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A Reception Approach to Jaws (1975)

Poster for Jaws (1975) via IMDb

Jaws (1975) – Reception

One year and a few days ago, I made a great decision on an island not too far away when I married my favorite person in the whole world. 50 years ago, a fictional mayor did not make a great decision in the same town on that same island when he married himself to murder for profit like he’s a GOP Representative or something. So, in honor of both my first anniversary and its 50^th, this week we’re talking Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975).

Disclaimer: I am not a fan of horror movies or oceans or sharks being close to me, as I am a firm believer that we don’t belong in the water and that life is scary and hard enough without trying to create more fear triggers in films that I watch to escape The Horrors™ of real life. So it goes without saying that I watched this begrudgingly, but I also had a year to prepare because I knew it would be our anniversary post as soon as one of my guests asked from the UK if we could postpone the wedding a year so she could also attend Jaws themed events on Martha’s Vineyard for the film’s 50^th. Alas, we did not postpone the wedding, but it would’ve been very on brand if we had.

The Review Roulette wheel landed on Reception as our approach this week which we have not yet had the opportunity to explore, and with which I will be taking liberties (sorry). Reception as an approach generally looks at how a film was received by the audience at the time of its release, and we’re going to look at that a bit, but then also talk about how viewing it in 2025 really, really impacted my interpretation of the film because wow. Oof. My guy.

For those unfamiliar, Jaws is about an unnatural animal who preys on innocent victims for personal enrichment and whose deadly characteristics are a drastic exaggeration of the worst of his otherwise quite docile species. It’s also about a shark.

For real though, there’s a mayor we are going to talk about extensively, but the film most centrally follows a police chief, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) who recently moved to Amity Island from New York, presumably for a quieter, safer life for his young family. The first half of the film builds like a shark attack: it starts slowly, one attack here, one there as the shark plays with its food, lulls you into a false but tense sense of security for a moment as it swims away, and then explodes into a frenzy of blood and sorrow. About an hour into the attack, we finally see the creature we are supposed to interpret as the villain as he finally shows himself in all his animatronic glory. The other two leads who dominate the second half with their strong personalities join Brody on a Moby Dick-esque voyage to track and hunt Bruce the Shark (production name, not film name).

These leads are two of the most perfect casting choices in cinema history, in my opinion. Robert Shaw plays Quint, a US navy veteran whose trauma from the sinking of the USS Indianapolis led to a lifetime of drink and revenge. Shaw delivers an exquisite speech about his time in the waters between Guam and the Philippines into which over 1100 men were plummeted when Japanese torpedoes sunk the Indianapolis, leading to a four-day and five-night hell in which survivors battled dehydration, exposure, saltwater poisoning, and shark attacks. Spielberg’s choice to inject the film with this dose of reality and pull from such an important moment in American history is a fascinating one, as the Indianapolis, both real and Quint’s, had just finished delivering its cargo: essential parts for the atomic bombs that were dropped only days later on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Pulling this complex historical moment into the film, and especially doing so through Quint – our otherwise incomprehensible and tipsy boat captain – in a bone chillingly sober monologue 100 or so minutes into the film, radiates complexity backwards into the film. It stops you in your seat and delivers another blow from the metaphorical shark that is the film’s editing, and it rips you into understanding that this caricature of a captain is the most human character in the film.

Then we have Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper, the oceanographer shark specialist who has come to consult on how best to handle the maneater. Dreyfuss just absolutely nails this role with a perfect mix of independent wealth, student activist, and overzealous marine biology child (as opposed to the only other types of child: Egyptology or dinosaur). I don’t have much more to say about him except that his cunty little curly hair, glasses, and hat, L.L. Bean cover model version of Quint’s grizzled captain look is only possibly edged out for his best quality by the scene when he’s just the ultimate grad student and brings two bottles of wine to Brody’s house and steals his dinner. Gold.

So, that’s all great. Let’s do reception. The obvious thing to talk about is that it’s one of the most successful movies of all time – you know, back when that meant something before every film was making billions but somehow also underperforming. Jaws took financial records in almost every category and ushered in the concept of a Summer Blockbuster like no film ever had before. It was (mostly) fast-paced, exciting, and it made you want to see it again and again, and people did in droves. Film reviews helped it with Roger Ebert giving it four stars and calling it “one hell of a good story, brilliantly told.” Variety’s A. D. Murphy and The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael each gave it positive reviews, and it received multiple awards; though, most of those were for John Williams’s excellent score. There were some more negative reviews in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, etc. but overall, good vibes on the blockbuster horror.

But I want to highlight one part of Ebert’s review that I think might have been truer in 1975 than in 2025. Ebert wrote:

There are no doubt supposed to be all sorts of levels of meanings in such an archetypal story, but Spielberg wisely decides not to underline any of them. This is an action film content to stay entirely within the perimeters of its story, and none of the characters has to wade through speeches expounding on the significance of it all. Spielberg is very good, though, at presenting those characters in a way that makes them individuals.

Maybe it’s the memories of the first Covid lockdowns in 2020 or the middle of the night vote to kill thousands of Americans for profit from a few days ago, but I think the shark is not even remotely the primary villain of the film. The mayor, played by Murray Hamilton (who was also Mr. Robinson in The Graduate), is a horrid figure whose greed and cowardice I read as aggressively underlined. His actions led directly to deaths that he let Brody take the blame for repeatedly with no remorse. It was only when his own children were in that direct danger that he agreed to Brody’s demands that they do something about the shark. He tries to cover up the deaths, he lies to constituents and businesspeople about the safety of the beaches, and he openly admits that he is only doing this for profit because the island needs summer tourists.

And maybe you’re thinking, “V, that’s not fair, the island does need revenue from tourists. Small businesses on the island rely on that money.” And I would rebut, “there are hundreds of people on the beach not going in the water. Those tourists are content just sunbathing and hanging out on the sand, presumably bringing revenue to restaurants, beach rentals, and other local businesses that are, crucially, not located in the water where the shark is. But the evil carny ass mayor guilts his own constituents into going into the water because he thinks he’s right and they’re wrong.” And maybe you’re like, “okay, heard, but is that really underlined social messaging?” And I’d say, “this mfer killing his constituents is the mayor of Amity Island, or in other words goodwill/peace/friendship/whatever-synonym-you’d-like-to-go-with Island.”

All in all, I really enjoyed Jaws much more than I expected to. It helps that I didn’t see it in cinemas because I need to express my “OH GOD” and “EUGHHHH” thoughts when watching horror or thriller films, and my husband had seen it before so I didn’t ruin anything for him when I guessed how it would end. It’s definitely a film you can watch repeatedly and still enjoy, and in 1975 I fully understand why people did. It’s a fun watch if not a little difficult for a 2025 audience.

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Because I’m Never Done When I Say I Am

A Note

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (2025) is an excellent horror film that I did go to see in cinemas and withheld my “OH GOD”s for because it was a film I wanted to support financially and it was very clearly a film that would be best seen on a big screen. If you have not yet seen it, I highly recommend doing so in cinemas as soon as possible. Very much like Jaws, it is breaking records all over the place and is only number 3 in the all-time domestic horror box office grossing at $244 million behind only Jaws at $273 million and It (2017) at $328 million. If you want your dollars to be party of history or if you just want to see an excellent modern summer blockbuster 50 years after their inception, I highly recommend seeing Sinners in cinemas asap.