Jaws is a funny movie. It’s the humor, which makes the horror hit harder. That could be the film’s tagline. Take the scene where the audience gets its first good look at the shark as Brody lays out a line of chum. The line to Quint, “Why don’t you come down and shovel some of this shit” is the punchline before the jump scare. Then the iconic “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” is pure dark humor. Before Quint’s monologue on his experience on the U.S.S. Indianapolis, there is the funniest and most lighthearted scene in the movie where Quint, Hooper, and Brody bond over their various scars and injuries. As the guys get to know each other, it sets you up for the gut-punch backstory to Quint’s hatred of sharks. You could go on and on on the role of humor in Jaws from the opening scene with the drunk college guy to the line about the Kintner boy spilling out on the dock to my personal favorite scene in the movie of the two schlubs hoping to get the reward for catching the shark using the holiday roast as bait. There are the banter and the whistling, which parallels Quint’s singing on The Orca then there is the you-got-to-be-kidding-me visual of the shark pulling the dock emphasizing the size and strength of the shark without ever actually showing the shark. Brody flipping through the book on sharks does the same thing. The dock floating to shore reminds the viewer of the Kintner boy’s bloody raft. It is a brilliant scene and one of the most suspenseful in the movie. And again, the scene ends with a punchline, the whiny “Can we go home now?” This is a scene without peers.
Jaws is a funny movie, but what is not funny was the effect the movie’s success had on the Hollywood industry. In essence, Spielberg laid out the blueprint for today’s summer/holiday blockbuster, movie promo tie-ins, and product placements that dominate and set the market. Jaws put the movie studios back in control of the business marking the beginning of the end of New Hollywood’s brief reign as the industry’s movers and shakers. With Jaws, the complex and complicated anti-hero movies of the late 1960s/early 1970s like Five Easy Pieces or The Conversation, for example, were brushed aside and replaced with IP movies, genre pics, sequels, and franchises. Jaws was on one level the worst thing that happened for those invested in a creative and chance-taking Hollywood. Mark Harris’s Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood and Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock’N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywoodtell the whole story. But who reads, really? Here are the Cliff Notes: Dr. Doolittle was heavily doctored. The pink snail sure was awkward. Musicals played the same old song and the studios played along. Yet with “The Sound of Silence” and a rush of violence Old Hollywood was dead and gone. Until the soundtrack of Jaws came on. Introducing the summer blockbuster and all its spawn. That gets the toe tapping, right?
To Lou’s thinking, Jaws was simultaneously one of the greatest and one of the worst movies ever made. Let Lou wax poetic:
The greatness
Of Moby Dick
Lies not in the whale
But the filibusters
Spielberg pared
Down the blubber
And removed
The clutter
Moby Dick
Was perceived
As lackluster
Jaws was received
As a blockbuster
Moby Dick deserves
The accolades
And Jaws may be
The worst movie
Ever made
One goes down
In history
And on destroyed
And industry
More from Lou if you please:
Watching Jaws
Amongst neighbors
The man
Crushes the can
Which he savors
Hooper with
City hands
Mimics Quint’s labors
A drinking contest
Becoming friends
Like comparing wounds
Bonding as men
The foam
On Quint’s lips
Suggests the
Spurt of blood
At the end
Five victims
As in Jersey
In symmetry
With Amity
With such
Careful direction
You can see why
Quentin detects
Perfection
The humor and horror of Jaws is perfectly captured by the promo copy 45 of Homemade Theatre’s “Santa Jaws (Part I)” on sale at Vinyl Vogue. Proof of Jaws’ overwhelming success was the number of parodies and rip-offs the film inspired. One element of this was the tidal wave of novelty Jaws songs dropped from 1975-1976 or so. Not surprising given the iconic score to the movie. Music was a key element to the film’s success. The exact same phenomenon would happen with Star Wars. And for those Star Wars dorks out there who argue that Star Wars changed the movie industry, remember Jaws did it first and is a far, far, far better movie.
“Santa Jaws” was one of the more successful Jaws novelty songs. It was the number five top selling single in Canada in 1975, released on A&M Canada. That success led to the record’s release in the U.S. Not a song really, but more of aspoken-word parody within a parody to “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”. The shark sounds a lot like the Disco Duck to be honest. “Santa Jaws” lives on. In 2018, Santa Jaws, a horror comedy movie, was made. Proof that even the worst ideas can be turned into a movie. The only thing scarcer in Hollywood than integrity are original ideas.
Suggested Sites and Sounds:
For the illiterate: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (2003) - Full Documentary HD
Jaws Parodies: 'Landsharks, MAD Magazine, Cheech & Chong and Other JAWS Parodies' - Forces of Geek
Jaws Movie Rip-offs: 10 Jaws Movie Knock Offs, Ranked From Awful To Jawsome
Jaws is peerless: The Pier Incident | JAWS (1975)
Quint being the man, crushing the can: Jaws: Quint vs. Hooper beer chugging contest
—Lou Waxman