Jaws

We're gonna need a bigger... Bechdel Cast episode? And we got one with this episode on Jaws (1975)... check out linktr.ee/bechdelcast for our upcoming tour dates in the Midwest!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? The patriarchy Zephim Beast start
changing with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Auga Alert, Alert, We're going on tour.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
We're going on tour, and I know what you're all thinking.
What are you going to the same four cities again?
Normally the answer be yes. This time no, we are
for the first time touring in the Midwest. You heard,
we responded nine years later, we are touring the Midwest.

(00:43):
We are very, very excited, and so we wanted to
let you know as soon as possible so you can
grab your tickets. It's our end of summer tour. Caitlin,
where are we going?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
I will tell you. We're kicking off the tour in
Indianapolis on August thirtieth. That is a Saturday matinee show
with Let's Fest. So check out our show for sure,
and check out other programming at the festival.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
I've got a solo show that night. You should come.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
You should definitely come to that to come to both
of them. So, yeah, that's Indianapolis August thirtieth, then the
following night, on August thirty first, we will be in Chicago,
so come on out to that show.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
We'll be at the Den Theater that night. It's a beautiful,
beautiful theater. We're very, very excited, and tickets particularly we'll
be going quick there, so if you're in Chicago, get
your tickets now.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Indeed, a few days later we'll be over in Wisconsin.
That's right, We're coming to Madison on September fourth. We
will be at the Burr Oak and then finally we
will be in Minneapolis on September seventh at Dudley Riggs Theater.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
It will be a thrilling week in the Midwest. We
are very excited to come and see you. Come hang.
As always, we do like audience involvement stuff. We do
meet and greets after we sell exclusive merch it's a blast,
so come be weird and parasocial with us. We will
be announcing movie pics a little bit closer to the shows,

(02:22):
but we can promise you're gonna have an amazing time.
Bechdel Cash shows are rowdy and weird and a lot
of people have met their significant others there, so are
we promising love.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yes, significant others, friends or just fuck buddies. Yeah, just
go in and find someone to fuck if you want.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
They're just if you're a horny, well no, actually, if
you're a horney, figure it out. But you can come
to the show. You're wal, you can see people welcome.
Don't be weird about it. Just don't be weird about it,
honor system.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yes indeed. Yeah, and the tickets for all of these
shows can be found on our link tree link tree
slash bechdel Ca, So grab them while you still can.
We're expecting these shows to sell out, so don't wait.
As as mister Andrews says to Rose at the after
the Titanic has hit the iceberg, don't wait. Get your

(03:15):
tickets now and we will see you there. Should I
be invoking Titanic a national tragedy?

Speaker 3 (03:24):
I think that it's you.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
You crested thee hundred year roll. It's fine, thank you
so much. In any case, grab your tickets. We're so
excited to come see you.

Speaker 4 (03:33):
See you there and now done done Fuck America by
byecast Jamie.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
We're gonna need a bigger pod podcast.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
I mean, look, we've been trying.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, tell your friends not for lack of.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Effort that we don't have a bigger podcast. Tell your friends,
Tell your friends. We didn't pivot the video. I guess, hey,
I mean, yeah, look, we're we've got we've got a
we've got a quin style podcast. So true, chugging along,
full of trauma, old fashioned, no video doomed. Who could say,

(04:15):
let's hope not, Let's hope not.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
What if at the end of this episode we get die?

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Honestly, it would be a blessing. It would be a
blassing bringing on. Hi everyone, Welcome to the Jaws episode
of the Vachdel Cast. My name's Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
My name is Caitlin Droonte. This is our show where
we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
Bechdel test. Simply as a jumping off point.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Is Jaws of what pronounces Jaws use?

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Well, the characters refer to Jaws as he him.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, but like, I mean, I guess that they are
shark experts, so I'm assuming they know that, But it
just feels like it's a given, like.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
They don't question it at all, Like before they.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Could possibly know they you're using him. I just needed,
like definitely not to be like obsessed with the like
gender of the shark. It just felt like the he
him was a was a foregone conclusion, versus.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Like, I mean this is true. I think they just
see a forebiding aggressive thing and they're like, well, that
must be a male shark. I mean, animals don't have gender.
Gender is a very human construct, so right, but it
very well could have been a female shark.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Well, because Spielberg later on, I mean famously the dinosaurs
in Jurassic.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Parks, so you know, all female growth growth exactly over
time anyway, So yes, we use the Bechdel test as
a jumping off point. That, of course, is a media
metric created by our very best friend in the whole
wide world, Alison Bechdel, first appearing in her comic Dikes

(05:54):
to Watch Out For in nineteen eighty five. Often called
the Bechdel Wallace Test, there are many versions of it.
The one that we use requires this, do two characters
of a marginalized gender have names? And do they speak
to each other about something other than a man? And also,
we like it when it's narratively impactful dialogue and not

(06:17):
just throw away nonsense.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
We like it. We love it. Yes, and today we
are taking that interactional feminist frame and applying it to
one Jaws nineteen seventy five, directed by Steven Spielberg, which
feels especially worthy of mention this year because it's celebrating
its fiftieth anniversary. Yeah. I was really hoping to watch

(06:43):
the new documentary about Jaws, but it unfortunately does not
come out until after this episode airs tragically rude. But
there is plenty, plenty, plenty to be said about the
movie Jaws. There's been a lot of inks billed, and
here is a little bit more MP three about it.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Indeed, here's our contribution to that. Jamie, what's your relationship
with the movie Jaws?

Speaker 3 (07:08):
I was a late bloomer to Jaws. I didn't grow
up with Jaws, even though I grew up, like you know,
I grew up in Massachusetts, where Jaws famously takes place. Yea,
my mom not when I was growing up, but my
mom when I was in high school and my parents
got the Vorst. She moved to a community not unlike

(07:32):
the community in Jaws. A community. She lives in Marshville, Massachusetts,
which is a community that has a wide class gap.
There's the rich folks in the hills and kind of
the more working class, middle class folks in the city below.
It is a town that very much relies on and

(07:53):
has a very complicated relationship with the tourist economy. And
so while there's a lot of cartoonish elements of Jaws,
I actually did feel somewhat at home when I finally
saw it. I didn't see it until a couple of
years ago. It was re released in Imax, I want
to say, three years ago, and that was my first
time seeing it, and I have watched it every summer since.

(08:15):
So I think this was my fourth viewing of Jaws.
And I mean, it's a classic for a reason. Baby.
Is it copaganda? Yes, but but it's is it a
movie ever? Like kind of it is? It's like it is.
It's really nice seeing like a movie that, like I

(08:35):
wasn't avoiding it, I just like never saw it, and
then when you finally see it, you're like, oh, it's
it's as good as everybody says. It's an incredible movie.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
It's so good.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
It's so good, and much of the lore behind it
is really fascinating because it's got that like this movie
shouldn't have worked and then it did, which is always
a fun thing, and it's yeah, Spielberg's like first theatrical
release because he made that TV movie that was unlike
Jaws if Jaws was a truck. Yeah, so that was

(09:04):
this little warm up. He's like, okay, Jo, well what
if Jaws was a fish and what if the truck
was a shark? Yeah, but if the truck was a shark?
And he slaid that and he was like twenty eight,
which is upsetting but also incredible, and I, yeah, this movie. Look,
could we make a better movie than this?

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Me? No?

Speaker 3 (09:22):
I like, no, we couldn't. And there's many movies we've
covered in the show that we could make up definitely,
but this is this is one of the greatest movies
probably ever, one of like what a what like invented
the blockbuster essentially. I didn't even ever think hard about
the term blockbuster, but then you're like, you think about it.
People lined up around.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
The block, Oh and they and they busted.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
They busted while they were waiting. And if the movie
is so good, everyone busted and it came. That's why
you wait around the block and then you bust when
you get in.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, it's like edge you're waiting you're waiting, you're waiting.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
And you get so scared you come and yeah, this
would be rocks. It fucking rocks, Roles and rules. It
still feels very timely no matter when you see it.
I love this movie. I particularly love the Robert Show performance.
I think it's my favorite.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Had no idea who was British.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Oh oh by. And also I didn't know that he
was a Pulitzer Prize finalist author like he was. Oh yeah.
He was also a very successful writer, and I think
was you know, many such cases. He was always a
bit pissed that he was more famous as an actor
than as a writer, but he was a very I

(10:46):
wouldn't say he was an underrated writer. He was rated.
He almost won a Pulitzer.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Anyways, I think that his performance as quint is like
one of my favorite performances ev which is the coldest
take humanly possible. And I don't like Richard Drivis famously.
I think he's annoying, and it's really it's horrible when
someone's a horrible person, but it's interesting when someone's a

(11:12):
horrible person, and it just validates the fact that you
never enjoyed watching them perform and That's how I feel
about Richard Drives. He sucks and I don't like watching him.
And it used to just be like, am I being
a bitch, And then I found out he was a
horrible person. So now I'm like, well, I can freely
air I don't like Richard Drivis. I think he's obnoxious.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, he didn't know until you sent me that link.
But he's a piece of shit.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
It's Jaws related too. The reason that like, I mean,
he's he's been. He's been a piece of shit quietly
for years. But his most recent outing of being a
piece of shit was he had like an outburst against
essentially any diversity or DEI in film at a Jaws
screening in Massachusetts several years ago. Go and because Massachusetts

(12:02):
is the greatest, he was booed in the theater and
it made the news rounds. But I mean, it's, you know,
an old white man, old white manning But it just
was like, I would not recommend watching the clip. It's
rather disgusting. And he's possibly a Republican, we just don't know,

(12:23):
but we know that he it's it's one of the
more comprehensive, hateful speeches I've ever heard yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
He was disparaging of women of the meet too, and.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
It was literally like, if you are not a cis
white man, I don't respect you.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Make him vomit as he says.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yes, he says yeah, so early in the show to
get into that. But and I you know, not that
I'm like, and I'm sure Robert Shaw was a woke king,
like who fucking knows.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
He did identify as a socialist, so maybe he did more.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
So I mean, look, yeah, not necessary. I mean to
hang out at a DSA meeting long enough. Anyways, this
movie's amazing, Yes, and I really really like it. I
think if I saw it when I was younger, it
would be in like some of my all time movies.
But I'm a pretty recent convert. What about yourself?

