“Jaws” got here with a value.
Within the new Nationwide Geographic documentary “Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story,” Steven Spielberg spoke about how the success of his 1975 shark film was dangerous to marine life.
“One of the bad things that came out of the film was shark hunting spiked,” the 78-year-old director shared.
Govt producer and ocean conservationist advocate Wendy Benchley added: “When Jaws came out, we were truly horrified to see that some people took it as license to go kill sharks.”
“The negative reaction hurt us and horrified us and we became passionate defenders with sharks,” mentioned Wendy, the widow of “Jaws” writer Peter Benchley. “We went with the National Geographic on expeditions and we were so fortunate to learn from these scientists and other experts.”
Cynthia Wigren, CEO and co-founder of Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, defined that trophy looking grew to become “very popular” after “Jaws” debuted, resulting in the white shark inhabitants lowering by as a lot as 80 %.
“People wanted to be like Quint,” Dr. Austin Gallagher, shark professional and chief scientist of Beneath The Waves, mentioned concerning the shark-hunting captain performed by Robert Shaw within the movie.
“People wanted to have that trophy that they could show off,” Dr. Gallagher added.
Shark conservation biologist Candace Fields agreed there was “a negative connotation that came from ‘Jaws’ about sharks.”
“Which is very unfortunate,” Fields famous, “because I think there’s other takeaways as well.”
In an unique interview with The Publish, Wendy famous that the phobia on shark life has considerably subsided within the 50 years since “Jaws” premiered.
“Shark hunting barely exists anymore,” she said. “It’s mainly catching sharks for shark fin soup and that’s been happening for honestly hundreds of years, but really expanded in the last 40 years when there was a huge population increase in China and other Asian countries.”
“So I’ve been working, and Peter worked, with many groups, and especially with WildAid, who has done an excellent job in China educating the Chinese who want to be good citizens,” Wendy continued. “And when they realized that shark fin soup was actually killing the sharks, and a hundred million sharks were killed every year for shark fin soup, they listened. And the demand for shark fin soup has gone down 80 percent in China. So that’s a wonderful thing.”
Wendy additionally gave a shoutout to Jackie Chan, Yao Ming and Maggie Q for his or her involvement with WildAid “to really help with that particular issue.”
“Peter died in ’06 and I wish he were here now to be able to see all of these changes and to see ‘Jaws’ is still relevant after 50 years,” Wendy mentioned within the documentary. “I think he’d be very pleased.”
“Jaws @ 50” premieres Thursday on Nationwide Geographic and can stream on Disney+ and Hulu.
