Thread: Shark Shields

Originally Posted by Ben Waimata

This is so true of my experience too. Are you around 50 years old btw? I was at a party a while back where the subjecgts of sharks came up, and eventually everyone was asked for input and it turned out all of us who were at primary school around the time Jaws came out (1975) all shared an irrational fear of sharks that the other age groups did not have. A couple of people my age confessed to never going further than waist deep in the sea, but no problems with deep water in lakes. In my case watching Jaws as a kid then seeing a dead Great White washed up on the beach a few years later set me up with a profound paranoia I have never tried to shake off. I have swum with sharks in the water here and in Australia but did not enjoy it. As Micky Duck says, the Jaws shark was not very realistic (and swam so slwly even I could outswim it!) but there was something in those beach scenes that has stuck with me.

Yup... nailed it @Ben_Waimata I'm 56 so was about 10 when I saw JAWS. A mate and I went together to see the movie and while I had no real desire to see it, I recall that year I'd delivered leaflets for the Papakura movie theater and as a reward they issued us both a "Pass" which gave us free entry for about 3 months. We were trying to make the most of the free pass and Jaws happened to be the hit of the day. I've regretted that decision all my life. I've watched the movie in my adult years and it now seems all very.... tame and amateur... but in its day it clearly had a profound effect. Not only on me but on an entire generation. The sea was never the same again. That was compounded by seeing my very real first shark, half dead, lying on the mudflats near Manurewa the following year. I lost all interest in waterskiing at Bottletop Bay after that.

Bloody sharks. Bloody Spielberg.