I think I’ve been duped by the Discovery Channel. Maybe Steven Spielberg too.
I was one of the millions that helped give the cable network’s recently completed Shark Week ferocious ratings. I spent the week wondering if my lifelong dream to retire to an oceanfront condo was a good idea after watching, among other offerings, Super Predatorr and Monster Mako, entertaining though they were.
I also feel I deserve some credit for launching Spielberg’s career through repeated viewings of his first cinematic blockbuster, Jaws. When it premiered in 1975, I, a gangly 12-year-old, purchased a ticket with my hard earned paper route money. I recoiled in terror with the theater’s other occupants when Richard Dreyfuss’ pocket knife chipped away at that fishing boat’s hull, revealing the bloated and extremely dead head of shark victim number three. Or was it four? By that time, I’d lost count. I also nearly lost the popcorn I’d been consuming up until that pivotal scene.
But from that moment on, I was hooked. No pun intended. By my own estimations, I’ve seen the movie at least 50 times, often sacrificing sleep in favor of late-night viewings on classic movie channels. I would have given my right arm — again, no pun intended — to see the 40th anniversary re-release of the film last month. Alas, scheduling conflicts prevented me from returning to the multiplex and silently mouthing famous lines like Robert Shaw’s “Cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark’s in the water. Our shark,” and Roy Scheider’s classic, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” The latter still gets laughs when I utter it while boarding a friend’s speedboat before we take our kids tubing on a quiet Michigan lake.
But all it took was one lousy, three-minute YouTube clip to see that Great Whites are not hell bent on destroying fishing vessels and feasting on their tasty occupants. Jaws was just one gigantic fish story.
By now, you may have seen the viral video posted by shark fisherman Michael Maiale and shot about 40 miles off Long Beach, New York. As Maiale and his buddies check out a rotting whale carcass, an encounter being filmed by Maiale’s fellow fisherman Liam Lyons with a GoPro camera, a real Great White approaches, its dorsal fin rising from the ocean depths and eliciting predictable cries of “Holy shit!” from the boat’s occupants. Had I been piloting the craft, I would have put the motors into full reverse mode. Check that, first I would have urinated on myself and THEN put the motors into full reverse mode, a no-brainer decision based on my knowledge of the Jaws script. Everybody knows what happens when a Great White spots a fishing boat: It launches itself onto the boat’s bow, opens its mouth and eagerly waits for a crew member to lose his footing.
Either Maiale and his mates never saw Jaws, or they researched Great Whites more extensively than Spielberg. Not only did they stay put, but Lyons actually lowered the still-filming GoPro into the water to better capture the shark in its entirety. On the stupid meter, I ranked that decision right up there with giving one’s Social Security number to telemarketers. “Sharks eat anything, even anti-shark cages!” I screamed as I watched the YouTube clip. “Just ask Richard Dreyfuss!”
But the shark didn’t eat the camera, merely nudging it with its snout. Indeed, it was a most cooperative subject, even swimming by the GoPro several times, as if to say, “If you’re filming this, make sure you get my good side.” Maiale continued following the beast as it swam towards the whale’s remains and began munching away. Not once did the shark contemplate that a boatful of humans might taste better than a dead mammal left rotting in the sun for several days. Likewise, Maiale never had to consider throwing a canister of compressed air into the shark’s mouth and firing a rifle in its general direction.
I realize sharks can be dangerous; the North Carolina coast is proof. But watching a real live Great White preen for a camera left me disillusioned. I would never wish harm on a human, but it would have been nice to witness the shark, at the very least, challenge Maiale and his crew for territorial dominance. I’m not sure I can watch Shark Week 2016, an event I’m sure is already in the planning stages. Ditto for Jaws as I fear I won’t feel that familiar pang of terror as the shark approaches the Orca while the classic “bum ba bum ba” music score rises in intensity.
Instead, when Robert Shaw fearfully measures the shark at “Twenty-five (feet). Three tons of him,” I’ll reply, “Just throw chunks of rotting whale overboard. You’ll be fine.”