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Honestly kind of the same. There's an alternate timeline version
of me, or like a multiverse Caitlyn out there somewhere
in the world who has seen this movie a hundred times,
who can quote it? Yeah, who started watching it when
I was like eight years old. But that just isn't
the version of me who's speaking right now. That's okay,

(13:38):
thank you so much. I saw this only once in
my like it was either when I was a teenager,
like in high school, or it was during the kind
of great Caitlyn movie binge of two thousand and five
somewhere around then. But I watched it that one time,
and I didn't see it again until last summer at

(14:00):
a screening at the Vista in LA and I was like,
holy shit, why was I sleeping on this movie this
whole time? This is incredible? What am I doing? And
now I'm gonna work it into my regular rotation because
it is so good. It's such a great movie.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
It's a movie.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
It's a movie that feels like a movie. We come
to this place for magic and for Jaws.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
Literally that I do feel this is so core, but
like it's a movie that feels like a movie. When
people are talking about movies, they're basically talking about Jaws
pretty much. Yeah, it's got something for everyone.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
It really does.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Whether you're a child or traumatized from what you did
in World War two, this movie's got something for everybody.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Indeed, let's take a quick break and we will come
back to do the recap and we're back. Yeah, Okay,
here's what happens in Jaws.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
We open on just saying exactly.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
We open on some young people having a campfire on
the beach. A man and a woman run off to
go skinny dipping. The man is too drunk and he
kind of like passes out in the sand, but the woman, Chrissy,
goes into the water, and we've.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Got that creature from the Black Ligan shot throughout.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
In something that's underwater, grabs her and starts thrashing her around,
and eventually she's pulled underwater, never to be seen alive again.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
The casting for this is so seventies sexism, but it's
interesting this character is called Chrissy. Yes, So the casting
call for this basically said, okay, are you hot, willing
to get naked, and very physically strong so that we
can yank you underwater. And the actor who played her

(16:08):
was all of those things. She had done like some
pinup modeling I think, and was a I believe, like
a semi professional slimmer like she had.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
A lot of and a stunt performer, like a professional
stunt worker.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
Some of our most underappreciated actors. But she in what
I believe. I watched the Jaws documentary that was filmed
for the fortieth anniversary, so about ten years old.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Now I also watched that one.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yes, yeah, that's when I sent to you and her
she was basically waterboarded yeah during the shot, but she
was like, but we didn't call it that back then.
You were like okay, but just like I don't know,
very like casting eat, it'sunded, Like Steven Spielberg was the
only person that was like, is she appropriate for the role,
And all the other men in the room were like,
humana huamanahamana. So you know that's and because it's like

(17:02):
the seventies and everyone's our parents age or earlier, they're
like ha ha ha, And it was so funny and
we just have to be like, well, if you say so,
I don't have to agree. It sounds like they've waterboarded
you anyways. Yeah, rip Chrissy, m hmm.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Then we cut to Martin Brody played by Roy Scheider,
the chief of Police of Amity Island, very Martha's Vineyard vibes,
and that is famously also where they shot the movie.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
A cab does include Brody, yes, but I do love him.
He's hard. It's hard, he I mean, but that's why
coppaganda exists, because guys like Brody don't actually exast I
know anyways, do love him.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
So we meet Brody and his wife Ellen played by
Lorraine Gary.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Love her too. What a fun Steven Spielberg is so
like early Spielberg. I feel like it is full of
mom characters like this who just like I mean, it's
not similar to the mom and et in that she
is a much bigger character in that story. She's a
single mother, but just that, like the women in his

(18:16):
like seventies and eighties movies in like rather formulaic movies
still like have a personality at very least, which so
few characters in like genre movies do. It's very like
I am your wife. Here is French fries I mad
or like however, wives are nagging, right, But she is humorless.

(18:37):
She's fun. She is like we live on the beach.
She's like not a great parents.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
I don't think anyone in the seventies were, because the
way that parents just let their kids run around loose
all willy nilly.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
It definitely was like, yeah, parent of the time. But
also it's just wild how well aware she has that
there's a shark nearby and she's like, there are my kids. Oh,
you don't like that? They're in the water, like, well,
I'm gonna have a drink, and you're like, all right,
let's go. I love her.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, she's fun, and so she and Brody have two
sons together and are recent transplants from New York City.
Then Brody gets a call about a missing girl, the
one from the night before, and he discovers her body
on the beach, or what's left of her, because she's

(19:33):
been badly mangled and it's presumed to be a shark attack.
So he wants to close the beach until further notice.
But Mayor Vaughn played by Murray Hamilton and his minions
go to Brody and say, oh, you can't close the beach.

(19:53):
This is a summer beach town and we need the
money that tourism brings in. We don't have sharks. That
woman died in a boding accident.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
Probably, I think there's I've read about. I didn't really
know before prepping for this episode that Jaws was a book.
I did not read it, but I did look up
and like watch the video and read a few articles
about what the changes that are made in the book.
And one of the things that like, I'm not upset

(20:23):
at the way Spielberg did it, but I would be curious,
like what it would be like if I guess I
guess the mayor is a piece of shit in both things,
but like everyone seems more like a piece of shit
and more complicated in the world of the book, like
there aren't really the Spielbergie heroes that you get. But
I guess that the book takes more care in a

(20:44):
way that I was like, oh, because I like, I
don't know, like recognize that dynamic from my mom's community,
Like takes way more pains to describe the consequences and
the dependency that the community has, and how severely many
of the residence, like the full time residence of their
community would suffer if the summer economy were to disappear.

(21:07):
And so while it's still ultimately I think painted in
the book as like the mayor is clearly making a
decision against the wellness of his people, I feel like
the Spielberg movie makes it as like he's more of
like a mister Crabs, like he's like our money, money, money,
I want money for myself and just me, Whereas I
guess the mayor of the book is like, well, like yoh,

(21:30):
there's a shark. Oh, it's killing everybody, but otherwise, like
people won't be able to pay their rents. Like it's
presented as a more complicated thing where I feel like
in the like the people in Amity and This are
more like they're very sheeple vibes versus like we're not
I mean, And it's like the movie can only do

(21:51):
so much. But I feel like the people who are
like the working class normal people are made out to
be like very not smart as opposed to like, this
is a very complex issue, but also they're about to
get eaten by a fucking shark. It's not like, you know,
it's not like Brody's.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Wrong, right, Yeah, the movie seems to kind of oversimplify
it slash like lean into the villainization of the Mayor character, but.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
It's also I don't hate, but no, it works. It
still works. I just I just thought I was like, Oh,
I would be interested in like alternate universe version of
the movie where you know, you had a character that's
like but I am, like I run a small business
or like a small restaurant, and if summer people weren't here,
I wouldn't be able to YadA YadA, you.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Know right what, Yeah, the movie definitely glasses over that. Yeah,
but in any case, Mayor Vaughn is like, pitshposh, there's
no shark. Then we cut to the beach. There's lots
of people having a nice time. Brody is there keeping
an eye on things because he's very anxious that everyone's

(23:02):
going to be eaten by a shark. There's a kid
there who is singing do you know the muffin Man?
And we're like, okay, Shrek vibes.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
Uh huh huh.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Just had to throw that out there. And then there's
another little boy, Alex Kittner, who goes in the water
and soon after a shark attacks and kills him. This
prompts a frenzy in town. Missus Kittner, Alex's mother is
offering a three thousand dollars reward to the person who

(23:35):
kills the shark that killed her son. And this town
hall meeting is called and Brody says that he's going
to close down the beaches, which upsets, you know, quite
a few of the townspeople because they have businesses that
rely on tourism. So it isn't just the mayor like,
there are townspeople who are like I need summer dollars

(23:59):
to serve.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
It's just very yes, I just, I just I guess again,
it's just like they're to me, are presented is very
like you fucking fool, You're gonna die, which is true.
But it's also like if we're thinking of Jaws being
the if Jaws is capitalism, you know, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah, I controversially think that the sharks did nothing wrong
and that the real villain of the movie is capitalism.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Well, it's also like, you know, the shark. I guess
that that's I don't know about sharks, but I learned
about sharks for the purposes of today, and uh a
shark probably wouldn't wouldn't have done any of that shit.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
True.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
And then there's like, I know, we'll talk about it,
but like the author of Jaws went on to become
a shark conservationist, Like.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, because he felt guilty about the aftermath of Jaws.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, he's like, oops, I was just kidding you guys.
I didn't think anyone was gonna read all that kind
of fun. Peter Benchley. Yeah, yeah, he's like oops, and
then he spent and now he's like a legend in
the shark community.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, yeah, there's a shark named after him. I found out.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, we'll talk more about that. But we're at this
town meeting and then we hear fingernails on a chalkboard
and they belong to Quint, the Robert Shaw character. He's
an eccentric local fisherman who says that he'll catch and
kill this shark, but it's not gonna be pretty. I

(25:27):
he'll do it for no less than ten thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
Quint. All right, I'm gonna say this because I don't
think I think since my mom stopped commuting, I don't
think she listens to the show anymore. So if you've
noticed a change in numbers by one, that's probably her,
Which is why I feel comfortable saying Quint does not
not remind me of some of my mom's ex boyfriends,
whoa okay, just the guys that have spent a little

(25:52):
bit too much time in the sun. Maybe. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
I mean, he's he's kookie, and he's just been in
the sun a lot. He's been in the sun, and
he's been out on a boat all by himself.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
He's had too much. He's had a couple of natty daddies.
Let's say that, what's that? It's a fisher Well, it's
like a cheap beer, but it's like a cheap beer
that's extra. It's like turbo beer. Whoa that? I don't know.
My mom dated a couple lobster men in her time,
and Natty Daddy was sort of the lobsterman drink of

(26:25):
choice because it was beer, but it was stronger. Wow,
natty daddies, I can't funk with It's it's they're pretty nasty,
but they're strong. It's like a buzzball for beer drinkers.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Oh okay, got it. We do see him drinking a
narrogast on the boat later on, and I just matters.
It really brought back. It brought me back to my
days of living in Boston.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Well, I love going home and having a little Ganst
Shandy in the summer time.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
That's nice.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
But yeah, he's got he's cookie fishermen vibes.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
And everyone's like sure, yeah, we'll think about it. Because
he like makes this proposition and no one takes him seriously.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
No one is asking the question I'm asking, which is
what is this accent? Where? Like where are you from?
What doesn't matter not important, it's perfect, it's great. Every
choice being made is the right choice.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Agree. So after this, Brody starts researching sharks. He's astonished
at how little is known about them, which I think
at the time was like, pretty true. There wasn't a
lot of like scientific shark research.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
You could just say anything about sharks, which is how Yeah,
and then Robert Benchley regretted it exactly.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Meanwhile, a couple like local guys set up a shark
trap hoping to get that reward money, and the shark
takes the bait, but the guys don't end up catching it,
and the one guy almost gets killed. So just another
reminder at what they're up against. And then more people

(28:05):
come into town hoping to catch this shark and get
the reward money, but most of them don't know what
they're doing. They're being reckless. It's chaotic. And then a
guy named Hooper, this is the Richard Dreyfus character, arrives
in town. He's a marine biologist from the Oceanographic Institute
there to lend his expertise, which in this case means

