Jaws — Don’t ignore your emotions or they’ll swim up and bite you in the ass!

It’s summertime, ghouls! It’s hot, it’s humid, and wouldn’t you non-vampire people just love a day on the beach? Or are you afraid to go in the water? On today’s episode, I’m going to be talking about the OG summer blockbuster that made everyone afraid to go in the water, Jaws (1975).

Let’s talk about Jaws as a metaphor for emotional avoidance, its portrayal of existential themes of meaning vs meaninglessness, and believe it or not — pet and animal grief!

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, owner of Many Moons Therapy.

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Sources:

‘Jaws’: The Groundbreaking Summer Blockbuster that Changed Hollywood, and Our Summer Vacations, Forever by Sven Mikulec

The Real-Life Drama That Almost Prevented Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws' From Being Made by Lloyd Farley

Attachment and Loss by John Bowlby

The Strange Situation by Mary Ainsworth

Staring at the sun: Overcoming the terror of death by Irvin Yalom

The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche

What Song Quint Keeps Singing In Jaws by Kevin Maclean

Repressing Emotions by Angelica Attard Ph.D.

Veterinarians group fighting 'staggering' statistics on death by suicide in profession by Kevin Yarr

Not One More Vet

Replacing animal agriculture and shifting to a plant-based diet could drastically curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to new model by Ker Than

On the Endless Symbolism of the Best Summer Movie Ever Made: Jaws by Olivia Rutigliano

Steven Spielberg Regrets How ‘Jaws’ Impacted Real-World Sharks by Jacquelyne Germain

Support local bunnies!

Rabbit Rescue

Tiny Paws Rabbit Rescue

Transcript

Welcome ghouls to today’s episode of Mental Health is Horrifying. I’m your Horror Barbie host of darkness — Candis Green— Psychotherapist and all around spooky bitch podcasting from my bat-filled cave in Toronto, Canada. It’s summertime here in Toronto. It’s hot, it’s humid, and wouldn’t you non-vampire people just love a day on the beach? Or are you afraid to go in the water? On today’s episode, I’m going to be talking about the OG summer blockbuster that made everyone afraid to go in the water, Jaws.

I like so many, saw this movie on TV when I was a kid and immediately became terrified of sharks. So terrified that I was scared to swim in the backyard pool because I was certain that a 25-foot great white shark was going to sneak up on me and eat me for lunch! My husband and I have a tradition where every summer, we plan a Jaws day. We order in sushi and we watch Jaws and quote along all the lines — because there are so many good ones — but one of our favourite things to remark on is the Mayor! He’s ridiculous! He wears this amazing nautical blazer throughout the movie covered in little anchors and absolutely refuses to accept the fact that there’s a shark eating everyone who dares to go in the waters BECAUSE (cue one of my favourite lines from the movie) —


So let’s get right into this summer blockbuster my ghouls: let’s talk about Jaw’s as a metaphor for emotional avoidance, its portrayal of existential themes of meaning vs meaninglessness, and believe it or not — pet and animal grief! 

Be nice to sharks.


Movie synopsis:

Oh man what a great trailer.

In the New England beach town of Amity Island, Chrissie Watkins goes for a late-night ocean swim during a beach party. While treading water, an unseen force attacks and pulls her underwater. Her gross and partial remains are found washed up on the beach the next morning. After the medical examiner concludes it was a shark attack, newly hired police chief Martin Brody is like damn and closes the beaches. Mayor Larry Vaughn, in his amazing nautical blazer,  persuades him to reconsider, saying “it’s your first summer you know” fearing the town's summer economy will suffer. The coroner, who initially advised Brody that the girls’ death was due to a shark attack, is now under pressure from the Mayor and is like uhhh… yess… it was a boating accident! Brody reluctantly accepts their conclusion and allows the beaches to remain open, when suddenly another mysterious and still unseen force with fins kills young Alex Kintner. At a town meeting, Brody tries yet again to close the beaches and the Mayor is like only for 24 hours! Everything’s fine! As the locals get together and decide to place a bounty is placed on the shark (the one that doesn’t exist?), causing an amateur shark-hunting frenzy. Quint, an eccentric local shark hunter, offers his services for $10,000. Meanwhile, consulting oceanographer Matt Hooper examines the girl's remains, confirming it was indeed an abnormally large great white shark killed her. 

