The Memorable Film Has Been Terrifying Audiences and Informing Crisis Counselors for a Half Century
6/17/25 – – If you’re headed to the beach later this week, you may want to stay out of the water. Friday, June 20, is the 50th anniversary of the movie theater debut of Jaws.
Can you hear the suspense-building theme music in your head? Two notes repeat faster and faster to announce the approach of the underwater predator that terrified audiences – – and beachgoers – – back in the summer of 1975.
An adaptation of Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel with the same title, the blockbuster movie had a powerful impact on the American psyche. A survey conducted by the U.S. nuclear power industry shortly after the film’s release found that adult women living in the Midwest ranked “shark attack” among the five most likely ways they would die.
I don’t want to dismiss the risks of encountering a creepy carp or terrifying trout in the waterways of America’s heartland. But to my knowledge, there has never been a shark sighting in Lake Michigan or the Mississippi River. Even before the internet, pop culture could distort reality.
Crises and Predators Swim Together
A reference to Jaws found its way into my book, The Crisis Preparedness Quotient. In Chapter 4, “How Crises Typically Play Out,” we examine 10 tendencies, including, “Organizations in crisis attract predators”:
A company’s most negative critics and adversaries come out in force when they perceive weakness and vulnerability created by challenges or change. We learned in Peter Benchley’s thriller Jaws that sharks are exceptionally efficient predators in part because they can detect from great distances the distressed rhythms of wounded prey in the water. The same holds true for that Senator or journalist you sparred with a few years ago. Get into trouble or experience organizational disruption and they’ll be swimming your way.
Recognizing Crisis Threats Does Not Have to be Complicated
In the film, Amity Island town fathers, not wanting to chase away desperately needed revenue from summer tourism, wait way too long to address the danger in their waters. But communicators point to a line from one of the movie’s most memorable scenes as an excellent example of spot-on crisis assessment and the power of brevity.
Toward the end of the film, Police Chief Brody (played by Roy Scheider) is chumming the water off the stern of the doomed fishing boat Orca. He comes face to face for the first time with the enormous great white shark terrorizing his town. Stunned, Brody backs up into the wheelhouse and utters these words to the boat’s shark-hunter captain:
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Surveys have placed Chief Brody’s accurate observation right up there with “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” “Make my day,” and “Here’s looking at you, kid” as one of the most memorable lines in movie history.
So, if you decide to celebrate Jaws’ 50th anniversary by binge-watching the original and all three sequels (the Amity Island family plagued by the shark decides to relocate to other oceanside communities), keep these timeless crisis management lessons in mind:
- Don’t let financial risk delay you from addressing a clear and present danger
- Be prepared for predators if you experience a crisis
- Don’t over complicate your crisis analysis
- Make your crisis response statements as pithy as possible
- If several members of your family have already been eaten by sharks, don’t move to The Bahamas.
And if you’re going to the beach this weekend, keep the soundtrack from Jaws off your playlist.
Crisis Quotient Blog 