(28:31):
I agree, we have to kill this shark, not like
let's do something else, Like I'm a scientist, and shouldn't
I be doing like.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
Chris, maybe we should like catch this shark. Yeah, I
think that's reasonable.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
But he's like, no, let's kill it.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
It's reasonable to catch the shark. Right.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
So Matt Hooper is there to say what he knows
about sharks, and he examines the remains of the young woman, Chrissy,
who was attacked in the first scene and concludes that
it is definitely a shark attack. It was not a
boating accident, and he's furious that the authorities in town

(29:09):
have been extremely negligent about this. We then cut to
a shark that has been captured and killed, and everyone
is rejoicing because they assume that it's the shark that
has been attacking people.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
That's so funny. It's like that illustrates exactly how much
in this world people don't know about sharks because they're like,
there's only one shark. Ever, we got it at ever,
we killed a shark, right.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
But Hooper is like, well, this is a tiger shark
and its bite radius doesn't really match up with the
wounds on Chrissy. This shark seems too small. This shark
is innocent. Yes, we killed an innocent shark. Oh sad,
and he's like, the only way to be sure, though,
is to cut the animal open and see what's in
its digestive tract. The mayor is not fond of this idea,

(30:02):
and then missus Kittner approaches Brody to slap him and
be like, I just found out that you knew about
a girl getting killed here last week, and you knew
these waters were unsafe, and you let people go swimming anyway,
and now my.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
Boy is dead, and great scene.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
And now Brody is feeling some feelings such as guilt,
and he goes home and he's like drinking a pint
of wine and Hooper shows up. Oh, I guess he
starts drinking the pint of wine after Hooper shows up,
because Hooper brings the bottle of wine. Anyway, Hooper shows
up to be like, hey, again, I'm pretty sure that

(30:45):
shark that got caught is not the shark. And so
they go to the docks and they cut open this
shark and confirm Hooper's suspicion that this was not the
shark who killed the little boy, which means the killer
shark is still on the loose. So then Hooper and

(31:05):
Brody go out on a boat, which, by the way,
Brody is very scared of the water, so this is
difficult for him.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yeah. I think fear of the ocean is the world's
most reasonable fear. I personally am afraid of the ocean.
It is too big.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
It is really big, and there's so many scary things inside.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
I know that you're supposed to be full of with
a sense of wonder, but that's just not my story.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
And that's okay. I am afraid of any water that
I cannot see the bottom of. So even like a
shallow pond, if it's murky and I don't know what's
what the ground looks like, I'm scared.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
There's probably a murderer. Yeah, at the bottom there is.
There's a famous movie about the ocean, and guess who
wins the ocean. The movie's called Titanic. Yeah, the ocean
always wins. Wow. Movie sets a false expectation of challenging
the ocean.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
You're oh, you're so true. Yeah. Wow. Anyway, that's why
I only go swimming in swimming pools, thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Okay. So then so they're out on this boat, Brody
and Hooper, and they're looking for the big bad Boy Shark,
using all of Hooper's fancy ocean sonar equipment that he
bought himself because he comes from a wealthy family. And
they come upon the half sunken boat of a local fisherman,

(32:35):
and Hooper insists on putting on scuba gear and going
to check it out, which to me seems like a
very bad idea, what with the ravenous shark on the
loose and all. Yeah, but he goes in the water
and he finds a huge hole bitten out of the
bottom of the boat. He finds a huge shark tooth.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
A very very funny dummy.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
I was like, it is actually having seen I've seen
Jaws in theaters twice now, and it is unbelievably effective
in a crowd. I was so scared the first time
I saw it in theaters. And then when you see
it and you can pause.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
You're like, oh, it's a little silly, but silly, it's
a great jump scare.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
Everything is so and also like so much of the like,
oh should I get in the water? Shit, It's just
I do feel like this movie. He does a great
job at having a like three way dick measuring contest
between these men and they're all there are coming from
such a different place, but all of them are like,
oh you think that was hazardous to your safety, well

(33:39):
check out. Like it's just so like masculine, and it
also feels very aware of what it's doing, especially between
Hooper and Quint.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
Definitely, it's just awesome. There's a great moment, speaking of
the narrogainst there's that moment where Quint chugs his cann
of beer and then crushes it with his hand, and
then it cuts to Hooper who then takes the final
swig of his coffee in a styropham cup and then
crushes the cup.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
Which I guess is like somewhat improvised on the day,
which is because of this whole like legendary feud between
Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfus, which we can talk about
in a bit. It's not super relevant to like our discussion,
but it is interesting.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah. So anyway, they find this dead fisherman and the
huge shark tooths and everything, and it's scary and they
come back to shore and tell the mayor to close
the beach because a great white shark is in their midst.

(34:46):
That's what this like tooth confirms, but the mayor is like,
it's the fourth of July weekend, I cannot and will
not close the beach. Then tons of tourists arrive for
the holiday weekend. People are on the beach and they're
apprehensively going in the water. But then a shark fin

(35:07):
is spotted and everyone panics and rushes out, and this
like shark patrol are about to shoot what they think
is a shark, but it turns out to be two
boys playing a prank.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Close call for them.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Meanwhile, in shallower water, the real shark is spotted, and
this is where Brody's son Michael is playing with his
friends and the shark is coming for them. A nearby
man is attacked and killed, though the kids are pulled
to safety and Michael goes into shock and has to

(35:42):
go to the hospital and stuff. And then Brody convinces
the mayor to sign a voucher so that he can
hire Quint to kill the shark once and for all.
So Quin, Brody, and Hooper make preparations. Again Quin, who
is this like grizzled working class fishermen, is like, who

(36:04):
the fuck is this? Hooper guy with his soft hands
and money in his pockets, so there's you know, animosity
between them. They pack up various weapons, equipment, a shark cage,
et cetera, and then Captain Quint says, take her to
see mister Murdoch. Let's stretch her legs.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
Except this is not the largest ship to ever sail
the Atlantic, not by a long shot.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
And in fact, maybe they need a bigger ship the boat.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
It's been said, it's been said.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
So they set off to the seas to try to
find this great white shark. They're dropping bait, they're trying
to lure it in with chum. There's this moment where
Brody accidentally drops some tanks of compressed oxygen and Hooper
is like careful, those can explode, and we're like, okay,

(37:00):
Chekhov's air tanks. Then it seems like the shark has
taken the bait and they're trying to reel it in
on this like huge fish line. But they lose it
after a while, until Brody gets a glimpse of it
as he's throwing more chum in the water, that famous
scene where he like his head pops up into frame.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
Oh it's great, so good.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
And then right after this is when we get the
famous line of You're gonna need a bigger boat because
this shark is huge. It's like twenty five feet long.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
It's almost like it's an animal. It's a malfunctioning animatronic almost,
and who can say.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah. The shark is now circling the boat, so they
fire harpoons at it that are attached to these floating
barrels so they can easily track the shark and try
to prevent it from going under. But this shark is
so strong and big that it pulls the barrel under,
so they lose it again in the hours where on

(38:02):
nightfalls they start drinking and comparing injuries from the past
and they're sharing stories, including one that provides backstory for Quint,
which is that he was a soldier in World War
Two on the real life naval ship called the USS Indianapolis,
which sunk twelve hundred people went into the water, and

(38:26):
the survivors floated there for days while sharks started circling
them and picking men off one by one.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
So this is a very fabric We kind of circle
back to this. This is so such an effective moment
in the movie right where it's like taking this stock
character and giving him like unbelievable depth to like the
degree to which you're just like, oh my god. Yeah,
I didn't realize. I didn't realize, you know. I mean,

(38:58):
there's a lot to be said. I did a little
bit of research into like this was added. This is
not in the book. This is added for the movie
they hired. There was like I forget there there was.
This movie mainly was by Peter Benchley and one other
writer who worked frequently with Steve Martin. He also wrote
The Jerk question Mark.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Oh, Carl Gottlieb.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
But this was a third writer, a secret third writer
who had the idea for this monologue, wrote it out,
gave it to Robert Shaw. Robert Shaw rewrote it for himself.
He is also he's a writer, and I guess the
speech was like seven pages long. But this is all
like I thought it was it because it's such a
specific detail that I thought was like, this has to
be from the book, but it's not. And it's so effective,

(39:40):
if overblown, and like what I didn't get from this
because it's they're talking about like they were transporting parts
of a bomb that would decimate areas of Japan, Right, Yeah,
what I was looking up. I don't know if this
is in the speech not to but like they didn't
know they were doing They knew they were on a

(40:01):
secret mission, they knew they were bringing parts of something,
but they didn't even know what they were transporting, so
they were they'd just done something absolutely horrible unbeknownst to them,
which is just like very darkly fascinating to me. But
at the point being, this is a true story, but
like the shark involvement is way overblown. Most people died

(40:24):
of hypothermia, there were sharks around. But when I was
like reviewing this speech, I was like, he's implying that
like six hundred people got eaten by sharks. Yeah, that
was not the case. It worked. It's better if that
happened for the movie. But I just was, really, this
was not something that I I don't know. I mean,
like I've seen the movie several times and I know

(40:46):
that they cite something specific, but I just never learned
anymore about it. And it is a very it is
a very horrible story. I would uh, I would drink
too truly.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah, and apparently there's a Nicholas Cage movie about the
USS Indianapolis, Like about sure, there is story.

Speaker 3 (41:08):
I think I'll skip it, but that's yeah. In the
documentary I watched, there was also people who were on
the USS Indianapolis interviewed for the documentary.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Yeah, I watched the same interviews, and it seemed like
there were mixed reactions to the Robert Shaw speech in
the movie where they were like appreciative that this character
brings this story to life because it was like this
secret mission that was not disclosed to anyone for a

(41:37):
long time afterward, and a lot of the survivors just
like never either couldn't tell anyone or didn't tell anyone
because you know, this was especially an era where men
didn't address their feelings or their trauma and they just
buried it and tried to move on with their lives.