When local fishermen catch a tiger shark, the mayor proclaims the beaches are safe. YOU SEE EVERYTHING’S FINE! A skeptical Hooper inspects the tiger shark and notes that it has a completely different bite radius, is way smaller, not the same species, and upon dissection, notes that there are zero white kids inside. Later, and while (somewhat drunkenly) searching the night waters in Hooper's boat, Hooper and Brody find a half-sunken vessel. Underwater, Hooper removes a sizable great white shark tooth from the boat's hull, but accidentally drops it after discovering human remains. Vaughn dismisses Brody and Hooper's assertions that a huge great white shark caused the deaths, and refuses to close the beaches, allowing only increased safety precautions. BECAUSE EVERYTHING’S FINE AND IT’S THE FOURTH OF JULY! USA #1! Tourists flock to Amity for America’s birthday, but following a juvenile prank with a fake shark fin, the real shark enters a nearby lagoon, killing a boater and narrowly not-eating Brody’s own son. Brody then convinces a guilt-ridden Vaughn to immediately hire Quint. 

Despite tension between Quint and Hooper, they set out aboard Quint’s sketchy ass boat called the Orca to begin hunting down the shark! Quint acts unhinged the entire time, Brody has no idea what he’s doing, and Hooper is taking fashion shots of the shark. As Brody lays down a chum line, the shark suddenly appears behind the boat. Quint, estimating it is 25 feet long and weighs 3 tonnes, harpoons it with a line attached to a flotation barrel, but the shark pulls the barrel underwater and disappears. It is obvious that they’re gonna need a bigger boat. But the Orca is all they got!

At nightfall, Quint and Hooper drunkenly exchange stories about their assorted body scars. One of Quint's is a removed tattoo, and he reveals that he survived the attack on the USS Indianapolis, and Quint details his harrowing experience and his fated mission to hunt sharks. The shark returns unexpectedly, ramming the boat's hull, and disabling the power. The men work through the night, repairing the engine. In the morning, Brody attempts to call the Coast Guard, but Quint, acting predictably unhinged and obsessed with killing the shark without outside assistance, smashes the radio. The trio wrestles with the shark, as the shark hammers the boat, causing severe damage and that boat’s engine to fail. Uh oh!

As the boat slowly sinks, the trio attempts a riskier approach. Hooper suits up and enters the water in a shark-proof cage, intending to lethally inject the shark with strychnine via a hypodermic spear. The shark attacks the cage, causing Hooper to drop the spear. While the shark thrashes in the cage's tangled remains, Hooper barely escapes to the seabed. The shark breaks free and leaps onto the boat, subsequently eating Quint. Trapped on the sinking vessel, Brody shoves a pressurized scuba tank into the shark's mouth, and, climbing onto the crow's nest, shoots the tank with a rifle. The resulting explosion kills the shark. Hooper resurfaces — he’s alive! — and he and Brody paddle back to Amity Island, clinging to the remaining barrels. 


Movie background info:

Especially now with the SAG strike and all the scary things going on in Hollywood in terms of evil corporate tyrants not paying the actual creators and actors of movies, revisiting such a gloriously classic gem like Jaws right now feels like a warm hug. I hate to be that person — but honestly man, they don’t make movies like this anymore! This movie has such a magical quality to it — from the epic score by John Williams, to the practical effects, the way it encapsulates the essence of summer — especially in the 70s when apparently NO ONE wore sunscreen — and the career-making performances of the cast members in this film… if you haven’t seen this movie, please please do yourself a favour and watch it this summer.

Jaws is, of course, adapted from the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. The novel grew out of Benchley's interest in shark attacks after he learned about the exploits of Montauk, New York shark fisherman Frank Mundus in 1964. The film stars Richard Dreyfus as Oceanographer Matt Hooper, Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, Robert Shaw in an absolutely legendary performance as shark hunter Quint, and Murray Hamilton as everybody’s favourite ridiculous Mayor, Mayor Vaughn. Universal Pictures’ producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown stumbled upon Peter Benchley’s novel ‘Jaws’ by accident even before the book was published; they read the novel immediately and enthusiastically proclaimed it was the most exciting thing they’d ever read. In 1973 they bought the rights for around $175,000 and soon started preparing the field for the project’s realization, and a 26-year-old kid named Steven Spielberg was brought on to direct. John Williams, of course, created the iconic score. With just two notes — he instilled a legendary fear of open water into us all. 

