How intelligent is the shark in JAWS?
When threatened by a predatory snake, horned lizards leap into the air and land flat on their backs with their legs sticking up. It fools the snake into thinking the lizard died right in front of them for no apparent reason. It looks ridiculous, but it’s a smart tactic for the lizard as it’s very off-putting for the snake!
Cats like to curl up in the least comfortable looking places, but if you check out their weird choices of bed (like a laptop), it’s usually warm- a clever strategy as cats were made to thrive in the heat.
Smartness is more subjective than you’d think. What’s clever for an animal isn’t necessarily the smart choice for a human! So, where does Bruce rank? Even Quint doesn’t know if he’s very smart or very dumb, so lets look at what he does…
Eats Chrissie
Most shark bites on humans are recorded in daylight hours, but that’s because we usually swim in daylight! Sharks are actually more active at night or in the evening, just like the one in Jaws. Of the very few Massachussetts shark attacks, almost all have been in July (like Chrissie’s attack), August or September. So far, Bruce is acting like a typical shark. Swimming alone at night, it’s Chrissie who hasn’t been so smart here!
Eats Pipit the dog… we assume.
Steven Spielberg might have offered an alternative storyline for a fan, but if we assume he did eat Pipit, and we assume he’s hunting because he’s a monstrous-sized shark with a huge appetite, then it’s sensible of him to grab a snack.
Eats Alex Kintner
Alex is on a float, kicking his legs. We see a breach and a flap of fins, then Alex is gone, and the deflated bitten float washes up onshore. So… here we have the age-old debate. Are sharks really confused about the difference between a seal and a human on a float? We still don’t know, but if this was mistaken identity then you’d expect him to let Alex go, minus a leg or two. Instead, Alex is eaten so we’ll have to assume Bruce was still hungry and acting like a shark. Not smart, not stupid, just a shark.
Takes bait from the two fishermen… then comes back to get them!
So… is this a smart thing to do? Taking your wife’s Sunday roast and using it as shark bait is moderately stupid, and taking the bait then dragging half the jetty off with you isn’t particularly smart either, BUT… Bruce immediately comes back for the fisherman who is splashing in the water! Based on what he’s done so far, it looks like he’s just hungry and attracted by the commotion. You can’t outswim a shark and if the second fisherman hadn’t been there to pull his friend to safety, Bruce would have got dessert.
As Hooper says later, he’s abnormally big… so he’ll need more food!
Bites Ben Gardner’s boat and eats Ben
Well, that was silly… for the average shark. Wood isn’t nutritious! But Bruce isn’t acting like a normal shark any more. After (it seems) accidentally knocking those fishermen into the water, the shark has now sunk Ben Gardner’s boat. There are bite marks in the hull. He appears to be learning how to problem solve and hunt humans…
As the movie continues, our Bruce is looking smarter and smarter… as long as we don’t think of him as a normal shark.
Crashes the 4th of July
Sharks are attracted to noise, and both splashing and bubbles can have an effect too. Exactly the things Brody was trying to avoid and Mayor Vaughn insisted on allowing. The stupid one here is the mayor. But even after everyone rushes from the water, Bruce goes into ‘the pond’- which is supposed to be the safe place! He swims under a bridge to get there and targets a man in a boat. And of course he does- he’s done it before! The shark is becoming a specialised hunter, and that is smart… And by the time Brody, Hooper and Quint end up at sea in the Orca, they’re dealing with a much more formidable enemy. Which makes you wonder… could he have been taken down after killing Chrissie if Vaughn had taken the attack seriously in the first place?
Anyway… the final showdown!
Takes the line but goes under the boat… and strategises??
And this is where Quint tells Brody he isn’t sure if the shark is smart or dumb. But Quint hasn’t seen everything we the audience has seen… and by now our Bruce seems to be getting smarter with every attack. While the three men are trying to wear him out with the barrels, the shark is doing the exact same thing back to them! He’s keeping them on edge, exhausting them for hours and then, just when they think it’s safe to relax a bit, he comes back at night and rams the boat. We know he’s capsized small boats and if this is what he did to Ben Gardner’s larger boat, he knows it works. Trying to sink the boat is smart, but keeping the men afraid and constantly trying to think one step ahead is now ‘intelligent serial killer’ territory.
Appears to set traps
Did Bruce actually set a trap?! Normal sharks aren’t that smart but this shark has been much more than an average shark for quite some time now! He appears to wait for Brody to lean over the side before lunging from the water, and then the men realise he’s leading them out to sea! That’s smart. He even appears to problem-solve by biting through the lines. When Hooper goes down in the shark cage, again the shark disappears… before slamming into the cage from behind, taking Hooper by surprise! By now, a monstrous, hungry shark would have gone looking for an easier meal, but for a thinking creature this might be about more than just food…
Eats Quint
Speaking of food… he started to sink the Orca, and he got a meal out of it, too. It seems that his smart plan is finally working… but smart creatures don’t act like mindless eating machines and here’s Bruce stuffing his face with anything he can get his hinged rubber jaws onto! It’s this reverting to ‘eating machine’ stereotype that lets Brody get the upper hand! It seems there are two characters in Jaws whose greed ends up ruining their day. Mayor Vaughn… and the shark.
So, what’s the verdict?
In my opinion, Jaws begins with what appears to be just an enormous ravenous shark… which disconcertingly becomes something far more frightening as the movie goes on. But is he smart? For a person, yes- and getting smarter by the hour. But people don’t make good meals for sharks. Compared to big fat seals and sea lions, we’re meaty little toothpicks. There are seal populations in the area, and if he’d swum off to find one he’d probably have lived. So… smartness is subjective and while we might see Bruce as a disturbingly intelligent character by the end of the movie, other sharks probably think he’s as dumb as a box of rocks!
Words by Faith Roswell
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