Jaws (with guest Alex Arreola)

An episode that’s been a year in the making, Sean and Cody are joined by self-professed shark addict Alex Arreola for this bloody good analysis of Jaws, the 1975 blockbuster that’s now recognized as one of the greatest—and most popular—motion pictures of all time. On the ambiguously located Amity Island, transplanted New York cop Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) loses his lunch, and his cachet with the elders of the town, when a woman is killed by a shark and he decides quite rationally to close the public beaches. But the shark’s appetite has barely been whetted before the tantalizing main course of an island full of Fourth of July revelers. Environmental issues discussed include the horrific and bizarre Jersey Shore shark bite incidents of July 1916, the historical basis of the film; sharks’ feeding habits and their relationship to humans; marine species’ vulnerability to climate change; and the true story behind a real-life incident said to have been a mass shark feeding frenzy, the infamous Indianapolis disaster referenced in the film.

How dangerous are sharks to humans, and what factors bring the two species into conflict with one another? Why is “shark bite” a better term to use than “shark attack?” What happened in Matawan, New Jersey in July 1916 and how faithfully did that true story translate to book and eventually to screen? Why did the author of the book this film was based on, Peter Benchley, eventually regret writing it? Which U.S. President held an emergency cabinet meeting to talk about sharks? Can German U-boats cause shark bite incidents? How accurate is Quint’s famous speech in Jaws describing the USS Indianapolis disaster of 1945? How are sharks threatened by climate change? Is Steven Spielberg really the genius at figuring out crowd psychology, and if you think he is, how do you explain his dreadful film Always? There’s so many questions like this in the episode that we’re going to need a bigger boat for this episode of Green Screen.

Special thanks to Pop-Up Puppet Cinema for permission to use the “Jaws Sea Shanty” in this episode, and also thanks to The Daily Jaws website.

Jaws (1975) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/ Jaws (1975) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/jaws/

Next Movie Up: Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

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