Jaws, Capitalism, Class and Coronavirus
By Skye Fitzgerald-McShane, History and Politics student at St Edmund Hall “You’ll never go in the water again.” What can the classic film tells us about our current health crisis and the Government’s murky response?
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If you’re not familiar with the 1975 blockbuster thriller Jaws, let me quickly fill you in. A girl goes missing in the sea off a picturesque island called Amity. The next day, the remains of her body are found- she’s been eaten by a shark. The police chief, Martin Brody, wants to shut the beach down to avoid this happening again. The Mayor, Larry Vaughn, wants the opposite. ‘Amity is a summer town’, he argues. ‘We need summer dollars.’ So the beach stays open and of course, the shark strikes again, this time killing young Alex Kintner. Cue mass panic. Brody tells the townspeople and business owners that the beach will have to be closed. But the Mayor again interjects, stating it’ll only be shut for 24 hours- it’s nearly the 4th of July, peak tourist season. No shark is a match for the needs of profit. He ignores an offer of help from Quint, a local fisherman/established shark hunter who would go after the shark for a steep fee- again, profit. Instead, Vaughn tells Brody to do whatever he must to keep the beach safe when it does open. Despite his best efforts, on the 4th of July, the shark attacks again. The Mayor, now a wreck, finally admits defeat and signs the money off for Quint to go hunting. Alongside shark specialist Matt Hooper, Brody and Quint head off into the ocean to finally get rid of the shark. The story ends in the classic and very gross demise of both Quint and the shark, and Hooper and Brody float back to the island, job done.
This all may seem wholly unconnected to left-leaning politics and current affairs, aside from an animal rights query on the film’s questionable demonization of sharks. But since its inception Jaws has been interpreted by many as a warning against the dangers of capitalism, including (allegedly) Fidel Castro. The quest for profit above all else and the repercussions of this for people’s lives sits as an almost perfect metaphor. Today, as coronavirus has the world in its grip, some have also seen parallels between how this small town dealt with the ravages of a great white shark and how various governments are dealing with the threat of this malignant disease. Alex Shephard in an article for The New Republic called Jaws ‘the pandemic movie of our time’. Key correlations between the film and real-life certainly support that view.
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The Mayor in Jaws repeatedly refuses to instil lockdown or preventative measures, citing economic concerns and fear of inhibiting summer tourism. This slow response based on a capitalist notion of profit maximisation is reminiscent of the UK Governments response to its own threat. As late as the beginning of
March, Boris Johnson stated that a possible approach to dealing with coronavirus would be to “take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures.” Within a few weeks, Johnson himself had tested positive for the virus and was in intensive care, thousands of people had died and the country was officially placed under lockdown. Clearly belated action cost us dearly, just as it did in Amity for Mayor Vaughn. The ‘essential workers’ in Jaws who set out to kill the shark are in a boat that is famously too small. The same can be said for those working for and with the underfunded NHS and welfare services in the UK. These institutions have suddenly become of upmost importance to the Conservatives who have systematically drained them of resources and investment for the last 10 years. Destructive actions such as the abolition of bursaries for training nurses, continuous privatisation of vital health services and the issues surrounding Universal Credit have meant the ‘boat’ essential workers have been left with to deal with this disaster buckles under the weight of its task. The current reliance of so many on state services and workers who earn minimum wage is a painful reminder of their deficits that the Government ignored its responsibility to eradicate until it absolutely had to. The reverberating consequences of this neglect are now becoming ever clearer. A slightly less clear correlation but one which is vitally important can be spotted in the conflict between Quint, the
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