Jaws - Luz Avila

Jaws

This was the first time I have ever seen Jaws and I was excited to do so in the class. The movie was great. I will say I wasn’t that prepared for some of the scenes and walked out a few times.

[SPOILER] In case you didn’t know Jaws is a killer shark. He was in no way friendly but his species for the most part don’t like humans. It’s not in a way that they want to eat us but more like they don’t want to deal with us. Jaws was a great white shark and they don’t normally attack humans. For this to happen humans had to purposely upset the shark and even then the shark wouldn’t attack viciously.  As humans we enter their territory. We destroy their homes and take the food they eat.  We make life difficult for them. So who would be in the wrong? The shark for going with its instincts or the human trying to feed other humans?

This movie ties in with the recent event with Harambe, the western lowland gorilla, who was shot because he was danger to a 3 year old boy who climbed into his exhibit. Zoo officials say that tranquilizers wouldn't have stopped the gorilla because of his size and the amount they could have given him. Again, humans enter the “home” of the gorilla, disturb it, and blame the animal. He wasn’t hurting the child but only treating it as his own and most animals aren’t extremely gentle with their babies. Even so, the child who crawled into the exhibit ended up fine. In this case there was no actual harm but the officials assumed because of the background of gorillas. In Jaws there is no specific reason why the shark is attacking so it could be aggressive which is understandable why they went to kill him, but if the shark was protecting its territory it was wrong of them.