, because it wasn’t just one shark doing all of the shark attacks in 1916.” Still, Jaws perpetuated the ‘ruthless, man-eater’ trope that still follows sharks to this day, 50 years on.
“I feel like the big thing that probably made this movie different from other shark movies, and still makes it different from other shark movies, is that it plays just on the line of, ‘maybe this could be real’”, Amani says, of the film’s long-lasting impact [19.04]. Other shark films that have come out since – like Sharknado – are too far-fetched to be believable (the latter involves sharks being lifted out of the ocean by a waterspout, depositing them in the streets of Los Angeles). But Jaws plays on a theory that was popular at the time of the film’s release and is still floated today. Known as ‘rogue shark theory’, it posits that some individual sharks develop a taste for human flesh and therefore actively hunt people [19.51]. “Dr Victor Coppleson came up with the rogue shark theory here on campus at the University of Sydney…he started it in the ‘30s, and finished it in the ‘50s,” explains Chris. “Coppleson’s belief was that the rogue shark is the only shark that bites people… ‘normal’ sharks wouldn’t bite people. And so if you can identify the rogue shark behaviour and kill the rogue shark, because it’s got a taste for human blood, that’s the way to address the problem.” Jaws played on this theory – which was being written about by real-life scientists and published in journals – so it was easy for people to believe this could actually happen.
In addition, the shark used in Jaws was pretty spot-on, anatomically [24.06]. Director Steven Spielberg used an enormous mechanical shark, nicknamed ‘Bruce’, in the making of the film. It famously broke down multiple times, which gave Spielberg nightmares. But Amani – who is a shark scientist – is quite impressed with how biologically accurate Bruce is. “I mean, if you take the robotics out, right…they actually did do a pretty good job of creating a great white shark. Like there’s its face, obviously, its face is not identical, but it’s not super anatomically incorrect. They managed to put the nostrils on it, which is a win. They have enough gill slits for it. They didn’t give it like 80,000 gill slits, which I think is really important. And even like its fins, its caudal fin, its reversal fins, like they all are relatively accurate to the body of a great white shark. I think it even has claspers on it, which I find hysterical…I personally don’t think I think it’s probably one of the better if not the best recreations of a shark that actually managed to get into a film.”
However, Bruce’s enormous size is questionable [26.01]. In Jaws, the shark is described as ’25-foot’ in length. While the largest great white shark on record is about 22-23 feet, they usually average around 19 feet. And, it’s normally only the females who reach such formidable sizes. “But there is of course, as a scientist would say, outliers in your data,” laughs Amani.
While Jaws is fantastic cinema, it did have real-world implications for sharks, and shark conservation [30.28]. In 2014, Chris authored an article called ‘The Jaws Effect’, in which they looked at all the characteristics of Jaws that play out in real life. The trope the film plays on – that rogue sharks develop a taste for human blood and repeatedly seek out humans to eat – is not reflective of actual shark behaviour. But the behaviour of humans in the film did end up mirroring reality. “We see shark hunts, and efforts to kill the shark, that are part of this Jaws effect that sometimes make their way into policy decisions…there was an increase in shark hunting. There was an increase in shark derbies,” explains Chris. In the late 1970s and 1980s, there was even a shift in policy, such as sharks being designated as ‘waste fish’ in the North Atlantic fishery. This shift was so universal in nature that Chris splits perceptions of sharks, and conservation of sharks, into ‘before Jaws’ and ‘after Jaws’.
Of course, this negative impact on wild sharks was not the intent of the filmmakers. In fact, Spielberg has since stated that he regrets the decimation of shark populations that may have been exacerbated by the after-effects of Jaws. But Jaws was also released at a time when we knew relatively little about sharks [33.20]. “There was already this unknown, and humans have this inherent fear of the unknown. It was easier for a film like Jaws to come in and drive that fear in the direction the film wanted you to feel,” Amani reflects. “I think people didn’t know what to talk about, or how to talk about [sharks],” Adds Chris. “And so there was a space, and Jaws moved into that space and created the narrative out of the unknown.” For many people, Jaws was their first experience of a ‘shark’. Combined with the largest PR campaign in Hollywood at the time (Universal Studios did a million-dollar ‘Jaws consciousness’ campaign), and real-life occurrences shark bite incidents, it was the perfect storm – and one which shaped perceptions of sharks for generations to come.
But, it wasn’t all bad [37.52]. For many marine biologists and shark scientists, Jaws was their entry point. Even for non-scientists, Amani believes that Jaws is still getting people interested in sharks: “It is truly such a fun movie to watch. I think that it opens up the conversation of sharks and the reality of sharks and makes people want to learn more about sharks themselves, which is a positive to have in general for conservation and sharks in the world.” Even though the ‘man-eater’ trope still very much exists in public consciousness – Amani and Chris still have friends who are afraid of sharks – public perception has largely changed, especially with the advancement of TV and social media. “There’s no doubt that…I don’t think there would have been a Shark Week without Jaws,” Chris says, of the Discovery Channel’s annual week of shark-focused programming. “Especially in the first 10 years of Shark Week, when it was more of a science documentary program and less of an entertainment program, I think there were enormous benefits that sort of pushed back against the tropes around, you know, man-eaters or whatever, and also introduced that there were so many species of sharks to so many people, lemon sharks and leopard sharks…dusky sharks, wobbegongs…it introduced, I think, a new world.” There are also more shark scientists than ever before – many of whom were inspired to start a career in shark science by Jaws – who have done incredible work advancing our understanding of and protections for sharks.
For Amani, being able to help spread awareness about sharks is one of her greatest joys: “Especially being a shark scientist, I think it’s really fun because we get to be a part of that in people’s lives. I’ll meet someone and they find out I’m a shark scientist…And they’re like, ‘I’ve always been so afraid of sharks. And I have one question for you’. And I can answer. And then they’re like, ‘they aren’t that bad?’ And you’re like, yeah, they’re not. Go love them.
I think it’s very fun and I think it’s I think it’s cool that we live in a world at a time where I really do think the majority of people are not influenced by something like Jaws, and do understand that sharks are good, and we need them, and we should care about them.”
ABOUT OUT GUESTS
Dr Chris Pepin-Neff
Associate Professor in Public Policy, University of Sydney
Dr Chris Pepin-Neff, senior lecturer in public policy at the University of Sydney
Chris Pepin-Neff completed the first PhD on the “politics of shark attacks” at the University of Sydney in 2014. They are the author of the book, “Flaws: Shark Bites and Emotional Public Policymaking,” which was published in 2019. Their research looks at public perceptions about sharks and ways to improve communication about beach safety and risks from human-shark interactions. Chris’s research has been featured or noted in the New York Times, Cape Town Times, Economist, Time magazine, the Guardian, The New Yorker, and Washington Post. Their academic research on Cape Town, Sydney, Western Australia, and the United States has been published in the journals Biology, Conservation Letters, Marine Policy, Human Dimensions of Wildlife and Coastal Management.
Chris’ TED talk
Amani Webber-Schultz
Amani is a PhD candidate studying shark scales and fluid dynamics. She is also a co-founder and the CFO of the nonprofit Minorities in Shark Sciences, which aims to increase accessibility into shark sciences for gender minorities of color. Amani is also an avid science communicator.
Instagram: @curly_biologist
