Reforming Jaws

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Friday, August 6th.

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Good morning. I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: sharks! (Just in time for a trip to the beach. Yikes!)

A new documentary streaming on Disney+ chronicles one woman's mission to dispel the myth of the man-eating monster. A myth she helped create. Here's reviewer Collin Garbarino.

CLIP: JAWS THEME MUSIC

COLLIN GARBARINO, REVIEWER: Sharks are some of the most feared predators on the planet. And much of our collective shark paranoia began in 1975 with the movie Jaws.

CLIP: SCREAMING ON BEACH

But how dangerous are they? How much of their reputation do they deserve? And who’s responsible for that reputation?

Interviewer: People who saw the movie Jaws are afraid of sharks. Have we reason to be afraid of them?

Playing with Sharks is a National Geographic documentary streaming on Disney+ that follows the extraordinary career of 85-year-old Valerie Taylor. Valerie and her husband Ron were pioneers in underwater photography and filmmaking who worked on the film Jaws. They later regretted their participation and focused their efforts on protecting sharks.

But while Valerie would come to love sharks, it wasn’t love at first sight.

Valerie: The first shark I saw was a grey nurse. I was just terrified, expecting to be attacked at any minute.

Ron and Valerie began as spear fishers in their native Australia.

Valerie: And then we decided to get married. I was the woman spearfishing champion, Ron was the world spearfishing champion. We were at the top of the trade.

Their marriage lasted almost 50 years, until Ron’s death. It wasn’t long after they married that the Taylors shifted their focus away from hunting. Ron went on an excursion in which he felt the other fishermen participated in irresponsible overfishing.

Valerie: I thought it was sad. Really changed the way I looked at the world and spearfishing. After that, Ron said, “Actually, killing fish upsets me. I’m not doing this anymore.” We put our spears down and never did another competition again. We said, “From now on I’m shooting them with my camera.”

To get the footage they wanted, the Taylors helped pioneer the use of diving cages in the 1960s. They were the first to film great white sharks underwater. Playing with Sharks reminds us how until very recently we knew so little about what went on under the ocean’s surface.

Valerie: The first great white shark I saw was like a freight train coming out of the mist.

They got their big break when Universal called and asked them to film the underwater scenes in Jaws. Stephen Spielberg wanted a 25-foot-long shark as the movie’s antagonist. But great white sharks are usually about half that size. There’s a famous line in Jaws where the hero says, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Turns out the Taylors needed a tiny one.

Valerie: Everything we filmed was half-size to make our sharks look bigger.

Valerie’s reminiscence on movie magic is interesting. But the Taylors’ response to the film’s release is really the heart of this documentary. They never expected Jaws to be popular, and they certainly never expected people to become paranoid about sharks.

Valerie: We were amazed. You don’t walk around New York worrying about King Kong. It must be an instinctive subconscious fear of being eaten alive.

But people were afraid, and Jaws sparked a wholesale slaughter of all kinds of sharks, dangerous and docile alike. The problem of overfishing intensified as new prosperity in Asia created an insatiable demand for shark-fin soup.

Valerie: I used to climb on to the shark finning boats and take photographs. And one day, there’ll be very few sharks left. And these photographs will be proof of where they went.

Playing with Sharks is a stunning documentary, thanks in part to Valerie and Ron’s vintage footage. And the film does a good job balancing the beauty and the danger of sharks. They are wild animals that should be respected like other wild creatures. But Valerie reminds us there’s no need for irrational fear. She also reminds us that though they’re wild, they’re really smart.

In one scene Valerie talks about how she trained a shark to pose for her so she could get the photo she wanted.

Valerie: Eventually, he came over the pink coral and I gave him the food. I did that twice and he knew if he swam over the pink coral in a certain direction, he’d get a piece of food, just a small piece of fish. And it worked. It worked. The shot was exactly what I had planned. They learn. Faster than you can teach a dog.

Valerie wants us to love sharks as much as she does, and viewers will gain some new insights and appreciation for the ocean’s greatest predator. But if you watch this documentary, you’ll really come to love Valerie. Her optimism and her sense of adventure are inspiring.

Valerie: I usually get out of the water screaming my head off with joy, jumping around, “I love it. I love it.” And I do. I love it.

Watching Valerie continue to do the work she loves in spite of her age and her body’s aches and pains brought tears to my eyes. It was another reminder of how short and beautiful human life is.

Valerie: Every dive has the potential to be a great adventure. People think you’re mad, but you’re not.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

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