Jaws
Jaws (1975) is a horror film about a man-eating shark which terrorizes a town and the police chief, scientist, and hunter who band together to kill it. 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. 1
In particular, I couldn’t help but compare Jaws to the COVID-19 pandemic despite the film predating the pandemic by about 44 years. 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: 1
- 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.” 2