I finally got around to watching Jaws (1975) tonight, and I was surprised that my expectations the movie would be a corny horror film did not turn out to be true. Instead, I found myself finding a lot of social commentary and laughing at how funny the film is.
In particular, I couldn’t help but compare Jaws to the COVID-19 pandemic despite the film predating the pandemic by about 44 years. For example, in the beginning of the film, the police chief Martin Brody tries to shut down the beaches after the coroner tells him that it is a shark attack. However, he ultimately decides not to after the coroner walks back his statement, who seems to do so under pressure from the Mayor, and the mayor Larry Vaughn convinces him, who is worried about the negative effect that will have on the local economy.
Even when a second person is killed by the shark, at the town meeting people still seem more preoccupied by concerns for money than concern for human life. Before the meeting starts, a woman expresses her concerns as to how businesses will be adversely affected. At the meeting’s conclusion, the police chief is interrupted while he’s describing the measures he is implementing by the question of whether or not he is going to close the beaches. He says he will, which is met with booing from the audience. A hunter, who offers to kill the shark, also does so out of greed, stating that he will only do it for an additional 3,000 bounty. The city also doesn’t want to foot the bill for the problem, so they decline to hire the hunter right away.
The scientist who specializes in sharks that offers his expertise is, at various points in the movie, shunned and ignored. He’s paid no mind when he expresses his doubts that the shark caught at the beginning is the right now and that it should be confirmed whether or not the right one was caught by cutting open its stomach. Even the press appears to be uninterested in consulting the scientist to verify facts, more interested in taking pictures so they can run an exciting story proclaiming that the man-eating shark is caught. When the police chief, hunter, and scientist band together to hunt the shark, the hunter dismisses the equipment the scientist brings until the boat is sinking and it is literally the only choice they have to take down the shark (and even then, the police chief expresses his doubt that it can work).
Society in the movie is depicted as uncaring about real, actionable steps that could be taken to address the problem until it is much too late, something that I feel is very applicable to how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled and how global warming is being handled.
There are many scenes in the film that have specific COVID-19 analogues:
- Several people have to die in the film (or come close to dying) before the threat is taken seriously. Nothing was done at the onset of the virus due to concerns for how aggressive lockdown measures would negatively affect the economy despite the fact that if such measures were not taken the economy would be much more negatively affected.
- The mayor encourages a family to swim out in the water when no one will do so despite knowing the danger, like how Trump repeatedly claimed that COVID-19 was not a significant threat.
- The scientist has a lethal injection that can kill the shark, but no one believes in the efficacy of it, preferring instead to try other approaches for killing the shark. This could be seen as an analogy for the COVID-19 vaccine, for which many ineffective alternatives persisted.
- The hunter underestimates the man-eating shark and only after he is literally on his deathbed — with no tools to fight the shark and with the bed literally sinking — does he accept that the scientist might have something that could work. But by then, it is too late for him and he ends up dying. This could be seen as an analogy for patients who were begging for the COVID-19 vaccine after it was too late. In a news article by The Guardian during the time of the pandemic, a doctor by the name of Brytney Cobia said “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.” 1