Jaws was a notorious nightmare to shoot, with Spielberg insisting that it be shot outside the studio on location in Martha’s Vineyard. The shoot was supposed to last 55 days, but went on for 2 additional months, with the mechanical sharks created under the supervision of experienced special effects master Robert A. Mattey (who created the giant squid in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea two decades earlier), breaking down frequently. But can you imagine Jaws having the same impact if it weren’t for those glorious mechanical sharks, and if they were CGI? No way!

Jaws is well-known for creating the summer blockbuster as we know it today. Not only was it the first film to ever reach the golden 100-million-dollar number at the American box office, but the very way it achieved such a financially impressive result is what redefined Hollywood’s practices. Before Jaws, the only films presented released in the summer were more like B movies, as the industry gathered that only teenagers go to cinemas during summer breaks: winter was perceived as the best time to put out films that were really expected to make money and garner prestige. Moreover, most hot studio projects in those days enjoyed limited releases, with exclusive premieres in a couple of cinemas in Los Angeles and New York. Jaws opened simultaneously in no less than 409 American theatres. The film also employed an expensive and elaborate marketing campaign which would later become commonplace for blockbuster films. With a 9-million-dollar budget, Jaws went on to gather as much as 470 million dollars in cinemas across the world. 

Emotional Avoidance:

Alright, as I’ve mentioned I think my favourite part of this movie is Mayor Vaughn, played by Murray Hamilton. He plays this role so perfectly — he has almost a game-show host quality about him, and is absolutely determined to get those summer dollars into Amity and make this the best 4th of July ever. 

It’s so evident from every angle that there is an unusually vicious shark coming uncharacteristically close to the shores of Amity, menacing and eating local swimmers, however, our beloved Mayor absolutely refuses to accept and acknowledge this fact, much to the future eating of children and grown ups alike.

And it’s not just Mayor Vaughn, right — or maybe he sets the tone for the entire town — because then so many other townspeople also engage in this same type of avoidance when it comes to acknowledging that there is in fact a shark lurking on their shores. The locals go out in such a haphazard kind of way on their little overflowing boats, with their little chum buckets and beers and are just like yeah! Let’s get this shark! Literally any shark will do! And so they capture this poor little tiger shark and hang him up on the dock for all to see and are like let’s take a picture for the paper! We did it! Problem solved! When Hooper comes along from the oceanographic institute having studied the bite radius from the shark that killed Chrissie Watkins and says yeah so this definitely isn’t the same shark and literally no one cares and they crack another beer. 

For the townspeople, and definitely Mayor Vaughn, it seems difficult to acknowledge the reality of the situation in front of them — and dare I say — perhaps even their own emotions in response to the situation. Which I can understand! People are worried about their businesses suffering if Amity acknowledges the shark problem and closes the beaches, having to go on welfare should they not get those summer dollars, and perhaps even the terror of a shark that seems very vindictive! What’s this shark’s deal?

There are a couple of ways to look at the type of emotional avoidance being displayed by Mayor Vaughn. The Mayor may be displaying what is known as an avoidant attachment style. Attachment styles is something I have discussed before, but as a quick refresher, attachment theory was first described by John Bowlby, who hypothesized that the extreme behaviours infants engage in to avoid separation from a parent or when reconnecting with a physically separated parent—like crying, screaming, and clinging—were evolutionary mechanisms to ensure their survival. 

Psychologist Mary Ainsworth famously conducted an experiment (on children…) called the Strange Situation, in which a control group of infants was placed in a small room with a one-way glass window designed to covertly observe the actions of the children. The room was filled with toys, and at first, it was just the infant and their mother. The Strange Situation consisted of eight steps, each of which lasted approximately 3 minutes:


    Mother and infant alone.
    A stranger enters the room.
    The mother leaves the baby and stranger alone.
    The mother returns.
    The stranger leaves.
    The mother leaves and the child is left alone.
    The stranger returns.
    Mother returns and the stranger exits.

