Steven Spielberg tells BBC he regrets negative impact on shark numbers after JAWS

Box office takings and bums on seats may have risen - especially with that Ben Gardner scene - throughout 1975 with the release of JAWS on the big screen, but its director Steven Spielberg has lamented the impact it has had on shark numbers.

The admission came on Desert Island Discs - remember folks, it is only a desert island if you look at it from the water - on BBC Radio 4, where he was picking his favourite music if he was castaway on a desert island. Sadly Show Me The Way To Go Home or Fair Spanish Ladies didn't make the cut.

Host Lauren Laverne, said to the Oscar-winning director: "Now the sea around your desert island could be inhabited by real sharks, how would you feel about that?

Spielberg, speaking on the show which was broadcast on his 76th birthday, said: “That's one of the things I still fear, not to get eaten by a shark, but that sharks are somehow mad at me for the feeding frenzy of crazy sport fisherman that happened after 1975, which I truly - and to this day - I regret the dissemination of the shark population because of the book and the film. I really truly regret that."

That response echoes that of Peter Benchley, the late author and co-screenwriter of JAWS, who also felt that, discussing his most famous work later in life, he said, "the shark in an updated JAWS could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim; for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors."

It was something Benchley would regret, and would spend much of his remaining years trying to atone for and help promote shark conservation

Peter, along with his wife Wendy, made it their lives mission to right the perceived wrong message of JAWS and focus on educating people on sharks, their importance in the ocean, and their key to our survival.

“What I now know, which wasn’t known when I wrote JAWS, is that there is no such thing as a rogue shark which develops a taste for human flesh,’’ Benchley told the Animal Attack Files in 2000. “No one appreciates how vulnerable they are to destruction.’’

"For all their power they are amazingly fragile. Sharks are no longer the villains; they are the victims."

That image of them as victims was cemented for Benchley when he witnessed the corpses of dead sharks littering the bottom of the sea. He's quoted as saying that it was one of the most horrifying sights he has ever seen.

JAWS tapped into our pre-existing fear of sharks - much like Arachnophobia did with spiders or IT with clowns - but our fear of sharks and shark deaths was occurring long before the music and images of JAWS entered our consciousness.

Of course, sharks and our fascination or fear of them didn't begin with JAWS when it was published in 1974. They've always been there swimming below the surface, but at several key points on recent history that dorsal fin appeared, and its rows of teeth grabbed our attention, and wouldn't let go.

JAWS may have been the biggest wave culturally, but there were two earlier waves in the 20th century that cemented the shark as apex predator and as a maneater in our consciousness.

That first time was in July 1916, and it struck out of nowhere. Much like the first shark attack that fateful day on the Jersey beach on Charles Vansant. At the end of the spate of almost two weeks of terror there were four people dead and one injured.

It even knocked the events of World War One from the front of newspapers in the US and was discussed by the President. The attacks were a watershed moment for sharks, as until then scientists believed they wouldn't come close to humans, and certainly weren't dangerous.

If those events that took place whilst World War One raged raised our fear level of sharks, it was events during World War Two that solidified it.

Soldiers and civilians who found themselves torpedoed, in sinking ships or in planes that have crashed in the ocean were in hot water. Sharks are scavengers and often in the vast open sea they will take every opportunity when it floats their way, and that includes the above.

That thrashing in the water like a distressed animal, the blood of the injured, dead bodies, oil and vibrations are like ringing the dinner bell to sharks. They aren't people to them, it's a welcome food source that's appeared in their domain.

Both the 1916 attacks and those from the Second World War, in the form of the sinking of the Indianapolis, were significant shark hysteria waves referenced in JAWS, doffing its cap to the other seminal shark moments of the 20th century.

The 1916 shark attacks are mentioned by Matt Hooper and Chief Brody to Mayor Vaughn outside the defaced Amity Regatta billboard.

The second isn't seen, it is heard. It is of course the mighty USS Indianapolis speech by Quint, arguably the most powerful moment in the film and perhaps cinemas greatest monologue.

And the deaths of sharks through overfishing - as bycatch - or deaths through shark finning was not impacted by the release of JAWS, so the deaths of an estimated 100 million sharks cannot be laid at the door of the Spielberg shark classic.

Of course, that is not to say that the sport fishermen who fancied themselves as Quint, captain of the Orca, didn’t capitalise on the film’s release, but again they existed long before the film.

In fact, it is said that Quint is in part inspired by Montauk sport fisherman Frank Mundus – although it is something Benchley always denied.

Mundus and Benchley had gone on shark hunting expeditions out of Montauk in the late 1960s prior to the release of the 1974 novel.

If anything, though, JAWS has helped raise shark awareness for good, influencing others to become a real-life Matt Hooper – like Mundus - rather than a Quint.

Later in life, Mundus retired from shark fishing and became a shark conservationist. Like Quint, he may have started out as a shark hunter but later became more Hooper, giving new meaning to Hooper drives the boat, Chief. Mundus passed away in 2008 aged 82.

For some it has led to lifelong fascination with the ocean and all things sharks, so in the long-term JAWS has been a positive gateway of discovery and more a force for good; for sharks, our oceans, our planet...and us.

Spielberg does himself and the legacy of JAWS a disservice, I’m not saying he isn’t sorry or shouldn’t be sorry for its cultural impact, but it is all too easy to simply just blame JAWS for shark hatred and fear, for some it will have amplified it, but for many it has helped spur a passion for these magnificent fish.

A passion that allows them to enjoy the film and book as a work of fiction but used it as a springboard into discovering more about sharks, conservation and even setting them on the road to become real life Matt Hoopers.

That is the true and lasting legacy of JAWS. It's also one that Peter Benchley would have been proud of. Perhaps JAWS has helped play its part in helping to save sharks and our oceans after all.

Words by Dean Newman

If you would like to write for The Daily Jaws, please visit our ‘work with us’ page

For all the latest Jaws, shark and shark movie news, follow The Daily Jaws on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.