For the Love of Sharks

In my English class, we recently watched Jaws and we had to write a response. I wrote in the defense of Sharks and I hope you enjoy reading this.

Jaws is an example of a movie that is responsible for taking the negative stereotype of an animal to its extreme. The message Jaws brings to its American audience is that Sharks are motivated to kill humans and in order to protect ourselves from them, we must kill them off. However, this is a famous misconception; Sharks are magnificent creatures that are vital to the marine ecosystem.

Jaw’s reasons for attacking people can be justified. For example, Jaws resides in the waters of Amity Beach. Visiting the beach and fishing are among the most popular activities. However, in both the movie and currently, Sharks are being deprived of its resources due to overfishing. Jaws is among the unusual cases that has decided to search for other food sources, which leads to the most common reason for Shark attacks. The reason why Jaws probably chose to attack was because he never meant to attack in the first place. Before Jaws attacked, the camera angle in the perspective of Jaws made it look like the swimmers were Seals. Due to the shark’s terrible eyesight, Jaws saw his opportunity for dinner and striked. An important component of the American Dream consists of vacationing on the coast. But when you think of what falsified dangers are concealed under the endless sea, not only do people not want to vacation in that area, they want to put a stop to these “threats” as well.

Jaws not only negatively impacted the American audience, but its international audience as well. The international audience absorbed this incorrect belief and applied it to their customs. Jaws popularized the slaughter of Sharks. Because of Jaws, people came to believe in the idea that all Sharks deserve to die the slowest, most painful death as a consequence of their “wrongdoings”. According to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, “The Asian appetite for Shark fin soup has lead to the slaughter of some 73 million Sharks annually, many of which are hooked, finned, and tossed overboard alive to drown.”

The international audience also came to believe that all Sharks desire to eat Humans, which is also a misunderstanding. This belief also led to the poaching of other Shark species that happen to be harmless, such as the docile Whale Shark.

As illustrated, Jaws not only has something frightening to say about the American way of life, but the international way of life as well. Sharks are being fished at a rate faster than they can recover. If this continues to happen, Sharks will soon become extinct. If we allow this to happen, the Ocean will become a diseased underwater swamp. People should not take the message Jaws teaches to its audience seriously. We need to change the way people think of Sharks with this question: Would you rather live in a world surrounded by a slimy, colorless, oceanic bog with no Sharks or a world with clear waters and colorful reefs thriving with Sharks?