The aim of the Strange Situation was to observe the infant’s exploratory behaviours with their mother, in her absence, as well as in the presence of a stranger. This experiment helped to develop attachment types, which can be generally classified as secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. 

In the Strange Situation, children were classified as avoidant if they displayed no distress when separated from their mother, as well as no interest in the mother’s return.

And you might be asking — what kind of serial killer baby displays no signs of distress when separated from their mother, and no interest when she returns?!

Well, this attachment style tends to develop when caregivers are not emotionally attuned to their child, or are emotionally distant.

It’s not that the child is a stone cold homicidal killer and has no emotions — it’s just that the child — and then adult — often learns to downplay their emotions or dismisses them completely. These people are typically highly independent and self-reliant, and their greatest fear tends to be intimacy and vulnerability.

For those presenting with an avoidant attachment style, they may appear and even state that they are TOTALY FINE YUP NO PROBLEMS HERE and appear extremely together on the surface of things, but may in fact be in a great deal of pain internally, and find it incredibly difficult to admit that they need support, or may distance themselves from people when others try to connect emotionally. 

As it happens, this is a defence mechanism of sorts, when someone is unwilling or unable to cope with their own emotions, so they avoid and disavow them entirely. 

This is the experience of those who had an emotionally distant caregiver, but can also present in those who have experienced trauma.

Emotional avoidance is a common reaction to trauma. In fact, emotional avoidance is part of the avoidance cluster of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, serving as a way for people with PTSD to escape painful or difficult emotions.

Avoidance refers to any action designed to prevent the occurrence of an uncomfortable emotions such as fear, sadness, or shame. 

Going back to Mayor Vaughn, he likely felt a combination of these emotions in response to a menacing shark swimming amok on the shores of his town. 

The avoidance cluster of PTSD symptoms is categorized as the attempt to avoid distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings as well as external reminders such as conversations about the traumatic event or people or places that bring the event to mind. Avoidance behaviours are effectively an effort to withdraw from situations and feelings that produce trauma-related symptoms. 

Emotional avoidance may be effective in the short-term and can provide some temporary relief. In the long run, it can actually cause more harm as avoidance behaviours are associated with increased severity of PTSD symptoms.

I also want to say that emotional avoidance isn’t just something people with severe PTSD practice — we live in a society that’s like okay great shut up with your feelings and get back to work there’s money to be made! Our world has difficulty holding space for people’s emotions and unfortunately people who are attuned to and express their emotions can often be labelled as negative, difficult, or a straight up Debbie Downer. So people adapt and do all sorts of emotional gymnastics to fold up their feelings like emotional origami and hide them, or use substances, or numb out on TikTok, or withdraw, or what have you. 

It’s important to find places and people that make you feel safe to talk about your emotions, who don’t judge, or shame, or make you feel afraid. These people can be friends, family, a community leader, a therapist, a pet, or a friendly ghost. 

(jaws theme in the background) Because as Hooper rightly points out to Mayor Vaughn when he is trying to get him to understand the importance of closing the beaches, if you avoid your emotions… they must just swim up and bite you in the ass.

Meaning / Meaninglessness:

Brody and Quint are great foils for each other in this movie when it comes to explore themes of meaning vs meaninglessness. 

Quint comes into this film with a pre-ordinated sense of meaninglessness, or doom in a sense, brought about by the shark. And he tells us this during his famous speech about his experience aboard the USS Indianapolis.

[CLIP: Indianapolis speech]

(As a sidebar, my husband loves the fact that every Canadian Rememberance day, his grade high school shop teacher would just host a screening of that speech from Jaws… about an American ship during WWII… Bless him)

For context, the Indianapolis completed a top-secret mission to deliver components for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. The ship was subsequently torpedoed by the Japanese navy, leading 300 of the crew to go down with the ship and the other 890 to face exposure, dehydration, saltwater positioning and mostly notably — shark attacks. 

Quint's own experience as a survivor of the USS Indianapolis gives his character a grim fatalistic disposition as he faces off with the titular shark in Jaws. Because for him, it is sharks — both the ones that came for their pound of flesh in those water — and Jaws today like the grim reaper, here to make amends for the wrongs that were done. And Quint seems to accept this fate — his life since has been one of waste. He has made  no meaning of his life since the Indiannapolis; bar fights, failed relationships, and a bloodlust to conquer the oceanic harbingers of death that haunt him.

