Recently, I was flipping through channels for something to watch and I came across the movie Jaws, followed by Jaws 2. These are two of my favorite humorous movies. Yes, you read that right. Humorous movies.
When the first Jaws was shown in movie theaters, I had just finished my scuba diving training. Living in Illinois, my check-out dive was in a lake in a rock quarry. I was told to swim down until I hit the bottom and then come up. It literally was “hit the bottom” because there was no visibility. I wasn’t disappointed because shortly thereafter, I was heading to Hawaii for a summer science program. I had graduated high school and was looking forward to a career as a marine biologist. And then Jaws entered my life.
Before I left, I went with a friend to see Jaws. You’d think it might have scared me, with my imminent trip to shark territory. But no, I loved the suspense and the great music by John Williams. However, I found the behavior of the shark totally unbelievable. Okay yes, sharks are attracted to electrical fields and the sounds of fish struggling, but they don’t like the taste of humans. Often, they’ll bite a human and then realize it was not what it was hoping for. They spit the person out, but the damage has been done with those sharp teeth. Dressing up like seals in dark wetsuits or wearing bright yellow-colored air tanks doesn’t help either. It’s best not to look like the sharks’ natural prey. This is true for great white sharks, too.
My chuckling as the monster shark attacked people irritated the audience members around me, and I was shushed. I chuckled quietly to myself after that. A couple of weeks later, I was diving off the coast of Hawaii. A storm offshore was producing big waves that made it hard to swim. I looked over to my right and saw the dark eyes of reef sharks, also having trouble swimming against the current! They had no interest in eating me and I had no interest in annoying them. We were just similarly sized animals dealing with the same issue of big waves.
While I was working on my biology degree (and music degree) at Florida State University, the second Jaws movie came out. It had one of my favorite scenes in it—the shark jumping up and catching a helicopter. Nowadays, it reminds me of a roadrunner snagging a hummingbird out of the air. The copter scene was repeated in another famous false video. Yes, sharks might be attracted to the noise and pressure patterns of a helicopter, but they don’t have the interest or strength to catch one. It’s a fun bit of cinematographic creativity.
I had the opportunity to be in one of the later Jaws movies. The opening scene was a dive class that encounters the shark. I was a member of the university dive club located in Pensacola, FL. The movie people wanted us to dive with a tiger shark that they were going to drag up from Tampa. Tiger sharks are known to be grumpy and hauling it backward about 500 miles, would make one even grumpier. Not an ideal dive situation. We declined and some poor folks up on Martha’s Vineyard had to create the scene in very cold water.
Another scene in Jaws 2 brought back memories of a rafting trip I did on the Nile River in Uganda. The class 5 rapids caused tourists to be flung off the rafts. Below the rapids, the other rafters would pull people back in. One man who had run the river before had a great technique for pulling people out of the water into the raft in one smooth motion. He would hold onto the life preserver straps and roll backward. This provided enough momentum to bring the person up and in with one smooth motion. Very impressive. They could have used this method in the movie when the teenagers were trying to get their friends back on their boats after the shark had bashed them.
I enjoyed reminiscing as I watched the two entertaining movies. My only regret is that people too often take these exaggerated portrayals as fact. Currently, many shark species are endangered due to the effects of humans, including great white sharks. Oooh, maybe we should make a movie or write a book from the shark’s point of view about terrifying attacks by humans? Now, that would be really scary!
If you are interested in learning more about the conservation of other endangered species, please check out my books and educational workbooks on the topics.
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