What Jaws secretly teaches us about our deepest fears
Here’s what seems like a relatively simple question: What kind of a movie is Jaws?
To a great many people it’s ‘a shark movie’. Or a horror. But that’s about it. And I get that, there’s definitely a shark - ‘a big one! A man eater!’ There’s blood and guts and screaming and all that scary stuff but is that all the movie does? Well no - obviously.
It’s a thrill ride for sure, it makes us jump and scream but what other things scare the characters? Is there something more terrifying than Bruce for them to worry about and is he just a manifestation of what scares them?
The movie, much like its toothy lead did in the waters off Amity Island, has staked a claim on our subconscious.
So what are these other different elements of fear in what I’m sure you’ll agree is, THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE?
The Fear of Losing Everything You’ve Ever Worked For
Real Estate agent/mayor Larry Vaughn, who has everyone from Editor of the Amity Gazette, Harry Meadows, to the coroner and most of the the town council in the pocket of his flared polyesters pants is a shrewd operator. Vaughn subscribes to the idea that fear is the best way to gain and retain power. And Larry really likes his power. Amity’s political scene might only be a small pond but Vaughn’s definitely the Big Fish who swims there. And there’s even a certain shark-like quality to his look too, with his silvery blue jacket and his matching swept-back hair. He looks like he’d glide through the shallows very well.
The Fear local business owners have is not really about the shark. It more, how will their livelihoods survive if the tourists don’t turn up? Their fear is about money.
And even though they accept this monster is causing them to be fearful for their bank balance, they still don’t want the beaches closed!
‘24 hours is like three weeks!’ Their argument is totally illogical. They don’t want signs saying that the beaches are off limits but yet if the visitors aren’t protected they could get eaten. Which isn’t exactly a great memory to take home from your vacation.
Brody’s trying to stop everyone being ‘served up as smorgasbord’, but he’s fighting the laws of commerce and right now those supersede the hunger of a Great White Shark.
The Fear of Being Replaced
This mostly comes in the form of Quint going toe to toe with Hooper. It’s The Old World versus The New or Tradition v Progress.
Quint is a WW2 vet, a man who sees himself as the ultimate Alpha Male. His behaviour is manic, wild and unpredictable. His rage comes out of nowhere and just as quickly fades to nothing more a sly smile. Those eyes that twinkle with glee as he and Hooper compare scars and drink to their legs hide a blankness - this is where the real Quint lives. His soul was consumed long ago, all that’s left is the fear and horror his life has become. And he knows he must confront this fear as he patrols the waters off Amity. His eyes are exactly how he describes those of the shark:
‘Lifeless eyes, black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes…’
Quint is the shark.
When he’s powering the wounded Orca towards land he bears his teeth, hammering down on the throttle, pushing the small engine to its limits.
If he stops, it will admit defeat to Brody and Hooper, and for Quint to do this voluntarily would be unthinkable. Again, he reflects the behaviour of a shark. They have to swim to survive. If they stop, they die.
Quint is always running (or swimming or piloting the Orca) from something. And that something is fear.
The Fear that he’ll end up in the water again and this time a ‘big fat PBY’ won’t come along to save him.
Hooper, is the rich kid who you suspect got given an awful lot of leg-ups by his family, but he’s got a good heart. He’s a man of science though and a devoted disciple of its teachings. He knows all he has to do is approach every problem objectively and logically and he will arrive at a correct conclusion. But at the core of this thinking is an arrogance. Hooper thinks he knows all about sharks and can predict what they will do.
And so the saying goes, the only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.
But at least the oceanography finally concedes he might’ve got things wrong when he witnesses the behaviour of his opponent.
Brody: You ever have one do this before?
Hooper: No.
So what does Hooper fear? Possibly not living up to his high standards or falling foul of emotion, letting it muddy the waters of his thought process. He has to prove himself to Quint by tying a sheep shank and he does so with ease, sneering at the suggestion he’s not equipped to go shark hunting. Despite being derided, he’s drawn to Quint, like a fish to a baited hook. He desperately wants to impress the old goat. Deep down, Hooper fears he won’t be good enough.
Martin Brody is nothing like either of his companions. Luckily for Amity he’s humble in the presence of things he doesn’t yet understand. He is a man who knows all about unpredictability from his years working in the city, he understands how exposure to violence can lead to despair and panic and you realise you don’t have quite the level of control over your life you thought you did. He left New York to get away from that sort of thing, desperate for a bit of peace and quiet. So he packed up his life and went to live by the ocean… The thing that terrifies him the most. Perhaps subconsciously he chose Amity exactly because of where it is, knowing that he needs that bit of fear inside him to keep him alert and wary of the world. If he has too much of an easy life he’ll get soft and doughy and end up like one of those swivel-eyed loons he now has to call neighbour!
Brody’s scared of the water (or ‘drowning’, as he prefers to call it) because he doesn’t understand it and has probably always suspected there’s some ungodly terror lurking in its inky depths. From the dinner scene at the Brody house, quite early in the movie, the audience see he’s actually the most intelligent person in the entire town. In fact, Hooper even says Brody’s going to be ‘the only sane person left on this island’, so the evidence is there in front of us. Brody’s the most qualified to deal with the situation, because he accepts no one has all the answers - least of all him. He doesn’t believe things will stay the same or last forever, he’s a New Yorker - he’s seen what happens when you take your eye off the ball in the city. Life can change in a heartbeat.