Quint sings a famous naval song called “Spanish Ladies” in the movie, but his version laments that "nevermore shall we see you again." This change of lyrics transforms the connotation of the old shanty from a wistful goodbye to a mournful one. Quint's lyrical amendment puts a shroud of fatalism over the entire shark hunting quest.

Brody, on the other hand, is determined to make meaningful out of his life. He momentarily succumbs to pressures to keep the status quo, but then decides he must make a difference. That’s why he came to Amity from New York in the first place. He talks about how New York City is a mess and that the crime rate will kill ya but “in Amity, one man can make a difference.” 
But it is perhaps his encounter with Alex Kitner’s grief-stricken mother, after she slaps him in the face for knowing about the shark but keeping the beaches open, the Brody decides not to succumb to political pressure and keep the status quo — no! Just as the shark is there to collect Quint, it is also there specifically to be vanquished by Brody. This is how Brody makes meaning of his life. 

The juxtaposition between the two men is well showcased in the scene where they are departing on the Orca to vanquish the shark an we see a huge discrepancy between the attitudes of Quint and Brody. Quint is going around, singing his obscene sea limericks, while Brody is solemn and says goodbye to his tearful wife, as she wonders what she will tell their children as he walks off slowly like he is going to war. 

Existential psychotherapy posits five existential givens that seek to give voice to universal experiences of the human condition —

    Death and human limitation

    Connectedness and isolation 

    Freedom and responsibility

Meaning vs. meaninglessness


You may perhaps be most familiar with the existential exploration of meaninglessness, or nihilism, through the work of famous philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Now I’m not a philosopher and philosophy is not my area of expertise so please don’t send me your hate mail — but Nietzsche described nihilism as life having no objective order or structure, except what we give it. Shrugging off society’s facades, the nihilist discovers that all values are baseless and that reason is impotent. Party!

But as far as we are concerned psychological speaking, it is perhaps Quint who we observe as falling victim to the starting point of the human condition — meaninglessness — and he has not been able to create meaning out of the experiences in his life, since undoubtedly being traumatized after watching all his friends be eaten by sharks.

Creating meaning, as psychologist Irvin Yalom states, is what helps humans to create a more authentic and free existence, and endure the inescapable realities and tragedies of life. 

Meaning can be organized into at least three different types of meaning: False Meaning, Transitory Meaning, and Ultimate Meaning.

False meaning could be described as myths without any healing or sustaining power. This type of meaning is typically fleeting. At times, they may help people copy and maybe survive, but they have no power to address the existential issues. Examples of false meaning could include money or power.

Transitory meaning can help us cope, but cannot help us to transcend. This type of meaning may facilitate growth and lead to ultimate meaning, but in themselves are not ultimately meaningful. Examples would include work, service, leadership, education, self-growth, and self-awareness. All these can be positive, healthy values and can help lead to the discovery of what is called ultimate meaning. 

Ultimate meaning is a type of meaning that aids in transcending the existential givens of death, isolation, freedom, and meaninglessness. This type of meaning acknowledges the inherently relational nature of human beings, meaning, that we rely on one another to create meaning, purpose, and richness in our lives. Ultimate meaning necessitates relationship with other – God, other people, animals, and nature.

From this standpoint, ultimate meaning challenges Western ideals of individualism, hyper-independence, and total self-sufficiency. Now I’m not saying that those aren’t good or helpful qualities, but I always like to remind people that at the end of the day, humans are just animals, and like most other animals, we survive and thrive when we are in community with each other, when we count on one another, help one another, love one another, and all that peace love and freedom junk that hippies were on about in the 70s.

So while Brody is a foil to Quint in his quest for meaning — what type of meaning does he find? As the police chief of Amity, Brody creates meaning out of service to others. He felt unfilled and futile in his role as an officer in New York City, and wanted to come to a place where he could make a difference. In his service to others, I believe Brody transcends to ultimate meaning as well, in his building of relationships with others — like Hooper, his wife, his children, and the people of Amity. 

His relationship with nature? Uhhhh… well… he kind of blew it up, didn’t he? Like he literally blew up Jaws with compressed air. So, not so great on that front… which brings me to my next topic for discussion about animal grief and human domination of nature! 


