ABSTRACT
Shark movies are among the most consistently successful at the box office: the statistics don’t differentiate between single and multiple visits by ardent fans of shark movies, but the money that they generate speaks volumes. Sharks are among the most visually compelling and naturally spectacular of all animals. Unfortunately, success in the film industry tends to breed imitation, including the repetition of tropes, which can then become clichés. Some of the tropes of shark movies include a large black shark fin glimpsed in an early scene, foreshadowing attacks to follow; the jump scare, with the shark suddenly and terrifyingly appearing; the myth of the persistent predator, the shark that develops a taste for human flesh; the nerdy scientist who proves himself or herself to be heroic as well as brilliant; and the karmic death, in which a villainous character meets his fate in the jaws of a shark. All of these tropes are of course familiar to students of horror films, which is no accident since shark movies so often cross over into that genre. In this chapter we deal with some of the more successful and influential shark movies and dissect some of these representations to demonstrate how accurate or distorting they are in depicting the true nature of the top predatory species of sharks. We consider some of the many ways in which movies simplify sharks, thereby deliberately distorting public opinion about them, through a variety of visual tropes and schemes, some of which are common to thriller horror movies and others of which are specific to shark movies. We also discuss some of the more successful documentary films that have been aimed at better understanding and conserving sharks, but which sometimes undermine their best intentions, for instance through inappropriate sound effects, music or anthropocentrism.