(42:00):
So they were like, this is the first time I
ever saw my story told on screen, which.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
Is important, but it's I don't know, it's very tricky too,
because it's like again it's like, I'm aware that the
soldiers aboard the USS Indianapolis did not know that they.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Were delivery doing a war crime.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
Yeah, we're war criming, which makes it more tragic to me.
And it's I don't know, it's complicated. I think it's
at the end of the day, I was like, that
was a very interesting and surprising choice in the world
of the.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Movie, especially to refer to this real life event, because
it could have easily just been like a made up mission,
a made up ship, yeah, in World War Two.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
But it weirdly makes the movie feel more real. Yeah,
in some ways where it's this I think, you know whatever.
Part of the reason I think the movie holds up
is to some extent it feels like it takes place
out of time. There are some like dated aspects of it,
but for the most part, like it's not like they're
using you know, it's it's not like you're watching a

(43:06):
movie that comes out in two thousand and two and
someone takes out like an ancient cell phone and you're
kind of taken out of it for a second. But yeah,
just like having a real life like horrific story of
veterans PTSD that there are people who like it, just
I don't know it really it really brings stuff home
and it makes the character so much more memorable for sure,

(43:28):
and Robert Shaw slays it. Yeah, there's also like a
while there's so much written about the production of this
movie that he because he had like severe alcoholism. He
struggled a lot with alcoholism, as did his father. But
there's like two takes of this scene, and the first
one Robert Shaw was like, I'm gonna have a few
drinks before and then was like too drunk to complete

(43:50):
the scene. And then I don't know, I just I
feel he's it seems like he's really struggling. He called
Spielberg and was like, did I embarrass you? I'm sorry,
and Spielberg was like, it's all good, King, just just
don't do that tomorrow. And then he didn't do that tomorrow.
He shut up and gave the speech that we saw,
and it's great.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
I think this is part of that documentary too, though,
that he did two takes of it, one completely hammered
and one completely sober. And then a lot of people
were like, I couldn't tell the difference. He's just such
a good actor that like he nailed at both times.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
I just really was so endeared to him. Yeah, I
like him a lot.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
So anyway, we get this story from Quint that informs
why he is like fascinated but also has a vendetta
against sharks.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
Very captain ahab vibes right.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Right, right right. Then there's a series of like the
shark comes back, it rams their boat, It disappears again,
then comes back again, and they shoot it with another
like barrel harpoon, and tie the ropes attached to the
barrel to the back of the boat the stern if

(45:06):
you will, to try to pull the shark toward shallower
waters to kill it there. But the shark is so
strong that it's pulling the boat around and the boat
starts taking on water, so they have to cut the
shark loose. Now there are three barrels attached to it,

(45:27):
which means theoretically the shark cannot go underwater. But this
shark isn't like the other sharks, and it can do anything.
And then the shark starts chasing their boat, so again
they try to lead it toward shore. But quint is

(45:47):
acting a little cuckoo bananas, and he's like pushing the
engines too hard. He's like overheating them. They're like catching fire.
The boat is lightly sinking. Also, he has smashed up
the radio, so they can't call for help.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
He shouldn't he he should not have done that.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
He should not have done that.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
That was I wish I could tell him if I
could reach into my TV, I'd be like, oh, don't,
why'd you do that? Instead of going to therapy? What's
that horrible god that like really tired meme where it's
like men will smash the only radio communications on the Jaws,
But instead of going to therapy. That's kind of his
whole vibe.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
That is his whole vibe. So now they have to
switch to Plan B, which is Hooper is going to
go into the water inside the shark cage and lure
the shark close enough so that he can like stab
it in the eye or mouth and inject it with

(46:49):
a lethal poison. But the cage seems very flimsy compared
to this goliath of a shark, so it seems like
a bad plan, but they don't really have any their options.
So Hooper goes in the cage in the water, and
of course, the shark immediately breaks the cage apart. Hooper
drops his giant syringe of poison and he's about to

(47:11):
be eaten, and Brody and Quint pull the cage to
the surface and it's empty, so it seems like Hooper
is dead. The shark is now eating the very sinking boat.
This is the part where Quint basically falls into the
shark's mouth. It is brutal.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
It's brutal. It's all you're like, mm hmmm, symbolism maybe yeah, yes,
maybe either way, he's cooked. I also I liked the
behind the scenes detail that they like that in the book,
Hooper also dies, but they brought him back to life
so that they could use a very specific shot of
a real life shark attacking an empty cage.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yes, kind of.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
Fun because I also because I appreciated context for that,
because I because I was like, he's also just because
I don't like Richard drys But I was like, huh,
he could have died. Yeah, I get that Brady's gotta live,
but like he could have.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Died well, because there's all these weird class implications. Now
when you kill off the poor you know, the working
class character, and you keep the more educated, wealthy guy alive.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
But I appreciate that that is not what it was.
That was not the intention, right, It just was like,
I do appreciate what it's like. There's a pretty simple
explanation for what seems like a pointed choice. But they
just wanted to use that scary shot of shark. I
was like, okay, well then I will give you a
pass on that. What.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
So Quinn is dead, we think that Hooper is dead.
The shark comes back for Brody, and Brody throws one
of the tanks of compressed oxygen into the shark's mouth
and starts trying to shoot it. He keeps missing and missing,
until finally he shoots the tank and it and the
shark explode into smithereens. And then guess who resurfaces. It's Hooper,

(49:06):
who did not get eaten, and he and Brody paddle
back to shore on the barrels the Yeah, so let's
take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
Done done, and we're back. Okay. First thoughts on this movie. Obviously,
we don't have women in it really, so really note
number one, there's really not many women in it. I
would say there are three, and one is chunkified by
the shark in pretty short order. However, what I think

(49:53):
this movie is great at is showing different shades of masculinity.
I think that it is really really good at that.
So it's an interesting conversation to be had because there
are two women in particular who are generally kept to
the side. They're generally defined by their marriages and motherhood.

(50:14):
But the performances are really good, and they're I guess
in movies of this nature, there is more than I
expect it. I guess true with the two women we have.
So I guess let's start there and then we'll talk
about masculinity.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Sure, sure, yeah, So, I mean, like many movies, this
is a story about an important and dangerous task that
needs to be carried out and who's gonna do it. Well,
it's a bunch of men and women have to stay
home and take care of the kids. Yeah, So, as
we already talked about. Like Ellen again, played by Lorraine

(50:52):
gary Is, she's a fun character when she is on screen.
She's dynamic and she has a few fun lines here
and there where she says want to get drunk and
full around.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
That's to her husband, kind of her most icon like,
that's her most iconic negligent parent moment. I love it.
I love it, And.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Then I also enjoy the part where she when Hooper
comes over and she's like, oh, so my husband says
that you're in sharks as if Like it's a like
a division of sales that he's into. Pretty funny line. Yeah,
But other than that, yeah, I mean, she's not given

(51:35):
a whole lot. Apparently in the book, the Ellen character
is given a much larger presence. In the book, she's
more complicated and flawed.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
He's fucking Hooper, right.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
She's having an affair with Hooper.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
I'm yeah, I did not miss that.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yeah, that's glad the movie got rid of that. But
it's also at the expense of we don't see her
on screen, although the movie could have just written a
different subplot for her or whatever.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
That's the thing. It's like, I don't like that. I
don't like the way the book goes with her character.
It feels like that is just a thing to give
the Brodie character an excuse to be a misogynist. But
I also think that there could have been more that
she could have been involved in. I mean, I don't know. Yeah,

(52:29):
they in like, there's no reason theoretically to me that
the Hooper character specifically could not be a woman. I
think would actually be far more interesting if the Hooper
characters specifically were a woman, definitely a well educated woman
of the seventies. Why not. I understand that quint. She's
kind of inextricably a man. Fine, fine, fine, because a

(52:51):
woman could not have been on the USS Indianapolis. But anyways,
and it's not like I want girl cop. It's a
complicated discussion. What I did think, I thought that the
character of Ellen, she is present at moments that I
didn't think she would be. This is peanut, but like,
I did appreciate that there. Spielberg is really good at
this of adding these like quiet family moments inside of

(53:14):
genre movies that I feel like really make his movies special.
And there is one of them here that I thought
was very memorable, where it's like Brody is sitting with
his youngest son. He is like really upset, understandably because
the only other woman in the movie has just slapped

(53:36):
him and said, my son's death was preventable, you bitch. Yeah,
and she's right, and she's right, and he is like
he knows it, and he knows it. And then his
kid is sitting next to him, a clear reminder of
like a kid around the age of the kid who died.
And there's just like this really sweet moment that Ellen
sees and is clearly very affected by that I thought

(53:58):
was like just the moment you don't get in most
genre movies. It's really good where you know, his kid
is kind of like mirroring him like kids do, and
then it's like, why are you upset? And he's like,
I kill the kid. But just and that moment between
like father and son of just like a moment of
real affection and emotional honesty. It's just something you don't

(54:20):
really see a lot, and it really endeared me to
everyone in that scene totally.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
I made the same note because I mean, think of
how many scenes where you see a man in emotional
turmoil and he deals with it by trashing a room
or lashing out in some a violent way, and to
instead have this like very tender moment between father and son.

(54:48):
I mean, the bar is low, but it was like
a very refreshing moment that I appreciated.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
Yeah, I agree, and I think that like for its time,
even though we're not lit, it seems like, honestly, the
way that they're doing their family is very similar. It
is very common for middle class and specifically white middle
class families of this time where the wife does not
appear to work. She seems to be a stay at
home mom. Oh she does work. She's a stay at
home mom, and the father is the you know, money breadwinner, right,

(55:20):
But it seems like their relationship is pretty equitable, which
I also appreciated. There's not a moment where Brody like
keeps things from her. There's not really a moment where
I feel like, again, just like what you come to
expect in movies like this of this time, where the
husband would be like, you don't get it, you can't.
I was this again. It's a small thing, but the
fact that she's in the room with Hooper and Brody

(55:43):
the whole time they're talking about the shark again, I
feel like a lesser movie, he'd be like, go, tuck
the kids in or whatever, like she would be off
doing woman stuff, and then she'd come in and be like,
what's going on, And it's like she doesn't. She doesn't
totally get what's going on, But neither does Brodie. And
it's not like, you know, he is presented as hyper
competent in comparison to her. I think really the only

(56:07):
edge Brody has over his wife is that he is
I think concerned the correct amount about sharks, and she's
maybe not quite concerned the right amount about sharks because
she's listening to the mayor and the media, which I
don't think makes her a dupe. I think that she's
kind of the stand in for like, well, what do
you mean they said it's fine, they got a shark.

(56:30):
I don't know. I just I liked how her Her
character should have had more to do, but whenever she
was present, I felt like she was a treated as
an equal and had like a personality that was her own,
which is the bare minimum you can ask of a character,
but still in a genre movie in nineteen seventy five,

(56:52):
I was like pleasantly surprised by it same and that
she's allowed to be horny, want to get drunk and
fool around public She well, she didn't publicly say she
was hardy. She said she was harny. She didn't even
know that there are people filming that. She said she
was horny, and she didn't die. Again in the nineteen seventies,
that didn't happen very much.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
I mean, well, let's look at what happens to the
woman in the first scene, shall we.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
The first horny woman. Yeah, she is sacrificed to the
shark god.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
So she again played by stunt performer an actor named
Susan Jane Beckliney. She is naked and doesn't need to be,
which is, you know, the common trope in horror movies
that we've discussed a lot, where it's just like the
sexualization of a woman as she's being brutally killed. Yeah,

(57:46):
it's something we see all the time in horror movies.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
And this is not the worst offender of it. Which
is interesting because I feel like when I think about
that original death, I remember it as more sexualized than
it actually.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Is same And what is that? What are our brains doing?