Pet / Animal Grief:

Okay so I’m a huge horror fan, right? And I love the classics. For me, my love of horror and all things spooky really started with Scooby Doo. As a kid, I rented Scooby Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf from Rogers Videos I think 800 times and became ENTHRALLED with this spooky world were a group of friends went out and solved mysteries, and spent time in haunted castles with ghosts, and werewolves, and Dracula himself! 

The Scooby Doo movies and classic cartoon series Scooby Doo Where Are You are so referential to classic horror and Universal Monsters and creature features in general, so naturally this was my next destination in my discovery of horror as a now teen.

But then something started happening. As I delved into the world of creature features, I didn’t just feel that same familiar rush of joy and excitement I did when I watched Scooby Doo. I felt… sad? I felt… upset?

I think I first noticed this when I watched Godzilla. Now I have always been the most sensitive person anyone has ever known, but the way that I sobbed when I watched this movie was on another level. Because they were SHOOTING this POOR ANIMAL and it wasn’t HIS FAULT that he was SO BIG AND CONFUSED and BECAUSE HE’S BIG AND CONFUSED NATURALLY HE CAN’T HELP IT IF HE WALKS ON BUILDINGS AND STUFF SO JUST LEAVE HIM ALONE OKAY?!

This became a common occurrence for me. As I have continued my foray into horror movies, I have noticed that it can be incredibly difficult for me to watch creature features, or horror movies that feature animals because i got TOO EMOTIONAL OR I develop too much empathy for the monsters! A great example of this is the movie 27 Meters Down 2 (yes it’s a sequel) where the humans decide to go diving into a cave and then are promptly attacked by the sharks that live in the cave, but then i started CRYING HYSTERICALLY because the sharks that were attacking them were actually BLIND because they had been living in a dark cave and like… wouldn’t you be scared and upset if some randos just broke into your house?! So yeah I had to turn that one off.

In Jaws, Amity is this place again where it’s all USA #1, fourth of July, indulgence, and pleasure-seeking above all despite what the natural world is telling them. In Jaws, the shores, the ocean, and the shark itself are asking people to stay out of the water and the humans refuse. They feel entitled to this space, regardless of if it’s an animals’ home, or the resource is completely tapped out, or they have polluted it, or destroyed it. 

The giant hoard of vacationers who swarm Amity Island during the Fourth of July weekend are a kind of plague unto themselves: an overwhelming mass of individuals developing and overrunning the natural world for their own pleasure. The shark, which causes the crowds to recede, might be there to check humankind, to prevent the full takeover of nature by people. But Jaws may also be there to check America itself; the country which leads the world in humankind’s insistence on the superiority of humans over the natural world.

And this kind of human supremacy — meaning humans total insistence on conquering the natural world — is its own kind of emotional avoidance, right? It’s very clear that we… and not aliens from outer space… are the cause of global warming, and that phasing out industrialized animal agriculture over the next 15 years could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 68%, but we carry on with business as usual, don’t we? We are just waiting for the bottom to fall out. What would it mean to change the way we live and our relationship to the natural world? It would probably be really hard, and unknown, and strange and cost a lot of money, but we avoid exploring this reality for a lot of complicated reasons mostly having to do with money and greed and power. Which are like, agents of false meaning that we previously talked about anyways! 

For those who love animals, take care of animals, rescue animals, are vegetarian or vegan, or otherwise view animals with the same level of dignity and respect as humans — living in a world that commodifies animals, uses them for food and entertainment, and normalizes their suffering — the world is a place filled with grief. And this grief can often feel like a disenfranchised one — meaning that you may be laughed at, not understood, or told to get over it because it’s just an animal because we live in a world that doesn’t care about animals the way that you care about them.

Empathy for animals can take several forms of course, and one form certainly is pet grief. The loss of a pet can be absolutely devastating and certainly feel like the loss of a family member — because it is. Many people experience a wide range of emotions throughout the grieving process. In particular, guilt is unique to the experience of pet grief due to the fact that pet owners are responsible for the little lives of their pets, and often feel or wish that they could have done more to help their pet. It can be very difficult to cope with this feeling, also because our pets can’t speak to us, and we can’t explain what is happening or arrive at a place of mutual understanding with them throughout the dying process. What can make this process even more challenging, are narratives that “it’s just a dog” or “it’s just a rabbit”, and that you should get over it and stop being so dramatic. 