And couldn’t the shark actually be a metaphor for New York City in Brody’s head?
Brody to Hooper: In New York, you never feel like you’re accomplishing anything, but in Amity one man can make a difference!
The fear of this giant thing, gobbling up everything in its path. Its sudden violent acts, mean streets and furious pace scare the hell out of Brody, for years he’s been trying to pull his legs out of its gaping mouth and now somehow he’s actually managed it.
His line in the movie also preempts his final showdown with the shark. In the city he felt powerless, but his time will come when he’ll really be that one man who’ll make a difference. He’ll do what no one else can, he’ll kill the shark and in doing so perhaps assuage his fear of the ocean.
Fear of the Unknown
Something I believe has a huge impact on how you view Jaws, is if when you watch it you consider what else had been going in the American psyche at that point in history.
The Vietnam War was stuttering to a close for the United States and as the surviving soldiers returned home, they carried with them not just their kit bags but also their experiences. The ever-present fear of trying to survive in a near alien environment and being on edge 24 hours a day doesn’t really go away. Nowhere seemed safe, not even when they were away from the jungle. Panic and dread was their constant companion wherever they went. Fear lurked silently in the shadows - whether those shadows were in the minds of the soldiers or deep in the jungle. This kind of fear and uncertainty is like a rock in the pit of your stomach. It its there, constantly nagging at you, whispering in your ear that your next moment could well be your last. A bomb could go off, you could be shot, activate a boobytrap or step on an anti-personnel mine. Whatever method fate had in store for you, there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it.
The jungle was deep, dark and near impenetrable. These men had come from a land of sidewalks and paved roads and now they’d been thrown into a terrifying landscape over which they had no control.
Their enemy was an expert in camouflage and after an ambush could melt back into the shadows and leave little or no trace.
Fear of the Unknown was big in America at this time. And, at its core, that’s what Jaws is all about. The town of Amity, battling for the survival of their businesses, trying to keep their heads above water against an enemy they believed threatened their way of life, sent men out into the deep green/blue horror of the ocean to fight this war for them.
The town’s pint-sized platoon had the most unhinged of all Leaders in Quint who puffs his chest out, bellows orders and employs the tactic of ‘more is more’ in his fight against the enemy. He dismisses Private Brody’s worries - after the Chief’s face-to-face with Bruce - that a larger vessel might be in order and yells at Private First Class Hooper to just drive the boat.
Quint is the most belligerent Old Man of the Sea ever conceived and he’s damned if he’s going to be beaten by a fish - even if he does eventually concede that it’s smart. In another director’s hands, Quint might’ve been one dimensional, someone who was only there because it said ‘salty old sea dog’ in the script. Thankfully, this was Spielberg directing Shaw so you got a larger than life cross between Long John Silver and Captain Ahab marauding across the screen like a man possessed. And whilst Quint might not be possessed as such, he’s certainly obsessed. His obsession is, of course, killing sharks. It’s all he does, all he wants to do. And why does he hold this mad vengeance in his heart? Because of his experiences in World War II.
We all know the speech of course but if you examine the language in it, you might or the opinion that Quint’s got it all wrong. But of course his of arrogance don’t allow him to see his mistake. He talks about savage tiger sharks and how his friend ‘Herbie Robinson from Cleveland...He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he’d been bitten in half below the waist.’ But I don’t believe that it’s the sharks that Quint really hates. It’s something else entirely.
He mentions it at the start of the speech. On the very first line in fact. But we don’t notice it because we’re distracted by everything around us. We’re terrified and exhilarated, out of our depth in this epic adventure and we know it won’t be long until the shark turns up again.
What he says is this:
‘Japanese slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief.’
And there you have it, what he’s actually scared about, way more than sharks, is the submarine attack. No one had seen it coming, it was an ambush. Much the same as the generation to come would have to endure in the jungles of Vietnam.
The USS Indianapolis was a huge vessel, a vast floating emblem of the United States naval power. It would’ve appeared impervious, unsinkable.
And yet the danger lurking beneath the waves punched a hole in its side (exactly like Bruce does the night Quint tells the story to Hooper and Brody) and it was all over.
But subconsciously Quint’s hatred of the submarine was transferred to the shark - he couldn’t hunt submarines all his life, so sharks would feel his wrath.
Quint becomes relentless in his pursuit of sharks, his home festooned with the jaws of his victims - one even being screwed to the wheelhouse of the Orca.
Fear has many faces, some of them are massive an grey with lots of pointy teeth, whilst others come in the shape of our bank balance. In Jaws, it is the fear of what’s hiding, cruising in the shadows just beyond our field of vision. It’s the fear of the ambush.
Then again, is it even out there at all? Are we just worrying about nothing?
Who can really say, but there’s a few things you can be sure of.
Say no to swimming at night.
Don’t make yourself look like a seal by floating about on an inflatable.
Never row out into an estuary to offer advice on knot tying.
Don’t think you’re better than the 25 foot, 3 ton beast you’re chasing.
Get a bigger boat.
Keep practicing your rifle skills.
If you do these 6 things, there’s nothing to fear.
Words by Tim Armitage
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.