Speaker 3 (58:07):
I think it's because there's just so many scenes that
are inspired by it that are boy sexual. I don't
necessarily think it's it's not it's it's not an US problem.
I don't think, right, I remember it as we're sexualized,
but I and I don't know. It's like Spielberg is
not particularly guilty of over sexualizing women characters. I don't think,
if anything, he's not. He's very like sanitized vibes. There's

(58:31):
plenty to be I mean, we've talked about Steven Spielberg
many times, and let's not forget the Zionism. Let's not
in terms of how women are generally cheated. I think
in his body of work, women don't tend to be
hyper sexualized to the point where this almost feels like
an outlier moment.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
Right, And maybe you can just chalk it up to
this was his first big movie in the book, right also,
and so maybe he's like, I'm not a huge fan
of that. I'm not gonna do that again. And like,
she is naked, but a lot of the naked, a
lot of the nudity is implied.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
Although it's a very dark scene too. I think it's
because like which I would imagine was related to just
like production. But you really can't see very much. You
can't because of how it shot. I don't know if
the brightness on my TV is turned up too high.
But for the first time watching this movie, I did
you can see her nakedness under the water, like in

(59:27):
the underwater shot or I like, yeah, like kind of
an upshot. It's it's still pretty obscured and faint and
difficult to see, but like you can see enough that
I was like, oh, she's got full bush and good
for her. But nineteen seventy five right back.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
Remember, right, So, but it's a quick shot and the
rest of the time, you don't see nudity.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
Really so well. And also, I watch, like you said,
it's not the worst defender. But but but and I
don't know how involves Spielberg was in this, but that
is an image that is harped on in marketing. I
also think that that's another reason we remember it as
more sexual than it actually is, because it is used
as a selling point to imply that you're going to

(01:00:11):
see and be titillated more than perhaps you actually are.
I'm also pretty sure I didn't watch any of the sequels.
I thought about it and then I thought, I'm not
going to do that. But I do think that that
is something that subsequent movies are in the Jaws fronchies
are more guilty of Jaws hive if you've watched Jaws.

(01:00:33):
I've weirdly seen Jaws four, but it was on one
of those. I was on a show in New York
that was like, we're making fun of Jaws four. Okay,
so I don't really remember anything, but if the marketing
is to be believed, it seems like this idea of
sexy women being torn to shreds by a shark is
an image that they return to time and time again.
But in the movie itself, I think it's telling in

(01:00:56):
that I mean, it is what it is. It is
the movie with a young woman who is expressed that
she's horny being torn to shreds by an animal. That's
not great, made worse by the fact that she is
one of three women in the entire movie. A batting
average of one for three in terms of being torn
to shreds is pretty bad. There are two men torn

(01:01:20):
to shreds by the t and then one child. Yeah,
there are two men, but there's so many men that
I think that, you know, the batting average is actually
not as bad by a long shot rip to her.
And the thing that the other thing that frustrated me
was that when the second victim of the shark, Alex
Alex the kid, Yes, when he dies, there are narrative

(01:01:43):
consequences for that. People do not seem to like there's
no one from Chrissy's life that is like, she doesn't
seem to be particularly grieved, which I also think, like
is unrealistic given how the meeting tends to narrativize white
women's death like sensational eyes. Yeah, like, yeah, I was

(01:02:07):
kind of adrift by that because obviously I'm not that
like Jaws eating a child. That's bad, that's no good. Yes,
but it was just weird that, Yeah, there is this
weird lack of reaction to a teenage girl getting eaten, right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
I My head canon was like, oh, the mayor is
like keeping it under wraps, which he can't do because
everyone saw this child get killed. That was a very
very public thing versus no one saw Christy get killed.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
That makes total sense. But I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
But that's not that's again just my head canon. It's
not explicitly in the movie Mayor.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
That mayor he's like, yeah, He's like, Okay, if there's
a shark attack and everyone sees a ten year old
tornish reds, I guess I have to be like, oh no,
he I mean that scene is interesting, though, I mean
that's well, actually sorry, let's let's talk about the third woman. Yes,
there's there's but one woman to go another. I think

(01:03:09):
terrific performance by an actor who has not given much
to do but really makes a meal of what she has.
I am talking about Lee Fierro playing Missus Kittner has
two scenes, plays both of them incredibly. I think like
the scene where she everyone's running out of the ocean

(01:03:31):
and she's the last person there is heartbreaking. And then
when she shows up in like with all I mean,
she's with all due respects, very party city coded morning clothes.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
It was the seventies. Who knows.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
It's no I'm calling them out, it's look at her.
Her outfit looks like shit, but she pulls no punches
with this, you know, like with this piece of shit
cop that let this happen. I love that scene. I
wish that we had any more of her after that.
I wish she didn't just disappear into the mist. But

(01:04:09):
I really, uh yeah, I thought that that was an
incredibly played scene that you know, I don't know, I
just wish that there was a woman involved in the
main action. It's not like the actions of women have
no consequence in this world, but they don't get to
They're mostly in a reactionary position. They're not very active.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Yeah, right, it's more like the emotional through line of
the movie versus the more active events that take place.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
Right. Yeah, they're the victims, are They're they're reacting to
the decisions that men are making.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
Right. But a great performance, indeed, and then there's the men.
I guess starting with Brodie. Sure, as you said already,
this is copaganda this movie. The movie humanizes police, that

(01:05:06):
perpetuates the idea that cops are here to keep our
community safe when.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
Well and does challenge that, I just think, because I
mean that scene with Missus Kittner does challenge that, but
not in a very it's not a comprehensive like he's
still the hero at the end of the day. It's like,
I'm sure and like, I like this character, and that's
copaganda done well, I know, which is a scary thing.

(01:05:34):
But yeah, Missus Kidner, Like, I think it's so interesting
the way that the city and this cops are presented
in opposition to each other in the space of this movie,
but in a way that feels very unrealistic. Where as
we know, so, I mean, we like live in Los Angeles.
There's I mean, it's all cops, but we live in

(01:05:56):
a pretty egregious area for cops and the city being
very much aligned more often than not when it comes
to terrorizing their own people. Right, it is very much
playing into this narrative of the heroic cop fighting against
the evil mayre and there's no shortage of evil mayors

(01:06:17):
in the world. But it's very unrealistic and very movie
coded to be like the cop is trying to do
their job, it's just the cities in the way. I
think that that is just like so observedly, not how
things are I.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
Mean, And that's what I mean about, like the movie
perpetuating the idea that cops are here to keep our
communities safe, because the reality is that cops are there
to protect the property of the ruling class and to
incite violence at protests and to union bust and all
of those things. So this is why this is effective copaganda.
But yeah, it's weird because the movie is critical of

(01:06:59):
institutions such as capitalism, or it's critical of the mayor
wanting to keep the beaches open so that the town
can profit from the tourism, but it doesn't it doesn't
apply that same criticism to police cops.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
Which is why I think it's so effective, honestly, is
because it is not completely uncritical of the society that
it's released into. It is critical of some stuff, but
not all stuff, and like it almost perpetuates the idea
that like the only thing preventing the cops from keeping
you safe are your elected representatives, which can which is

(01:07:38):
just well, actually that like you know, there's no world
show me a police department where they're really trying to
do the right thing. It's just that yeah, yeah, like
that is observably untrue. But it's complicated because yeah, like
the movie is criticizing the mayor. But it's like, I
think that this is sort of a works great in

(01:08:01):
terms of like it's a great movie beat, but like
the mayor sort of is like capitalism the guy in
a way that you know, capitalism is presented in this movie,
which is fascinating. Doesn't happen in like blockbuster movies often,
and it's something like Steven Spielberg is pretty willing to
engage with, but it's just him. It's not presented as

(01:08:23):
the very complex issue that it is, because this movie
can't be too complicated and work allegedly. Yeah, I don't know.
I like there is that one moment that I think
is interesting in the hospital after Brody's son Michael was
almost sharcked and was kind of like in shock and

(01:08:44):
he's in the hospital and Brody you know again, it's
like it's well, it's all of a sudden a problem
now that it's on my doorstep, which is the story
of time immemorial, of like, well, it's one thing if
Alex Kittner dies because I don't know him, to the
point where, even after Alex Kitner dies, Brody continues to

(01:09:05):
cooperate with the mayor. It's only when his kid almost
dies that he is like, I refuse to cooperate any further.
And the only reason the mayor actually shows the beach
down is because his kids were there, right, which I
think is a very smart It's weird because in the
movie it's presented as like I don't see it as

(01:09:26):
a particularly critical moment, but it does feel very real
of like that would be the only circumstances under which
these characters would take the safety of everyone into account
is if they're if they specifically happened to also be
threatened by it, which is how I feel like most
decisions that are made that are generally good for everyone

(01:09:50):
tend to happen because it also threatens the ruling class
and it benefits them to make that choice. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
It feels cut from the same cloth, like whatever shitty
men being like Happy International Women's Day to my wife
and daughters, and that's it only.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I also think the performance from
Murray Hamilton, who's in Fucking Everything, Babe. He gives a
really good performance. I enjoyed it. He plays a villain
very well. I also remember when he was in The Graduate.
He's mister Robinson. Oh that's right, he's mister Cocked. He's cooked,

(01:10:39):
he's cocked, and he's sort of cocked in this movie
spiritually as well. Wow, when you think about it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
I'm thinking about it, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:47):
He's also in the Amityville Horror. Have you ever seen it?

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
You know what I've seen the Ryan Reynolds one.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
Oh they're both bad. Yeah, they're both bad. I guess
that's all we are. They're both bad, but in very
different ways. Sure, but he is also at that he's
very When I think of a movie that came out
in the seventies, there he is.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
Sure. The last little piece I think of Copaganda here
is the scene where Brody and Hooper are on the
boat at night looking for the shark, and Brody is
drunkenly after his pint of wine talking about being a cop,

(01:11:28):
and he's like, oh, yeah, New York City, there's violence,
there's muggings. But you know, in a town like this,
one man can really make a difference. You know, in
twenty five years, there's never been a murder here. And
he's chalking that up to police being effective at their job,
ignoring that, you know, in a place where they are,

(01:11:50):
which is basically like Martha's vineyard or Nantucket or a
similarly like wealthy place or you know, an island full
of mostly upper middle class people that you know, there
isn't crimes of desperation and stuff like that. And he's like, no,
it's because of cops being competent, of course. Yeah, and

(01:12:15):
we know that that's not true.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
Yeah. And the fact that that's what a drunk cop
would say is I believe in the power of world,
like right, right, sure, yeah, akeb includes Officer Brody. Yeah,
and again not the worst example of it, but also
a really good example of it in a way, because
I still like him in spite of it all. Then

(01:12:38):
we have our college boy Richard Dreyfus Hooper, the Marine Biologist.
Another interesting little piece of gristle here because the movie
does not with him shy away from class, it doesn't
do much with it. Well, actually, maybe that's not true,
Like I did appreciate that like this he both needs Hooper.

