Sharks in Real Life a Bit Like Movie Shark by Tim Ward

What the does the headline “Shark-hit Cornish town is just like film Jaws” imply?

Well, you’d rightly remember that in the film Jaws, a monstrous Great White shark terrorises American beach town Amity, at the start of their summer season. Ol’ Sharp Teeth noms down on a drunk female swimmer, a child, a man in a silly small boat, some guy’s dog and eventually, one of men charged with stopping it.

Pretty terrifying stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. And so, St Ives is similarly terrorised? Are Cornish skinny-dippers and pre-teen boys being turned into delicious food like some kind of water-based buffet? Are St Ives’ beaches turning red with the guts of dozens of innocent holiday-makers?

Well, let’s go to the story in the Sun – which carries the eye-catching headline – with much haste, for this blood-soaked tale.

THE sighting of a deadly shark off Cornwall has transformed the seaside resort of St Ives into a modern-day Amity – setting of mega-movie Jaws.

Wait a second – a “sighting”? As in, “oh look, a shark over there, in the water,” rather than, “oh look, a shark over here, eating me to death”. And apparently it’s a whitetip shark, not a Great White. Oh.
It’s not like-for-like but let’s give it a chance! How has this Cornish town been “transformed”?

And there are uncanny similarities between the characters of the classic 1975 film and South West England’s shark fever.

Wait – “uncanny similarities between the characters”? Not the shark, then? In fact, for the rest of the article – which I might add is by-lined by TWO journalists – there is no mention of the shark directly. So, what are these “uncanny” similarities? Before we get into it further, I’ll just refresh you with the definition of “uncanny”:

Peculiarly unsettling, as if of supernatural origin or nature; eerie’. WOW! We are in for a treat.

In JAWS, Amity’s mayor Larry Vaughn, played by Murray Hamilton, fears the scare surrounding a rogue Great White shark could wreck the resort’s summer season.

In ST IVES, mayor Ron Tulley has called for calm, saying “no immediate danger” is posed by the man-eating oceanic whitetip shark spotted by a local fisherman. He added: “I don’t want it to put people off coming to St Ives.”

Okay. So, fictional town in Jaws and real town both have mayors, um… yeah. That’s about it.

In JAWS, shark hunters including grisly Quint, played by Robert Shaw, flock to Amity to reel in the killer Great White.

In ST IVES, 87-year-old hunter Frank Vinnicombe, who has captured more than 8,000 sharks, is on the lookout for the oceanic whitetip.

I’ll first of all point out that Quint doesn’t “flock to” Amity – he lives there. Secondly, these are just two people. Their “uncanny” similarity is that they both happen to fish sharks, of which, at a rough guess, I’d say 10,000 other people in the world also do… at least.

In JAWS, Amity police chief Martin Brody, played by Roy Scheider, utters the famous line, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” as he spies the enormous predator.

In ST IVES, Mr Vinnicombe warned: “You need to be well equipped to catch the shark. That includes a big boat.”

TWO PEOPLE, ONE FICTIONAL, BOTH HAVE SAID THE WORD “BOAT” AT SOME POINT.

In JAWS, hero Brody leads the town from the front.

In ST IVES, Insp Jean Phillips will be there. Devon and Cornwall Police said: “We’ll work with the townspeople and do all we can to help.”

So, both police chiefs do their job – is that “uncanny” (that description again: ‘Peculiarly unsettling, as if of supernatural origin or nature’)?

In JAWS, the shark captivates oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss).

In ST IVES, local marine expert Matt Slater called the British sighting “exciting”.

One word. One word from a local marine expert is enough to be uncannily like the captivation that takes over Hooper’s life in the film. They haven’t even picked up on the fact that they are both called Matt, which is ironically the most “uncanny” thing in the whole article.

There are about as many “uncanny similarities” here as the fact that if you read this ‘story’ too, we BOTH would’ve read it! Uncanny!

Coupled with the horrible movie-poster style picture at the top, this is such a massive non-story it’s hard to believe. They’ve also labelled it ‘JAWS 2’, despite the fact there have been four Jaws films, two of which were set in Amity. So it should be Jaws 3… or Jaws 5. It definitely shouldn’t be Jaws: The Revenge, though; nothing should be that, not even the actual film Jaws: The Revenge.

The only similarity in this whole shooting match is “fictional people have same jobs as real people near the water, which contains a shark….somewhere”.

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