The Comparison of JAWS And Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home

Some films often have themes and messages in them that are only relevant to the time the film was made. One such example is the movie Jaws, which depicts a shark as the main antagonist. For its time the movie was incredibly successful playing upon the fears people had of sharks while swimming. However with awareness of the planet increasing and people understanding that sharks are endangered species which humans are invading their habitat in the first place, movies like Jaws are less acceptable. This is the reason why most rip off movies of Jaws are these terrible B grade movies. The only way a movie like this could exist in this current time is by having a really far out plot like a mutated or genetically modified shark terrorizing everyone.
The focus of this essay will compare Jaws (1975) to Free Willy 2 (1995). The focus is on the treatment of animals and how they are represented in these two films. As well as this other events such as what happened between these two periods will be looked at to understand not only how both films are different but why they are different.

Jaws was originally made in 1975 by director Steven Spielberg. Spielberg is a good example of a director who has perfect timing to releasing a film at a time when the public wants it. Due to the films success and the nature of Spielberg means that Jaws is an expression of the society’s conscious and articulates the current fears and trends of the time upon its release (Rubey 2004).

Spielberg directs Jaws with a disregard for the well being of the shark. In the movie the victims of the shark attacks are given stories so the audience can sympathize with them while the shark appears to simply be a problem that’s in the way of humans only appearing on screen as a threat to humans. The major flaw though was with how the shark acted. In reality shark attacks are random events done strictly by hungry sharks looking to eat as a means to survive or a case of mistaken identity. In Jaws Spielberg depicts the shark as often attacking not so much to eat but rather to attack humans and revenge. The sharks in the Jaws films don’t act like real sharks whose attacks are normally random events and instead Spielberg portrays the attacks to be motivated by personal details in the victims (Rebey 2004).
The attack at the start of the film on Chrissie Watkins is filmed much like a rape scene of the shark raping the girl (Bebey 2004). This association leaves the viewer with a sort of hatred towards the shark. However its not so much what Spielberg put in the movie but more what he left out. Throughout the film there was never a single line of dialog suggesting the shark to even be a living creature, even from the marine Biologist character. It was portrayed as an attacking creating entering human habitat where as movies today would give more notice to the fact water is a sharks natural environment. Other elements of the film such as the ending where after the shark dies the huge celebration of joy by all those involved tells the audience again that sharks are nothing more than problem that should be destroyed and revenged in a style of human triumph over animals.

“Suggesting that this juxtaposition of images provides an explanatory context for the death of Crissie Watkins does not mean simply that she is killed because she goes swimming naked, although that might be a possible interpretation for some viewers. It means that for the audience of JAWS, the combination of images and references in terms of which the shark attack makes intuitive sense. Sexuality and violence are so inextricably linked in this society that the presence of one explains the presence of the other.
The shark’s second victim is a child, and the context here is one of civic responsibility and male protectiveness. This episode answers some of the issues raised in the first by affirming that we are protectors of women and children, not sadistic voyeurs.”
(Rubey 2004)
Jaws does not just present sharks as a menance to humans but sends out the message to people that they should actually go out and kill sharks to protect other humans.

Shark patrol and hunting boats do still exist to this day but the opinions of the times of Jaws have changed greatly. Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s people were made more aware of the state of the planet (Foster 2009). Many documentaries and science research results became known to the public and the world started to open their eyes up to humans effect on the planet and endangered species that had nearly been wiped out.

In the world people were more aware of humans role in contributing to the state of the planet and movies started to break the sterotypes such as evil shark. The movie Free Willy was released in 1993 and it was successful enough for a sequel in 1995. The movies in the Free Willy series portrayed the animal as much more of a human. The orca whale (which is another man eating ocean creature) takes on the role of a gentle giant and like Jaws realism is thrown out the window to create emotion. This time the emotion and message of the series is not lets destroy all marine life that is a threat to a human but rather that these giant creatures and living animals with feeling and emotion and are struggling to survive.

“Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home” even places storyline and emphasis on the whale getting trapped in an oil spill and its effects (Poledouris 1999). The Free Willy movies took it upon themselves to portray a positive message about the environment and its effects. This was more of a social duty felt nessasary by the director of the 1995 movie as opposed to Steven Spielberg who makes commercially driven movies mainly to play upon the already established opinions of that society. In the 90’s Steven Spielberg didn’t make another animal attack film however he did still use the same tools to play off hate in the culture, most notably Schindler’s list and Saving Private Ryan that play on anti German messages to the audience. However as far as animal movies go Spielberg stayed well away from them in the 90’s since audiences had changed and learnt to understand and appreciate both sides of the story. Even Spielberg films such as Jurrasic Park that portrayed some dinosaurs as the aggressors still placed in subplots about the ethical related responsibilities by humans of what was being done.

What has also adapted is the genre of animal attack films as no longer do they tend to feature real life animals. Normally the animals in these movies are either mythical creatures with supernatural reasons as to why they are pure evil or mutated as I mentioned in the introduction.

When looking back on a film like Jaws there is a mixture of interpretation. One such belief is that it was a typical Steven Spielberg film that tried to manipulate audience with his own views of the world

“In JAWS the shark reflects a disguised hatred of women and the preoccupation of our society with sadistic sexuality, a view of business as predatory and irresponsible in human terms, and a fear of retribution for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The film resolves these issues and fears by externalizing them from the protagonists and solving them in a macho fantasy, fear-and-bravery ending which denies any possibility of concerted social action, excludes women as weak and ineffectual, and erases the past and its guilts. .”
(Rebey 2004)

For the most part it is just supposed to be a thriller film that was acceptable at the time of its release.

Free Willy 2 did almost the exact opposite of Jaws. It took the man eating fish and portrayed it as the victim of human interference. Free Willy 2 took it upon itself to educate the wider audience while making money in the process. It is also worth noting that a film like Free Willy 2 gained more success in a time like 1995 with the world becoming more aware and therefore being more interested in a film with an orca whale as the star.

Looking back at both films is interesting as they both reflect the society’s opinions at that current stage. There are a few key differences between the two as one has the man eater as the protagonist and the other as the antagonist making them two different films and making it hard to compare, but for the most part how the animal is portrayed is what’s important. Free Willy would not have been all that interesting to an audience in the 1970’s and Jaws would be unacceptable in the 1990’s. In recent times movies like the Deep Blue have been made with sharks as the total antagonists but the motivation and evil sense of manipulating the images that Speilberg did were not done in those films. Deep Blue portrayed it as simply random danger as it is in real life. Jaws presented the shark as a sort of evil that needs to not be evaded, but killed and destroyed.

In conclusion, Films are only relevant to the society that they are made for. Films are made to represent and appeal to these societies. It is a credit to our society that people have evolved and become more aware of the planet and have more respect for humans roles in contributing to endangered species. Movies like Free Willy 2 do help audiences get an emotional connection with the orca whale which would be deemed a threat to human in reality. However both films are set in a fictional world with different conceived agenda. The difference between the two movies and how they represent societies directors and audiences is that if Jaws was released in the 1990’s or even now and ended with the shark being blown up and then everyone happy and celebrating, it would not go down as well with the audience. Which is why most of these movies are either B grade or just don’t do well critically or in the box office. However at the time it was released Steven Spielberg was able to make a movie like this and have it be a huge commercial and critical success. References

Rebey, D. The Jaws in the mirror [Online]
Available From http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC10-11folder/JawsRubey.html Foster, N. Save yourself: Protect the Planet [Online]
Available From http://ecosimply.com/save-yourself-protect-the-planet-504.html Poledouris, B. Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home Review [Online]
Available From
http://www.moviemusicuk.us/willy2cd.htm