This year has seen the supervillains of the sea undergo a long over-due rebrand. The sharks of the world have been on the phone with a top crisis PR firm and, 50 years after Jaws did the dirty on the whole species with two ominous musical notes, it’s finally paying off.
Not only are experts putting their heads above the parapet (or sea level, if you will) to say sharks are not as evil and carnivorous as we once thought, but ITV producers have chucked a group of celebrities into shark infested waters to prove it too.
Andrew Martin, a University of Colorado Boulder professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, has been studying the reputation trajectory of sharks for many years. ‘Jaws was a terrible thing for sharks and a terrible thing for biology,’ he laments. ‘I think it scared people away from the ocean, which was a bummer, and I know Peter Benchley, author of Jaws, has come around and realised his mistake.’
‘Encounters between humans and great whites are usually with surfers,’ Martin added, ‘who look like seals from below. It’s really rare for a shark to go after someone.’ Perhaps he’s right after all. There is a lot to be scared of in the sea, not least the dark, inconceivable depths of the water itself, but for decades sharks have been bearing the brunt of all our fears. They are – as horror films like Jaws and soft-core lifeguard porn like Baywatch attest in equal measure – public enemy number one. So afraid of sharks were some children (me) that they were sometimes too scared to even have a bath. If that's not the work of an epic, multi-generational smear campaign, I'm not sure what is.
But is it really fair? Is it justified? That’s what Lenny Henry, Ross Noble, Lucy Punch, Dougie Poynter, Ade Adepitan, Rachel Riley and Helen George were sent to ‘the shark capital of the world’, aka the Bahamas, to find out in Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters. Naturally, each celebrity has a fear of sharks, albeit to varying extents, but what unites them is their desire to conquer that fear. And the results will astound you.
As a review of the new ITV show in The Guardian reads: ‘Ultimately, the sharks upstage the celebrities. [...] This is a nature documentary by stealth, and a plea for respect for these ancient fish.’ It even features an ex-military Australian man called Paul who lost a leg AND a hand in a shark attack (slightly risky PR move from team shark), but has chosen to dedicate his life to their conservation. If Paul can give these (mostly) gentle giants a second chance, shouldn't we?
It turns out sharks are not the villains of the sea at all, but perhaps their greatest divas – iconic, unapologetic and willingly misunderstood by all of us. As we finally open our eyes to the wonders of sharks, let us end with a quote from the guy who laid the groundwork for this impressive 180º back in 2004 – Lenny from Shark Tale: 'I'll never be the shark you want me to be.'
We were all wrong Lenny, don't change. We're sorry for ever making you feel you had to.
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across entertainment, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things pop culture for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow with equal respect).