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By
Grace
Dead Rebel Of The Week
~ Jaws ~
or
"When Sharks Were Sharks"
Once upon a time sharks were sharks. This was back in the days when sharks were actually the bad ass motherfuckers of the sea. This was back when the dark waters of the ocean floor harbored abominable monsters that would happily chew off your leg if you ventured astray.
Those were the good old days. The days when sharks were real sharks – before they were scientifically sliced, diced and displayed in boring nature documentaries showing their boring migration patterns, their boring feeding cycles, their boring mating seasons and, most of all, boring hippie scientists burping the boring sentiment that “Sharks are misunderstood”. Let’s put on a steel-ring dive suit and swim with the sharks, showing the world what cuddly and friendly little critters they are! That kind of thing. I hate that shit. Why the fuck do you need that steel-ring dive suit in the first place then? Put your money where your hippie mouth is and swim naked with that Great White next time. Maybe even strap a gutted salmon to your ass to see which one, you or the fish, that benevolent creature of the depth will wolf down first? Why demystify this cruel cold-blooded killer of the sea? Why try and pet this fucking fish? Scientists have recently stated that sharks have a rather advanced intelligence for osteichthyes of that size. Who the fuck cares? It’s a fucking giant fish with big fucking teeth. I don’t want to see it happily swimming around on the bottom of the sea, like it had a right. I want to see it eating people in the shallow waters of Florida, and then paying the ultimate price for it by being fished up by some one-eyed, hook-dexterous, drunken sea captain and gutted on the dock, with all its half-digested license plates and scuba gear spilling out of its innards for all the freaked out world to see. The world needs to get a fucking grip. These sharks are not our friends.
The patron saint of all real bad ass motherfucking sharks is, of course, Jaws. He was the real deal – a random serial killer, indulging in his capacity to spread terror and death. He attacked slutty chicks and apple cheeked little kids alike, and ate them the hell up. He left just enough remains to wash ashore in a disgusting mess on the beach, for the families to find and retch over. He never worried about migration patterns and reasons for barnacle infestations. He just swam around in heavily visited beach communities and chewed people up, for the fuck of it. He did everything he damn well pleased and if you fucked with him he ate your kid up and (maybe) spat him the hell out.
Sure, Jaws was just a movie, but you have to understand that the spirit of this cruel beast lives on. Did you know that this goddamn shark saved my life, in the summer of 1984, as I am sure he has saved many many others’ just like mine throughout the years?
I was 12 years old, and I was going on vacation to the Canary Islands with my parents. Two days before we left I was at my cousin’s house, and he had just gotten a copy of “Jaws”. I had, of course, heard about the movie, but never seen it, so I was very excited to check out the blood and the gore for a couple of hours. The movie was all right, it had a decent amount of slutty chicks and gruesome deaths, but it really didn’t leave a lasting impression after I walked out of my cousin’s house. Until we got to the Canary Islands. No way was I going into the fucking water with all those fucking sharks out there! I got my little brother so upset that he cried hysterically, and refused to go into the water as well. My brother – the human fish – had been looking forward to this trip for two years but I scared him so shitless that he didn’t go into the ocean once all week. But you know what? We lived. We didn’t die in the jaws of some psychopath salt water dweller with a hatred for little children. We lived and thrived in the hotel pool for the rest of the stay there instead, prolonging our lives indefinitely, to my parents’ vacational dismay (the part about having to stay at the pool – not the part about me and my brother living a little longer – although I am not sure about my dad sometimes). My parents grounded me for a week when we got home, but it didn’t matter. I had beaten the sharks!
I haven’t been into the ocean since. True story. This is also because I hate getting wet, but mostly because of the sharks. I do swim in lakes and pools, but you would have to club me down, put concrete shoes on my feet and throw me off a boat to get me that close to the ocean again.
That’s why it pisses me off when they try to make these savage sharks seem so very “natural” in documentaries these days. Like they were an actual part of some great symbiotic sea paradise where they are just another link in the food-chain. Fuck that. The only food-chain they are a part of is the one they use to floss their teeth with after feasting upon human flesh. Don’t make it sound like I don’t have a reason to hold my family hostage on the beach all summer long. I know the truth…
At least St. Jaws kept us on our toes. At least St. Jaws didn’t make excuses for his bloodthirsty behavior. There is none. Remember the fucking hippie shark scientist in Jaws? Richard Dreyfuss was all about understanding the majestic animal that was the shark, and then when that same monster was chomping their yacht into splinters he was screaming like a little girl “Shoot! Shoot the fucker!” That’s what it all comes down to; you can’t reason with these beasts. You can ichthyologicize them until you are blue in the face, but you will never “understand” them. Jaws was a ruthless fucking fish – like all bloody sharks are in the reality of their evil little pea-sized brains.
Remember that when you dip your feet in the grim ocean from the side of your boat next time; there is a shark right there, down below, and he’s not going to roll over and give you a chance to study and admire his fluent swimming motions before he opens that razor mouth and just swallows you whole (if you’re lucky) from the waist down. Let me put it this way: Jaws would have eaten Flipper’s gay ass, and that’s all you need to think about as you fall off your jet ski, 300 feet out from the beach. I will be the guy on the safe dry beach with the binoculars, laughing my ass off and paying tribute to a great Dead Rebel of the Week, Jaws, by not going anyway near that ocean to begin with. It’s your stupid ass out there, not mine.