(01:13:02):
It's not disparaging of his higher education, but it also
acknowledges why he has it, and I appreciated that, like
he basically admits he's like the rich boy. Allegations are true,
I'm a rich boy. I guess in the book he
is way more of an asshole about it, and he's
hooking up with with Ellen, so I think he's again

(01:13:27):
the book, honestly, I considered reading it, but I'm like,
it sounds like a bummer. I would much rather watch
the movie Jaws, unfortunately, but in this world he is,
you know, highly educated, very necessary. Like I think that
between Quint and Hooper there's an interesting balance struck of
like they're from very different classes. They resent each other

(01:13:51):
for it, which makes sense and is like something that
we've all seen in either direction, but that they are
also both totally valid, but they're they're also both like
very needed on this mission, and they're like you could
argue the person who is basically useless is Brodie totally

(01:14:11):
like like.

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
I'm scared of the water. Why am I even here?

Speaker 3 (01:14:14):
He's mister chum, Like it is kind of like why
are you here, mister chump? But like that Robert Shaw
is from uh, I mean, working class background. We don't
really know much about him other than he was in
the service, but you know, he's a veteran. It doesn't
seem like he given his reaction to Hooper, I don't
think that he like has a lot of higher education.

(01:14:35):
But he knows how to fucking drive a boat. He
knows like, he knows.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
The ocean, he knows fish, he knows sharks.

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):
He has the experience. Yeah, like and and he's like
literally how he's introduced is as an authority, even though
people are still like, oh, he's weird and like, to
be honest, he is weird. They're not so wrong. It's
not necessarily classes of people to say quint is weird,
because also, like he's weird, and people of all classes

(01:15:05):
could be weird, and there he is being weird. But anyways,
but he has presented as an authority whose labor has
extreme value. I mean, granted, he doesn't really get to
use the money because he's eaten by a shark, but
he he gets his rate. Yeah, and I hope to
one day get my rate before being eaten in a

(01:15:28):
sod and half yeah, so I don't know. I appreciated
that with both of these characters, the movie realizes that
they are both integral to this mission working like the
mission does not go off the way it does without
Hooper's expertise, and it certainly doesn't go off without Quint's expertise.

(01:15:50):
Hooper's annoying, but I also do I like. I don't
like Richard Dravis, but I do like the character, like
I do think outside of what you pointed out before,
where he's like suspiciously very uninterested in conservation, which feels
just like a bad writing choice that feels unrealistic because
it's also very incurious for someone that's like I love

(01:16:11):
sharks to be like and so let's kill one, kill it,
and I'll dissect it, Like wouldn't you want to observe it?
Wouldn't that be useful?

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
And he's a scientist, like, he's not a hunter, he's
not a fisherman like you would think he would be.

Speaker 3 (01:16:25):
He would understand it makes sense that Quinn wants to
kill the shark because that's his job.

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):
Right, But Hooper, he would know how important sharks are
to the ecosystem of the ocean. And that you shouldn't
just kill them, and honestly would have been a more
interesting narrative choice if like Brody and quint are like, no,
this shark needs to die for public safety reasons, and

(01:16:51):
by contrast, Hooper was like, no, we can't just kill
a shark, Like sure, we can try to catch it
and contain it and transport it elsewhere or some thing.

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):
And you can argue that like, no, this shark needs
to live for public safety reasons, like you know, by observing,
like even if you're strictly thinking about sharks as they
relate to people, it's like understanding the behavior of sharks
would be far more valuable, right than just Yeah, that
really feels like a writing error more than anything else,

(01:17:23):
because I think, like you know, scientists were not let's say,
consulted on the writing of the book specifically, and I agree,
it is like a more interesting dynamic, and then it
would be interesting to see what does Brodie think about
that that it just like adds an element, a more
complicated element to everything versus Okay, so we're all on

(01:17:45):
the same page. We've got to kill this shark. It's
just the how that we're struggling with like the whether
to do it or not is very interesting. But it
feels like maybe there's the script of the production, like
they did not do research like that is what it
sounds like.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
Could be. Could also be that there again wasn't that
much shark research available at the time, but there were
marine biologists, there were people who this was like, we're
experts in this area.

Speaker 3 (01:18:14):
So who's the French guy in the hats? You wonder Cristo? Yeah,
this is Custo era, Jacques Custo, remember him? Is kind
of yeah, he's the French guy in the hat. Wait,
let me check. What if I was wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
I know the name, but I just guess I don't
know what he does.

Speaker 3 (01:18:31):
He's a famous French marine biologist, like I think he
had a yes, okay, yes, oh he looks like Steve
Zisu and all the thing that seems that's okay, that
makes sense, And actually Steve Zisu did not make that up.
It was jac Cousta. Yeah. I believe he is very
popular cultural figure in the seventies and may in fact

(01:18:54):
have something to do with why this movie was even
made because it was like it and uh, listeners, correct
me if I'm wrong. If you are a knowwher of
ocean facts or a Cousteau head. My vague understanding is
that Jacques Custeau was a very popular figure in like
the sixties, seventies and eighties and was kind of like

(01:19:15):
one of the first, if not the first, like mainstream
oceanography expert to become very popular. So like, I think
you're right, like there is an interest in the ocean
at this time, but perhaps not a lot of like
commonly accepted I mean, which is wild because you think
about the impact of Jaws and like there's no world

(01:19:37):
where there's you know, remember the ten consecutive years we're
noal which shut the fuck up about Shark Week. Oh yes,
And it's just like you've got to shut the fuck
up about Shark Week. There. I'm not I'm not interested,
but like, I don't know, that's one of the interesting things.
I mean, even with Peter Benchley, like we were talking about

(01:19:57):
this movie, Like I don't think anyone's arguing that this
is a correct scientific representation of a shark. It's like
projecting a bunch of symbolism and moby Dick kind of shit.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
I mean, I have a whole section on this, Oh Okay,
you'll indulge me.

Speaker 3 (01:20:13):
Let's do it. Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
I guess to start though, with the and this is
like pretty well known knowledge, so I'll just make this
really quick and irad stuff off about the sorry well
known knowledge about the like behind the scenes making of
the movie. I'll start with that, and then we'll go
into sort of the like public reception of the movie.

(01:20:37):
So for anyone who doesn't know, this movie was a
very difficult shoot. It went over budget and over schedule
by like triple. The script kept being rewritten during the shoot.
The ocean and the weather were very temperamental, The cast
and the crew were largely miserable the whole time. The

(01:20:58):
studio kept almost pull the plug on the production, and
the mechanical shark famously rarely functioned, which ended up again
famously working to the movie's benefit because they basically ended
up having to imply the presence of the shark rather
than show it on screen as much as they initially
intended to amazing, which lended a sense of like, the

(01:21:21):
shark is looming around, but we can't see it, and
that makes it scarier.

Speaker 3 (01:21:26):
That Plus John Williams core, Yeah, great perfection.

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
So difficult shoot, but against all odds, the movie was
finished and made into a really good movie and released
and it became a smash hit. It was, like you said,
the first blockbuster is wild.

Speaker 3 (01:21:43):
It made half a billion dollars in nineteen seventy five.
Many that's approximately three trillion dollars. So yeah, yeah, nine
million dollar budget, and that was twice, Like I think
it went over its budget twice, so it was technically
a four point five million dollar your budget movie that
went to nine million dollars and then made one trillion

(01:22:05):
billion millions. Everyone saw this movie seven times, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:22:09):
And it was also one of the first movies that
got a very big release everywhere simultaneously. Because prior to this,
it was like, you know, a movie would open in
this city over here, and then maybe a little later
it would open over here.

Speaker 3 (01:22:23):
It would spread it if it did well in a
certain like market. Yeah, like if you lived in the
if you lived in any far flong area, it would
take a long time for a movie to get to
you because it would be tested in a bajillion markets
before it got to you, for sure. But everyone got
Jasa also like a real big especially because it's like
I had to keep reminding myself. Star Wars comes out

(01:22:45):
after that, and so this movie also sort of sets
the precedent of like a huge marketing and merchandising push
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
Definitely, this is one of the first movies that sold
a bunch of merch that people absolutely gobbled up. There's
t shirts and posters and toys and games like all
these tie.

Speaker 3 (01:23:03):
In shark underwear. You're like, why not.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
Yeah, exactly all this stuff. Yeah, And the movie's approach
to marketing was fairly new for the time, where it
ran a bunch of trailers as ads on TV, which
was not very common at that time. That contributed to
the amount of people that saw it. Yeah, it stayed
in theaters for like a year in some places, Like

(01:23:27):
this was the first blockbuster and like not a whole
lot of movies have like rivaled its impact and popularity since.
And obviously after this, Spielberg was given a blank check
to do any movie he wanted for the rest of
his career, and he did, and he did. He's obviously,

(01:23:49):
I mean another really ice cold take here. He's made
some great movies. Many of them are my favorite movies
of all time, which is difficult to reconcile right now,
knowing his relationship with Zionism, which we talked about to
a pretty large extent on the ET episode we did

(01:24:12):
last year.

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
It's not too long ago, so as far as far
as we know, I double checked going into this, as
far as we're recording this right now, which is June
twenty fifth, twenty twenty five, our conversation that we did
in our ET episode is from what I can tell
still up to date. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's like
inextricable from the conversation about him and also the fact

(01:24:35):
that like it's that he's one of the greatest directors
of all time, and like we have to hold these
two things together. Also, I mean, I don't know, no, sorry,
continue to continue.

Speaker 2 (01:24:46):
Yeah, I mean the point here is that this movie
was the biggest movie of all time up until that point,
more or less, and well you'll never believe this, but
it impacted the public perception of sharks. This movie famously
made so many people afraid of sharks, afraid of going
into the water at the beach, also afraid of going

(01:25:08):
into lakes and swimming pools, places where sharks would never
be because of how the shark is represented. In the movie,
which is you'll never believe this not very accurate. And
I'm not saying that sharks have not attacked and bitten
and killed people throughout history. That has happened. Obviously, sharks

(01:25:29):
can be dangerous, but again, the way the shark behaves
in this movie is not accurate. As author Peter Benchley
put it, because, as we said, he and his partner
Wendy would go on to become advocates for ocean conservation
and for the protection of sharks later in their lives.

(01:25:51):
Peter Benchley said in two thousand and six, quote, sharks
don't target human beings, and they certainly don't hold grudges.
There's no such thing as a rogue man eater shark
with a taste for human flesh. In fact, sharks rarely
take more than one bite out of people because we're
so lean and unappetizing to them.

