If you think sharks are scary, blame Hollywood, new study suggests

UngulateNerd92

UngulateNerd92

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  • A study analyzing 109 shark-related films from 1958 to 2019 has found that 96% of them overtly portrayed sharks as potentially threatening to humans.
  • “Finding Dory” was the only film in that list not to portray sharks in a negative light.
  • The study’s co-author says this sustained negative portrayal by the media and Hollywood “makes people more likely to want potentially lethal mitigation techniques” against sharks.
  • Humans slaughter more than 100 million sharks each year, and more than 30% of all shark and ray species are considered threatened.
David McGuire lived through the summer of Jaws in 1975 and saw the impact. As a surfer in Southern California, the upside was fewer people in the water. But McGuire, the director and founder of the conservation organization Shark Stewards, also remembers surfers fleeing the ocean at the sign of a leopard shark (Triakis semifasciata), a harmless species with no history of dangerous encounters with humans; and even people too terrified to swim in pools.

The lasting effect of Jaws is well known. In 2015, Christopher Neff from the University of Sydney, Australia, proposed the term the “Jaws effect,” positing that the film’s storyline has had a massive influence on people’s framing of shark encounters. The three basic tenets of the “Jaws effect” are the belief that sharks intentionally bite humans, that human-shark encounters are always fatal, and that sharks should be killed to prevent future attacks.

https://news-mongabay-com.cdn.amppr...scary-blame-hollywood-new-study-suggests/amp/
 
Pardon my digression, but I have to say that there is a reason why I am not particularly interested in fiction and why I actually hate, despise, loathe Hollywood and pop culture. I am proud of the fact that I don't own a television.
 
Being a populist, I am also disgusted by the elitism of the Hollywood establishment.

This article was posted on the LinkedIn page of FaunaWatch and here is what they had to say about it;

"Humans slaughter more than 100 million sharks each year, and more than 30% of all shark and ray species threatened."

These are upsetting and devastating statistics.
 
Here is a relevant podcast.

"Jaws made us scared of sharks but is a lack of sharks scarier? – podcast

Last week, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) world conservation congress took place in Marseille. Guardian biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston was there and heard about the latest updated ‘red list’ of threatened species, which included a warning that over a third of all shark and ray species now face extinction.

To find out more, Anand Jagatia spoke to Phoebe about the findings and what they mean for the fate of sharks, rays and the ecosystems they inhabit"

Jaws made us scared of sharks but is a lack of sharks scarier? – podcast
 
Yeah, thanks a lot Jaws.

On a side note, the man who wrote the Jaws novel ended up regretting writing the story and at one point said that if Jaws were to be rewritten, the shark would have to be the victim.
 
Pantheraman said:
Yeah, thanks a lot Jaws.

On a side note, the man who wrote the Jaws novel ended up regretting writing the story and at one point said that if Jaws were to be rewritten, the shark would have to be the victim.
Click to expand...

Oh wow, I never knew that. Where did you find this out?
 
Here is another relevant article.

How the Media Stokes Needless Fears About Sharks

Sharks rarely bite people, so why are so many people afraid of them? It has a lot to do with the media, says shark scientist David Shiffman in a new book.

Adapted from Why Sharks Matter: A Deep Dive With the World’s Most Misunderstood Predator by David Shiffman. Copyright 2022. Published with permission of Johns Hopkins University Press.

Shark bites are, statistically, so unlikely that in all functional reality you will never experience one. Chapman University conducts an annual Survey of American Fears in which they ask a random sample of Americans about things they’re afraid of. In 2017, sharks were the #41 fear of Americans, with more than 25% of respondents reporting that they are afraid of them. That’s tens of millions of people who are afraid of an animal that kills fewer people than being careless while taking selfies. So why are so many people so afraid of sharks?

How the Media Stokes Needless Fears About Sharks • The Revelator
 
Surely, "Jaws" have great responsibility for human fears of sharks. Even the white shark is less fearsome for humans than for example blue shark. But we always want to extravagante reality just to crate fantastic stories. A similar case is Moby Dick: How many possibility have someone to meet an alive sperm whale?
But, Hollywood's responsibility for nature begin in its roots: it is in the middle of desert feeding by rivers. Water extraction shrunk natural water flow and decreased populations of vaquita
 
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