Stark parallelism can be drawn between the current pandemic situation and the movie Jaws. Similar to the skinny-dipper, we are all being chomped in half, by a virus.
Murray Hamilton’s role in Jaws has become a pandemic meme is a testament to the unnerving topicality of the film and our habit of viewing the world through a screen.
The movie stirs up the anxiety and highlights the guilt. The trailer even warns, “See it before you go swimming.”
For almost every US citizen, cinemas were a place for chilling and were sort of like a natural habitat, until coronavirus came and the world slid into a lockdown. On contrary to Steven Speilberg’s 1970 blockbuster, the oceans seem a safer place because the world is under the grip of a virus now.
In a scene from the movie, Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) goes into overdrive as the mayor insists that everything is fine. “It’s a beautiful day,” he tells a reporter before the water turns red again. “The beaches are open, and people are having a wonderful time.” The scene can be compared to the current pandemic situation.
Benchley explains the thought and his knowledge about the environment, he says, “At the time I was writing Jaws, the environmental movement we know today didn’t exist.” However, one did exist. Despite this, there is a lantern shark named after him, the Etmopterus benchleyi. “I could never write Jaws today,” Benchley stated.
Overall, the story is about a shark who kills people but ends up getting killed, which prominently highlights human domination. In the current scenario, the shark is the virus and the world is waiting for it to get killed.