As a psychotherapist who is so dramatic about my love for animals that I cried hysterically during just the trailer for Cujo because he seemed, like, really upset and like he could use a proper trainer — here is permission to love and grieve the animals in your life with your full heart.  With any grief, it’s important to acknowledge and accept the painful experience of losing a pet and give yourself time and space to move through the process in your own way. There are no stages, no steps, and no order to this experience. The best you an do is be gentle with yourself, surround yourself with supportive people, and remember that you gave your little pet the best life you could on this earth. 

There are other people who experience animal grief on a daily basis; who are up close and personal with the realities of animal mortality including animal rescue workers, and veterinary professionals. In fact, veterinary professionals experience a rate of suicide that is 2.5 times higher than that of the general population. Their work is incredibly challenging, emotional, and they are NOT compensated the same as other healthcare workers despite taking care of the most important people (animals) in the world.

The organization Not One More Vet was started in 2014 with the death by suicide of Sophia Yin, a prominent California-based veterinarian and author. Its mission is to destigmatize mental health problems among veterinarians and offer resources for those who are struggling. 

In case you couldn’t tell, I love animals more than anything in the whole world. And I truly believe that one of the reasons I was put on this earth is to rescue and take care of bunnies. I contribute to several rabbit rescues each month, and I hold my the care team for my scrappy, rescue bunny Moose in the absolute highest regard. They have held all of us together in tough moments with my little Moose, and have provided us with the highest level of care and compassion, and I am forever grateful to Dr. Munn and the entire team at Jameson Queen Animal Hospital. Seriously though, if you live in or near Toronto and you need a good bunny vet — Dr. Munn is the bunny whisperer. I love that man. 

If you have a pet, be sure to show their vet a little each kindness and love next time you speak to them. You never know what they could be going through. 

I’ve also provided the links to my two favourite rabbit charities — Rabbit Rescue and Tiny Paws Rabbit Rescue — in the show notes in case you are interested in supporting them. 
         

Conclusion: 

Towards the movie’s conclusion, after Brody has literally blown up Jaws, there is a scene shot from under water as Jaws’ body breaks apart. You see the shark’s fin tumbling down amidst a red cloud, slowly, with gentle music playing, and this part always makes me feel so sad. 

Why did it have to be this way? Why do we have to conquer, consume, and destroy everything in our path? Why couldn’t they just stay out of the water?

The way that the shark is blown up, actually resembles the same type of mushroom cloud that is often observed in nuclear explosions — like the one delivered by the USS Indianapolis. In this sense, I think Jaws is ultimately a story about the perils of human supremacy and the grief that exists in a world that ignores the beauty of nature.

Steven Spielberg has actually said that he regrets the impact that Jaws has had on shark trophy-hunt and attitudes towards shark overall. He said “That’s one of the things I still fear—not to get eaten by a shark, but that sharks are somehow mad at me for the feeding frenzy of crazy sport fishermen that happened after 1975. I truly, and to this day, regret the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film.”

Jaws spearheaded a “collective testosterone rush” among fishers in the East Coast of the United States, leading thousands to hunt sharks for sport, as George Burgess, former director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, told the BBC in 2015. In the years following the film’s release, the number of large sharks in the waters east of North America declined by about 50 percent.

Watching movies like Jaws and other creature features is fun, but real animals are not monsters. They are living beings that are just as worthy of being here and living full happy lives as we are, so for the rest of this summer and forever into eternity — please be nice to sharks.

Outro:

And that my ghouls is the story of Jaws. Thank you for journeying into the depths with me today and I hope to find you in the darkness again soon.

Be sure to check the show notes for the resources I used today to put this episode together.

If you live in Ontario and are interested in psychotherapy with me, I offer tarot x talk therapy or just talk therapy sessions, and I also offer biz consulting services for therapists looking to conjure the private practice of their dreams. You can follow me on Instagram at @manymoonstherapy and you can also learn more about me and my services through my website manymoonstherapy.com. 

OR you can also howl at the moon and I will hear your call.

Bright blessings.