Within the new Netflix documentary Shark Whisperer, the good white shark will get a picture makeover – from Jaws villain to misunderstood pal and admirer.
However the star of the documentary is just not a lot the shark, however the mannequin and marine conservationist Ocean Ramsey (sure, that’s her actual identify).
The movie centres on Ramsey’s self-growth journey, with the shark co-starring as a quasi-spiritual medium for locating which means and objective (to not point out superstar standing).
The movie, and a few in it, are glad to attribute Ramsey’s success as a shark conservation activist to how pushed and photogenic she is. Ramsey says “People look first and listen second. I’ll use my appearance, I’ll put myself out there for a cause.”
Her husband, the photographer Juan Oliphant, enthuses she is sweet for sharks partly as a result of she is so stunning and makes use of all the eye she attracts within the selfless service of sharks.
The picture of the long-haired, long-limbed younger lady in a bikini swimming above an outsized nice white shark is just not a brand new one.
Primal fears and fantasies
Since Jaws (1975), generations have been fascinated and titillated by filmic pictures and promotional supplies of bikini-clad younger ladies juxtaposed with harmful sharks.
The heroine of Deep Blue Sea (1999) is a neuroscientist – nevertheless the movie and its promotional supplies nonetheless require her to look in a moist t-shirt and underwear whereas pursued by an enormous shark monster.
The poster for 1999’s Deep Blue Sea.
IMDB
The Shallows (2016) presents numerous pictures of its bikini-clad heroine, with partially uncovered backside and lengthy legs marked by chew marks as a type of meat to be consumed – not least by the voyeuristic lens of the digicam.
The poster for 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019) contains a bikini-clad younger lady with legs dangling precariously in entrance of the gaping jaws of an unnaturally giant nice white.
I’ve beforehand explored the psychosexual symbolism of those movies and pictures. These movies have been by no means actually about precise sharks. They’re about very human fears and fantasies about being uncovered and susceptible.
Whisperer and the Ocean Ramsey web site faucet into the collective fascination with harmful sharks fuelled by common tradition. Many on-line pictures present Ramsey in a bikini or touching sharks – she’s small, and susceptible within the face of nice whites. As with types of superstar humanitarianism, what I’ve dubbed “sexy conservationism” leaves itself open to criticism about its strategies – even when its intentions are good.
The paradox of Shark Whisperer – and certainly the entire Ocean Ramsey empire – is it each resists and depends on Jaws mythology and iconography to surf the picture financial system of latest media.
Saving, not stalking
Ramsey and Oliphant are on a mission not simply to avoid wasting particular person sharks, however to vary the general public notion of nice whites to a extra optimistic one.
This mission is reiterated in Shark Whisperer and within the Saving Jaws documentary linked to the web site, which additionally promotes a guide, equipment and shark-diving excursions.
Shark Whisperer each resists and depends on the legendary standing of the shark dropped at us by Jaws.
Netflix
It’s reassuring to know proceeds from the bikini you purchase from the official web site are donated to shark conservation. However the (typically sexualised) media consideration which fuels the entire enterprise nonetheless is dependent upon tapping into the legacy of common tradition representations of nice whites as fearsome monsters.
In footage, Ramsey appears to spend most of her time with smaller tiger sharks, but her web site and the Shark Whisperer movie foreground her uncommon shut encounters with an “enormous” or “massive” nice white because the climax and canopy shot.
Shark Whisperer additionally contains the type of “money shots” now we have come to anticipate: pictures of a giant nice white tearing at flesh (right here, a whale carcass) with blood within the water. Photographs like these arouse our collective cultural reminiscence of the filmic nice white as the final word bestial predator.
In its climactic scene, Whisperer strategically deploys eerie music to construct the suspense and foretell the looks of the big nice white which rises from the depths. Once more echoes of Jaws are used to stimulate viewing pleasures and promote the combined messages of attractive shark conservation.
A narrative of (private) development
The self-growth narrative which underpins Whisperer will really feel acquainted to shark movie followers. Jaws was all the time about overcoming fears and previous traumas, as within the scene the place Quint and Brody examine their actual and metaphorical scars.
The poster for the 2022 movie Shark Bait.
IMDB
Over the previous decade, a brand new technology of post-feminist shark movies have used sharks as metaphorical stalkers to inform tales about ladies overcoming previous trauma, grief, “inner darkness” or despair.
In The Reef: Stalked (2022) the heroine should overcome the homicide of her sister. In Shark Bait (2022) the heroine should rise above a dishonest associate. In The Shallows, the heroine is processing grief.
Whisperer additionally leans into the concept of Ramsey combating interior demons on a journey to self-actualisation.
And whereas Ramsey has undoubtedly raised the profile of shark conservation, as a model-designer-conservationist-entrepreneur she has additionally disseminated one other extra doubtful message: that the way in which to enact affect and activism is thru instagrammable pictures of gorgeous fashions in excessive danger conditions.
Blissful endings
The top credit of Whisperer are a montage of glad endings: Ramsey frolics with sharks and reveals off her diamond ring. There may be even an ocean-themed wedding ceremony scene.
But beneath all of the shiny floor lies a sombre actuality: globally a minimum of 80 million sharks are killed yearly.
The Ramsey web site and the movie rightly remind us of this. Additionally they remind us that, thanks partly to the hashtag activism of Ocean Ramsey and her hundreds of thousands of followers and followers, Hawaii was the primary state in the USA to outlaw shark fishing.
So, Ramsey could also be proper to argue her ends justify the means.