Speaker 3 (01:26:12):
Yeah, the Benchley stuff, I think is very, very fascinating,
and I appreciate, like truly as someone who could not
have anticipated his work being as impactful that it was,
like he was basically writing a pulp novel at the time,
that he did so much to course correct that I

(01:26:32):
think is very admirable, and it seems like the oceanography
community agrees. And it's also one of those complicated relationships
where I think it's referenced in the documentary we both
watched that While yes, there's a lot of there's inaccuracies
that you're taking us through about how sharks are represented,
this movie also inspired a lot of future oceanographers, like

(01:26:52):
it's very, very interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
That's the benefit of the impact of this movie globally.
The detriment of the global impact of this movie is
that because the shark was presented in such a bloodthirsty,
vengeful way that you know, great whites are just gonna
go and kill a whole town of people if they

(01:27:16):
aren't exploded. This led to people like shark hunting for
sport and trophy and stuff like that. So this is
from the Smithsonian magazine from twenty twenty two, a piece
entitled Steven Spielberg regrets how Jaws impacted real world sharks.

(01:27:38):
It says, quote Jaws spearheaded a collective testosterone rush in
the East coast of the United States, leading thousands to
hunt sharks for sport. In the years following the film's release.
The number of large sharks in the waters east of
North America declined by about fifty percent unquote, and then

(01:28:01):
a couple other stats here, about seventy five percent of
oceanic shark species are faced with the threat of extinction
due to I mean to some degree. It's like fisheries overfishing.
Some experts are like, well, you know, we can't give
all the credit to the movie Jaws, Like it's just

(01:28:23):
that fishing practices are largely not are horrific.

Speaker 3 (01:28:28):
Yeah, there is, I mean, there's yeah, it's like, yeah,
it's overly simplistic to suggest it's all because of Jaws,
but it's not. Not like Jaws is a contributing factor
for sure. So yeah, basically, in the years that followed
this movie coming out, a lot of people just started
shark hunting. And it's because of the representation of sharks.

Speaker 2 (01:28:50):
In this movie. It's because not very much was known
about them at the time. According to Sharksteward's dot Org,
which is an organization that seeks to save endangered sharks
from overfishing and the shark fin trade. According to them,
over five hundred species of sharks are not dangerous to humans,

(01:29:12):
and only a few species have been involved in serious
or fatal attacks on humans. But this went ignored and
people were just murdering millions of sharks every year right and.

Speaker 3 (01:29:25):
Left, which is horrifying.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
Horrifying, yes, and ignoring the fact that again, sharks play
a crucial role in maintaining healthy ocean ecosystems.

Speaker 3 (01:29:37):
It's the same. I mean, it's like not the same conversation,
but it's like about bees and like an animal that
is critical to our ecosystem that it is just very
socially acceptable to kill because they're viewed as being overly
aggressive or as pests. Right, thank you for doing that research.
I sure. Yeah, it's this movie is like legacy in

(01:30:00):
so many different areas is gigantic. I mean even now,
speaking to like the marketing side of stuff. I was
at the grocery store yesterday and there's like Jaws fiftieth
anniversary wine at the front of Vaughn's what And there
were people at the front being like, oh my god,
Jaws wine, And I'm like, it's still working. It's so

(01:30:23):
like people will buy anything with this damn shark on it.
Like so literally, there were two women who didn't know
each other at the front of Vaughn's being like, I'm
getting the Jaws.

Speaker 2 (01:30:33):
Pino Gregio like, wow, do you think that's what Brody
pours into his pint glass when he drinks Josta wine?

Speaker 3 (01:30:42):
I think, I think, I ironically, I think all I think.
Would Quint fuck with Jaws? Pino Gregio, I think not? No,
I think not speaking of Quint. Oh yes, my good
pal Quint. So with Quint. I think it's interesting to
refer to what your referenced earlier in that documentary, which

(01:31:03):
if you're interested in the production of Jaws, it's very marketing.
It's not like revolutionary, but it is free on YouTube
if you want to watch it. There's also a new
fiftieth anniversary documentary coming out July tenth. It's about two
weeks from now, so I will be watching it. But
are there stories left untold or does everyone just look
ten years older? We don't know. We'll find out.

Speaker 2 (01:31:25):
We'll find out.

Speaker 3 (01:31:26):
But in that documentary, I mean, I think it was
interesting having the perspective of actual veterans whose experiences were referenced.
I like, if Robert Shaw's performance was not good, I
think I would find this character somewhat offensive. But like,
and I do think that, you know, there are probably
cases to be made, but I just think that, like

(01:31:47):
he plays Quint with such bravado for sure, but like
with so much humanity. It is like, for what it is,
still a very thoughtful performance, and I I think it's tragic,
you know how his story ends, But knowing that Hooper
was originally supposed to die, I don't necessarily hate that

(01:32:11):
he goes because that just feels like a pretty broad
like Moby Deck style reference, right of like he will
die pursuing this thing that he has projected the trauma
of his entire life onto, because it's not about the money.
For him, it's about and again it's like gets into

(01:32:31):
this masculinity thing. It's like it's about accomplishing this thing
that you can't really get your head because it's for him.
It's not about the money. It's not really about protecting people,
So like, what is it about? It's like this it's
all inside of him, what he's It's about the sharks
that ate allegedly ate six hundred of his friends. That's

(01:32:51):
what it's about, right, And it's a trauma shark for him,
and he's consumed by the trauma shark. I don't know.
I just think story dramaturgically it makes sense. Yeah, and
I think the performance is like unbelievably great. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:33:09):
I did not realize that he was like a Shakespearean
actor from much of his career.

Speaker 3 (01:33:14):
Yeah, I mean he was like a fancy guy. Yeah.
He he was like Oscar and Golden Globe nominated and
like he played such a wide birth of characters. There
is this I'll just glaze over it. I watched a
like short doc about the uh, the rivalry between Richard

(01:33:36):
Dreyfus and Robert Shaw, because there was a big onset
beef between the two of them, which everyone involved in
the movie is confirmed. I think it is kind of
funny and sweet that Roy Scheider. They were like, oh,
he was pretty chill, and he mainly went swimming and
sometimes he'd go to the gym. So Roy Scheider was
minding his own business. But Richard Dreyfus and Robert Shaw,

(01:33:59):
I mean kind of weirdly two sides of the same coin.
Where Robert Shaw was a later stage actor, he wasn't
that old, but he was very like generationally, there was
a big difference between the two of them. Where Robert
Shaw was famously a very very hard drinker. He eventually
died in his early fifties due to complications from drinking,
and Richard Dreyfus was kind of like a coked out

(01:34:21):
young star who had a big ego, and Robert Shaw
wasn't having a bar of it. He like it seems
like they, you know, in a very like competitive actory way,
had issues with how the other approached acting, how the
others approached substance use. Robert Shaw, would you know, say

(01:34:42):
pretty It sounds like Robert Shaw was the antagonist. But
again in this whole thing where it's like a masculinity
story inside of a masculinity story, where you know, Richard
Dreyfus seemed to dislike Robert Shaw so much that it
made his performance better. Like that whole little thing where
he does the little thing with his he's like, eh,
making faces behind Quinn's back. Those were mainly improvised because

(01:35:03):
he didn't like Robert Shaw. And like when he's mumbling about,
oh well, if I had to do this anymore, I
would be shell pissed. This because he didn't like Robert Shaw.
So when he's being a little brat, it's because he's
actually being a little brat because Daddy is not being
nice to him. It's a masculinity soup, like no one

(01:35:24):
is right in this situation, but it does seem like,
you know, for what it's worth. And then I don't
we don't need to talk about Richard Dreyfus any further.
But with regards to this, as time went on, like
Richard Dreyfus was like, I'm you know, it ended with
like mutual respect, and he like reached out afterwards and
was like I think he was kind of like what

(01:35:47):
happens in Vegas days in Vegas as a way of
being like, I treat you like shit on Martha's Vineyard,
but we're cool, right, And I think Richard Dreyfus was like, yes,
so all's well. That ends well there. Unfortunately, the Robert
Shaw he passed in seventy eight. He died not too
long after the making of this movie. But I just

(01:36:07):
getting back to quint, I don't really know. I mean,
there are so many factors that you're like that I
feel like would normally paying for me that just don't.

Speaker 2 (01:36:17):
I It's it was almost one of those instances where
I like forgot to do my job as one of
the hosts of the Bechdel Cast, because I was just like,
I was just so immersed in the story and the characters.
So yeah, I don't even think I wrote anything down
about Quint other than something I already mentioned, which is,

(01:36:41):
you know, the class war between Quint and Hooper, and again,
hooper surviving at the end was more of a like
logistical production choice that they made retroactively rather than something
that was written in the script, because otherwise that would
have like pretty nasty implications of like, well, yeah, the

(01:37:03):
rich educated scientist gets to survive and the working class
fisherman has to die. But that isn't a narrative choice.
It was just because everything kept going wrong with the production.

Speaker 3 (01:37:19):
Right, So it's fine. Yeah, I do think it would
be more narratively satisfying if Hooper also went down, because
then it's not like endorsing one philosophy over the other.
But knowing that it wasn't intended that way is fine.
And Quint also like makes his feelings about Hooper very
clear in a way that I think as the audience
we don't disagree with even if we like Hooper. Like

(01:37:41):
there's that line where he's like, you wealthy college boys,
can't admit when you're wrong. He does, I think, you know,
in keeping with the generational stuff. There's like one the
scene where like where Brodie saying goodbye to Ellen, he's
kind of just like shouting random misogyst stuff in the background,
and you're like, all right, okay, he's kind of just

(01:38:03):
like HM, or we're.

Speaker 2 (01:38:04):
Singing about Spanish ladies or something.

Speaker 3 (01:38:07):
Let's go swimmen with bow legged women. You're like, okay,
here's this swim with bow legged women. And for some
reason I am not mad at him about that. You
get the cage, getting the water sharks and the water like,
he's just too like I would let him be misogynist
to me because I like him, and after nine years

(01:38:28):
should be saying that on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:38:29):
Well, I just we contain multitudes, yeah, listeners.

Speaker 3 (01:38:33):
Yeah. And the fact that like he and again I
understand that it's very over the top, but that like,
ultimately he is his like demise is very related to
the fact that he has all of this unprocessed trauma.
And that is and I don't mean to say like
and that's the story of every veteran. Obviously they're not

(01:38:55):
a monolithm but but that that is a very common
experience for a veteran instead of seen horrific things and
are not given the tools to process them. And it's like,
especially the further back you go in history, it's thought
to be unmasculine and unacceptable to have those traumas manifest

(01:39:17):
in your life. And so what we see with Quint,
however cartoonish it can be, is you know, he's not
able to get past this, which totally makes sense, but
it's like not socially acceptable for him too. I mean
he has to be drunk and in the middle of
the ocean to even talk about it, and that's really sad.

Speaker 2 (01:39:36):
Right, Yeah. I honestly found it surprising that the Brodie
character was imbued with a fear of the water and
a fear of drowning and all that stuff, because I
think that was added for the movie. It was not
in the book. Okay, I mean it makes for good
characterization in the sense that you know, someone who has

(01:39:59):
to go out onto the water to complete a task
is afraid of the water. That's just like no good storytelling. Yeah,
but for a man to have a phobia, that's not masculine.
So for a movie from the seventies, to imbue a
character who's a man with a fear that he has

(01:40:20):
to face. And granted, this fear does not really manifest
in any significant way because it's sort of it goes
away mostly and he's just like, I'm on the boat
now and I'm actually okay. So it doesn't have a
huge impact on the story. But I found it kind
of interesting. I guess that a man was allowed to

(01:40:41):
be afraid of something and then he communicated that to
the people around him. Yeah, I agree again, low bar,
but I thought that was interesting. I don't think I
have really much else to say. Oh, this movie was
edited by a woman, Yes, Verna Fields, who is I believe.

Speaker 3 (01:41:04):
Every Pete Spielberg collaborator. Am I wrong? I don't. Oh,
she worked with Peter Bogdanovich a fair amount. Yeah, George Lucas,
Steven Spielberg earlier. And so she did What's Up, Doc,
which is Bogdanovich, American Graffiti, Jaws.

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):
Paper Moon, handful of others.

Speaker 3 (01:41:24):
I mean, that's pretty great. Oh, and then I was like,
why does I was like, did they just drop her? No?
She was hired by Universal as an executive consultant. So
we love to see that. We love to see that
she did great work and then got promoted. That never
happens to women. Right in the seventies, unheard of shout
out to Verna Fields, which also, I mean, I don't know,

(01:41:47):
I really appreciated again in a movie, In a movie
that takes place quite a bit on the beach, I
feel like there I'm not really getting a lot of
male gaze out of it outside of that opening sequence,
which obviously it's the creature from the Black Lagoon shot,
you can't get around it. But in the other beach sequences,
I feel like in subsequent beach horror there is almost

(01:42:10):
always some male gazy shots of like, oh no, what
if this hottie got eaten? Uh? But for the most part,
it is just like people on the beach. Yes, and
it presented very matter of factly in a way that
it just feels like unusual. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
That reminds me of a documentary I watched to prepare
for this episode. It's a Shutter original documentary called Shark's Ploitation.

Speaker 3 (01:42:39):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (01:42:39):
I really enjoyed it, and it's basically about all the
movies that fall under the shark'sploitation subgenre and if you're thinking, oh, yeah,
of course, like Jaws, and you know, Sharknado and the
Meg and a handful of others. There are hundreds and

(01:43:00):
hundreds of mostly B movies, mostly horrible bad movies. But
basically Jaws started this subgenre. Not to say that Hollywood
had not been making like horror creature feature movies about
monsters lurking in the sea or lurking in lagoons before this,

(01:43:25):
because they had been making movies like this for decades
prior to Jaws. But again, none of them had the
cultural impact that Jaws had.

Speaker 3 (01:43:34):
So wild, it's like, but none of them were good
like this, like right, why, Yeah, none of them were
good for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:43:42):
And so Yeah, just examines this subgenre and talks about
the tropes that start to emerge in these shark movies,
one of them being the exploitation of especially women's bodies.
Some of these movies have rather gratuitous, neuted revel in
violence against women, stuff like that. But overall, yeah, I

(01:44:05):
thought it was a very interesting documentary that I would recommend.
Oh yeah, that's pretty much all I had.

Speaker 3 (01:44:13):
Yeah, the last thing I want to say, it's more
of a fun fact, but I just thought it was interesting,
just in terms of how much this movie changed marketing
and how marketing narratives work for art in general, which
is like Steven Spielberg's career alone is like a fascinating
look at that. But this book. I don't know how
this book came across Steven Spielberg's desk. I think it

(01:44:35):
was mentioned at some point, but I forget in one
of the documentaries I watched, but that Jaws was like, Oh,
it's this best selling book. Everyone loves it. Well, guess what,
you know why I was a best selling book because
Steven Spielberg and Universal bought hundreds and hundreds of copies
of it to send other places to people to be like, hey,

(01:44:56):
what do we think of this book? Because they just
wanted to make a movie of it. I just I've that.
I feel like it's a victimist crime. We love to
see a book selling copies. Me personally, someone should do
that to my Oh my god, I was so scandalized.

Speaker 2 (01:45:11):
If what should people buy Raw Dog?

Speaker 3 (01:45:15):
Oh, they should buy hundreds of copies and just send
and be like should we make a movie about this?
I would be like, that's so controversial. You shouldn't do
that that's dishonest, but that I just thought that was
like funny that they, you know, part of the whole
idea of like this best selling book, everyone's talking about it.
That may not necessarily have been true. It sold a
lot of copies, but who was really talking about it.

(01:45:37):
I just think that's funny. Does it pass the buckle test? No?

Speaker 2 (01:45:45):
No, But on our nipple scale, yeah, where we rate
the movie zero to five nipples based on examining it
through an intersectional feminist lens. I mean again, women largely
are not included in the movie. Yeah, it is a
very white movie. It's a movie that asks us to
root for a cop, so, you know, I just don't know.

(01:46:10):
But the movie does have some interesting things to say
about masculinity.

Speaker 3 (01:46:16):
Question mark, I'm gonna give it two nipples.

Speaker 2 (01:46:18):
Okay, that sounds great.

Speaker 3 (01:46:20):
Because for well, I agree with everything you're saying, and
they're therefore could not in good conscience rank it higher.
And maybe I'm ranking it a little higher than I
normally would because it's just such a damn good movie.
I do think that we have two strong performances from
women in this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:46:39):
They're fleeting.

Speaker 3 (01:46:40):
The fleeting. What you do see is good, but their
their performances are great. I really like Ellen. I wish
that we had more of her, but I like seeing
a just like a full Even though you don't get
to spend much time with her, you feel like you
know her, which I think is very rare in terms
of like quote unquote Mom or what characters they're written

(01:47:01):
in this very one dimensional way, and this character is
kind of written in a one dimensional way. But I
think like her ability as an actor. Even though it
was suggested that it was a NEPO pick because she
was married to a producer, Fuck you, Lorrangengery is amazing
in this movie, and so if it is NEPO, I
don't care. And then Lefierra's performance another fleeting but really

(01:47:22):
impactful performance. She is a legendary stage actor and teacher
who just passed away a couple of years ago at
the age of ninety one. And also shout out to Chrissy,
who is definitely underappreciated by the film. But again, a
great performance from a stunt actor, and stunt actors are

(01:47:46):
so rarely treated with the respect that they deserve, and.

Speaker 2 (01:47:51):
We were just talking about that on the Blue Crush episode.
Another movie that takes place at the beach.

Speaker 3 (01:47:57):
In the beach, yeah, so I shout out to Susan
backline who also passed away somewhat recently. The women we
do meet, I really appreciate their at least their performances,
if not the writing itself. And I think mainly these
two nipples are going towards this movie's ability to explore
masculinity and dick measuring contests across the class spectrum. It

(01:48:22):
is a very white movie, it is, I mean, as
you said, but I do think it's interesting having these
three very different class perspectives, and again, the copaganda of
it all, you can't excuse it. But ultimately you do
have like someone from the lower class, middle class, and
upper class on this boat and they're all working towards

(01:48:44):
the same goal and they have to communicate with each
other and it doesn't really work, and it's just it
feels like kind of a reality show nightmare experiment, like
these three men for world We're I think it's fascinating
and I think it's like all of the care characters
are treated with respect by the writing in the plot,

(01:49:06):
and I like it too. Nipples and I'm gonna give
them to I guess I'm going to give one to
Lorraine Gary, and I'm gonna give one to Lee Fierro
because they made a meal of what they were given.

Speaker 2 (01:49:23):
I agree. I think I'll go down to one and
a half. If I'm reading it on a scale of
is this movie really good, it gets top marks rating
it on the nipple scale. The copaganda thing is what's
getting me because like these like gentle tender, like loving

(01:49:45):
father character, sure who we're supposed to be rooting for
her the whole time, is a cop and it is
effective copaganda, and that's the sneakiest Yeah, so I resent that.
But as we keep saying, I like the Brodie character

(01:50:07):
and that's why it's so effective. So I just feel
tricked by the movie. And yeah, it's a really good
movie and I'm gonna watch it every summer. Yeah, so
one and a half nipples and I'll give them to
Bruce the Shark the mechanical.

Speaker 3 (01:50:25):
Also fun that they ended up naming the Finding Nemo
Shark after this shark. Cute shark fans will know anyways.
So that's our Jaws episode, folks. I really love watching
this movie. Yeah, I'm a I'm a simple person. I
see Jaws, I say, hey, I like that movie.

Speaker 2 (01:50:46):
I'm smiling.

Speaker 3 (01:50:47):
So here's here's to you, listener. We're pouring out a
class of Jaws Pedo Grisio to you and and with that,
thank you for thank you for listening. This is pretty
similar if you're not a member of our Matreon, our
patriot aka Matreon. These are episodes that are mainly just
Caitlin and myself having fun talking about a movie that

(01:51:09):
you very often will request. So if you enjoyed the
vibe of this, a little bit Looser, a little silly
joyin our Matreon, it's five dollars a month, and it
gets you access to two new episodes every month on
a theme that you will generally choose and sometimes we
will impose our will and we will choose it. And
Casper is going wild right now, being so cute. He's

(01:51:33):
being a real cudler. He's saying hi, mother, and he's
saying Hi Casper. But yeah, and then access to almost
two hundred back episodes.

Speaker 2 (01:51:43):
It sounds like you're saying, we're gonna need a bigger
Matreon subscription.

Speaker 3 (01:51:47):
We're gonna need a bigger Matreon subscription. Just kidding. It'll
always be five dollars, but we could just use more
people having it.

Speaker 2 (01:51:55):
Well, that's what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:51:56):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:51:57):
Oh, and also, we haven't actually announced at the time
of this recording, but maybe if you like checked our
link tree, we're going on tour. We're going on tour
and we're going to the Midwest, and you'll see a
few links already to some shows that we're doing at
the end of August slash early September. Be on the

(01:52:19):
lookout for a more official announcement and more news about
that tour. But just give me a little a little
shark finn if you will, a little to tease.

Speaker 3 (01:52:33):
Us heading to Chicago. We love you so much, Thank
you for listening, and we will be back next week
with another brand new episode. Bye bye.

Speaker 2 (01:52:45):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrosenski. Our low go and
merch is designed by Jamie Loftus and a special thanks
to Aristotle Assevedo. For more information about the podcast, please

(01:53:08):
visit Linktree slash bechtelcast